ts and instruments of every description were
carried off when the mutineers left in the boats, so that I have but a
very remote idea of our actual whereabouts, but we must be in a very
out-of-the-way corner of the globe, as indeed I now gather clearly from
what you have told me. Our first work, after my recovery, was the
building of this hut: and then followed the preparation of a garden, a
short distance inland from here, so that we might secure the means of
existence. As soon as this was completed to our satisfaction, we went
to work upon the building of a small vessel but our appliances were so
inadequate to the task, that our progress has been excessively slow, as
you may judge when I tell you that we have been at work now fully two
years, and the craft is yet barely half-finished. Latterly, indeed, we
have got on somewhat better, for the two blacks--who, as far as I can
learn from their signs and the few words of English they have picked up
since being with us, were blown off their own island in a gale of wind,
and came ashore here in the last stage of exhaustion--have been of the
greatest assistance to us in the mere handling of heavy weights; and now
that you have joined us, I think we may make short work of the remainder
of the job."

I was at first disposed to suggest the abandonment of the half-finished
schooner (for such she was), but, on more mature consideration, I came
to the conclusion that it would be better to finish her, on many
accounts--the chief of which was that as we now mustered seven hands,
all told, including the blacks, whom we could not leave behind, we
should be uncomfortably crowded on board the cutter; and I doubted much
whether we could find room to stow away, in so small a craft, a
sufficiency of water, to say nothing of provisions for so large a party.

The day was, of course, declared a high holiday on the island; and,
after our mutual explanations had been fully given, we all--the whites,
of course, that is--proceeded to the beach to inspect the craft on the
stocks. She was a much larger craft than the _Lily_, measuring fully
thirty tons. My father and Winter had given a great deal of care and
attention to her design, and the result was a very pretty model, though
her lines were by no means so fine as the cutter's. She was immensely
strong, owing to the fact that it was less laborious to build in the
timbers just as they were taken from the _Amazon_, or only with such
alteratio