, at which we warmed to our work, guessing
that it was the bread which they had promised us, and so it proved, and
done up with great neatness in a long roll of tarpaulin, which had been
wrapped around both the loaves and the rope, and lashed very securely at
the ends, thus producing a taper shape convenient for passing over the
weed without catching. Now, when we came to open this parcel, we
discovered that my hint had taken very sound effect; for there were in
the parcel, besides the loaves, a boiled ham, a Dutch cheese, two bottles
of port well padded from breakage, and four pounds of tobacco in plugs.
And at this coming of good things, we stood all of us upon the edge of
the hill, and waved our thanks to those in the ship, they waving back in
all good will, and after that we went back to our meal, at which we
sampled the new victuals with very lusty appetites.

There was in the parcel, one other matter, a letter, most neatly
indited, as had been the former epistles, in a feminine handwriting, so
that I guessed they had one of the women to be their scribe. This
epistle answered some of my queries, and, in particular, I remember that
it informed me as to the probable cause of the strange crying which
preceded the attack by the weed men, saying that on each occasion when
they in the ship had suffered their attacks, there had been always this
same crying, being evidently a summoning call or signal to the attack,
though how given, the writer had not discovered; for the weed
_devils_--this being how they in the ship spoke always of them--made
never a sound when attacking, not even when wounded to the death, and,
indeed, I may say here, that we never learnt the way in which that
lonesome sobbing was produced, nor, indeed, did they, or we, discover
more than the merest tithe of the mysteries which that great continent
of weed holds in its silence.

Another matter to which I had referred was the consistent blowing of the
wind from one quarter, and this the writer told me happened for as much
as six months in the year, keeping up a very steady strength. A further
thing there was which gave me much interest; it was that the ship had not
been always where we had discovered her; for at one time they had been so
far within the weed, that they could scarce discern the open sea upon the
far horizon; but that at times the weed opened in great gulfs that went
yawning through the continent for scores of miles, and in this way the
sha