grass; while, amongst the little
thickets that were sparsely scattered over the plain, were grazing large
numbers of hogs, headed by a monster boar. This animal had tusks nearly
a foot long; and he almost impaled Eric against a buckthorn tree, under
the shelter of which he had been lying until surprised by the lad, when,
after making a rush at him, he ran grunting away, followed by his
numerous family.

As the brothers proceeded across the tableland, they also saw numbers of
a small bird, about the size of a bantam, called by young Glass the
"island hen." Its plumage was almost entirely black, and its wings were
so short that they were useless for flight, the bird running in and out
of the long grass and ferns with which the surface of the plateau was
covered in the open, like the partridge does amongst the turnips in
England. Fritz shot a couple of the little things, and the brothers
plucked and roasted them over an extemporary fire which Eric lit with
the box of matches he invariably "carried in his pocket--as a sort of
badge of his culinary office," Fritz said. The birds were found to be
very palatable for lunch, along with the biscuit and cheese which the
brothers had brought with them.

The goats were the main object of the excursion; but Fritz could not see
anything of them until they had nearly made the circuit of the plain.

When they had almost given up the animals as a myth, feeling inclined to
believe that the old "billy" they had seen the evening before was the
creature of their imagination, they suddenly came upon the flock. The
goats were secreted in a thicket of buckthorn trees and tussock-grass,
close to where the tableland sloped to the beach at its western
extremity.

There were twenty-three in all, and must have been the produce of a pair
which some whaling vessel had turned loose on the island; for, they were
every one marked in the same way as the patriarchal-looking male,--
evidently their progenitor. He was a stately old fellow, with a fine
pair of curving horns that nearly reached to his tail; in addition to
which, he could boast of a long silky beard that a Turkish pasha might
have envied.

Seeing three kids amongst the number, Fritz told Eric to shoot one; and
the lad, after a third attempt with the repeating rifle he carried,
succeeded in making a successful shot. There was some excuse for Eric's
not killing his kid at first; for, the old male was extremely wary,
keeping at a very