f happily
there should arise no occasion for that eventuality, the building might
still be of service to other shipwrecked men in a like extremity to
themselves. Thus it came to pass that the place was left "all
standing," with rooms, furniture--such as it was--Snowball's copper and
the cooking range all intact. Even the flagstaff with Kate's ensign at
the peak was left hoisted, as if to show, that if deserted now, the spot
had once been inhabited!

They were thirty-two souls in all now, reckoning the steward and the
other four men of the mutineers who had come back in the longboat--which
had to be broken up, by the way, after all, to form the jolly-boat's
carriage; and it was just "six bells in the forenoon watch" when they
started, a team of the sailors, tethered in traces like a pack of
Esquimaux dogs, hauling away at the boat-carriage and running it along
merrily with a chorus of "cheerily men, cheerily ho!" The others
tramped behind the queer vehicular conveyance, without respect of
persons; only poor Captain Dinks being allowed a seat in the boat, while
it travelled on land, and that only by reason of his helplessness and
inability to move without assistance. When they had to take to the
water, of course, the jolly-boat would have to carry more passengers.

On the way, sometimes, they had serious difficulties to encounter, for
the ground in many places was moist and spongy, causing the feet of the
men hauling to sink deeply into the soil as they tugged at the towing-
rope of the jolly-boat's carriage; but, as frequently Mr Meldrum
remarked, to rouse the seamen's energies, "difficulties were only made
for brave men to conquer," so at it they went with a will which soon
overcame the dead weight of the load they had to drag behind them--a
fresh towing team relieving the first at the expiration of every half
hour, so as not to weary the men out by a too prolonged strain at such
unusual exertion.

Bye and bye, they arrived at the end of their first "portage," the
shores of the little lake which Mr Meldrum had noticed trending in an
eastward direction. This water would now considerably aid their passage
across the isthmus by allowing the jolly-boat to take to its native
element, on whose bosom it would be borne some miles on the onward way.

Here a halt was called and a short luncheon taken, after which the
jolly-boat was safely launched on the water by backing it down on its
carriage. This plan was easy as we