h Moira had brought with
her in her dilly-bag, but we were now compelled to seek fresh means for
our support. Moira collected a quantity of shellfish, for the cooking
of which I made a fire of some dried wood. Moira showed the greatest
astonishment and some alarm at my flint and steel, which I now used for
the first time in her presence. Nothing would persuade her to touch it.
She regarded it as something beyond her comprehension, as a fetish to
be worshipped. When we had finished our meal we fell asleep, worn out
by the fatigues of the long journey.

And now began for me a life of dull monotony, with days devoted to
watching the ocean, and sleepless nights of anxiety and despair. I had
built a beacon upon the highest part of the cliff above our cave, to be
fired in case of sighting a ship, and every morning, with the dawn, I
mounted to this look-out to scan the horizon. Here I remained all day,
and when darkness drove me to the shelter of the cave I tried to
persuade myself that each night in this lonesome place would be my
last.

Had it not been for Moira I must have perished from want and neglect,
for I could not bring myself to do anything for my personal comfort
lest it might seem I had abandoned hope of rescue. But Moira was never
idle. She worked for both, and displayed such ingenuity in converting
to our use what Nature provided that we lacked nothing for our support.
To begin with, she made an oven of baked clay, in which to cook our
food. Next she plaited fishing lines from grass-tree fibre, and
fashioned hooks from the bones of slaughtered birds and animals, to
catch the fish which abounded near the rocks. With the aid of my
Sailor's knife she made a bow and arrows to shoot the hopping animals,
the flesh of which when roasted resembled venison, while their
fur-coated skins made us warm sleeping mats. She even succeeded, after
much labour, in constructing a canoe, in which to paddle along the
coast, and sometimes, when it was calm, for some distance out to sea;
nor did she appear to regret the loneliness of our lives. But I could
not bring myself to take part in her work. Hour after hour, in moody
silence, I paced the cliff beside the beacon, scanning the ocean, and
speculating upon my chances of rescue.

If I had not been so absorbed in my selfish thoughts I might possibly
have prevented a catastrophe which afterward caused me much
self-reproach. Moira had more than once told me that food had
mysteriously