mirably suited to our purpose. Come, Mr
Hawkesley, you are the youngest, and ought therefore to be the most
active of the trio; give us a specimen of your tree-climbing powers.
Just shin up aloft as high as you can go, take a good look round, and
let us know if you can see anything worth looking at."

"Ay ay, sir," I responded; "but--" with a somewhat blank look at the
tall, straight, smooth stem to which he pointed, "where are the
ratlines?"

"Ratlines, you impudent young monkey!" responded the skipper with a
laugh; "why, an active young fellow like you ought to make nothing of
going up a spar like that."

But when we reached the tree it became evident that the task of climbing
it was not likely to prove so easy as the skipper had imagined; for the
bole was fully fifteen feet in circumference, with not a branch or
protuberance of any description for the first sixty feet.

The second lieutenant, however, was equal to the occasion, and soon
showed me how the thing might be done. Whipping out his knife, he
quickly cut a long length of "monkey-rope" or creeper, and twisting the
tough pliant stem into a grummet round the trunk of the tree, he bade me
pass the bight over my shoulders, and then showed me how, with its aid,
I might work myself gradually upward.

Accordingly, acting under his directions I placed myself within the
bight, and tucking it well up under my arm-pits, slid the grummet up the
trunk as high as it would go. Then bearing back upon it, so that it
supported my whole weight, I worked my body upwards by pressing against
the tree-trunk with my knees. By this means I rose about two feet from
the ground. Then pressing against the tree firmly with my feet I gave
the grummet a quick jerk upward and again worked myself up the trunk
with my knees as before. In this way I got along very well, and after
an awkward slip or two, in which my knees suffered somewhat and my
breeches still more, soon acquired the knack of the thing, and speedily
reached the lowermost branch, after which the rest of my ascent was of
course easy.

On reaching the topmost branches I found that the tree I had climbed was
indeed, as the skipper had aptly described it, a forest giant; it was by
far the most lofty tree in the neighbourhood, and from my commanding
position I had a fine uninterrupted prospect of many miles extent all
round me, except to the southward, where the chain of hills before-
mentioned shut in the view.

Away