the most wonderful thing about it was a curious substance resembling
cloth, which was wrapped round the thick end of the stalk, where it had
been cut from the tree. Peterkin told us that he had the greatest
difficulty in separating the branch from the stem, on account of this
substance, as it was wrapped quite round the tree, and, he observed,
round all the other branches, thus forming a strong support to the large
leaves while exposed to high winds. When I call this substance cloth I
do not exaggerate. Indeed, with regard to all the things I saw during my
eventful career in the South Seas, I have been exceedingly careful not to
exaggerate, or in any way to mislead or deceive my readers. This cloth,
I say, was remarkably like to coarse brown cotton cloth. It had a seam
or fibre down the centre of it, from which diverged other fibres, about
the size of a bristle. There were two layers of these fibres, very long
and tough, the one layer crossing the other obliquely, and the whole was
cemented together with a still finer fibrous and adhesive substance. When
we regarded it attentively, we could with difficulty believe that it had
not been woven by human hands. This remarkable piece of cloth we
stripped carefully off, and found it to be above two feet long, by a foot
broad, and we carried it home with us as a great prize.

Jack now took one of the leaflets, and, cutting out the central spine or
stalk, hurried back with it to our camp. Having made a small fire, he
baked the nuts slightly, and then pealed off the husks. After this he
wished to bore a hole in them, which, not having anything better at hand
at the time, he did with the point of our useless pencil-case. Then he
strung them on the cocoa-nut spine, and on putting a light to the topmost
nut, we found to our joy that it burned with a clear, beautiful flame;
upon seeing which, Peterkin sprang up and danced round the fire for at
least five minutes in the excess of his satisfaction.

"Now lads," said Jack, extinguishing our candle, the sun will set in an
hour, so we have no time to lose. "I shall go and cut a young tree to
make my bow out of, and you had better each of you go and select good
strong sticks for clubs, and we'll set to work at them after dark."

So saying he shouldered his axe and went off, followed by Peterkin, while
I took up the piece of newly discovered cloth, and fell to examining its
structure. So engrossed was I in this that I was sti