,"
the gull gave a kind of croak, by way of approval to my sentiments.

While my harvest was in progress I met with an adventure which might
have terminated the harvesting and my existence at the same time.

It was a boisterous day. I was tired of digging potatoes, for my back
ached, and I wanted a rest. The Cotills being near the awful crater-like
mouth of La Creux Derrible, I thought I would go and explore it, and
find out in my own way, all about it; so, dropping my occupation, I
wandered slowly down the zig-zag, bracken-hemmed path, lit my pipe, and
prepared myself for laziness for an hour.

When I am lazy I like to be _thorough_. I cannot bear to be half at work
and half at play; it is neither one thing nor another. So on this
occasion I strolled quietly down the pathway, which zig-zags seven or
eight times before it ends abruptly on the brow of a little cliff facing
La Fauconnaire. I scrambled down the cliff, across the beach, and over
the rocks which form a barrier to the entrance of the cavern leading to
the Creux. I noticed that the tide allowed an entrance to be effected,
so I climbed in over the gigantic boulders with which the floor of the
black cavern is covered, and soon found myself standing on the pebbly
floor of the chasm, looking up at its perpendicular sides, and admiring
the various ferns, weeds, and flowers which grew in beauty from its many
clefts and fissures. Then I saw something move in a hole near my feet,
and found it to be a wounded rabbit, which had apparently fallen down
the shaft from one of the little ledges a hundred and fifty feet above.
The timid little fellow did not attempt to run away, so, picking him up,
I examined him and discovered that both his fore legs were broken, and
it quite hurt me to see the pitiful look he gave with his bright,
prominent, gazelle-like eyes. I fondled the wounded animal, and looking
upward intently, presently saw other little rodents hopping round little
ledges near the top, which did not appear, from where I stood, to be so
wide as their bodies; but there they were, and although I waited
expectantly for a long time for a prospective dinner, no others fell
upon me. I should have been afraid to shoot at them had I had my gun,
for fear of detaching pieces of rock, which, falling from such a height,
might have crushed my skull in.

Seeing it was hopeless to think of saving the poor little bunny's life,
I gave him the "regulation stretch," and quieted him