bservation. For the present,
therefore, I was obliged to abandon the attempt; but I endeavoured to
console myself with the idea, that by this mode I might yet effect my
escape.

Shortly after Marnoo's visit I was reduced to such a state, that it was
with extreme difficulty I could walk, even with the assistance of a spear,
and Kory-Kory, as formerly, was obliged to carry me daily to the stream.

For hours and hours, during the warmest part of the day, I lay upon my
mat, and while those around me were nearly all dozing away in careless
ease, I remained awake, gloomily pondering over the fate which it appeared
now idle for me to resist. When I thought of the loved friends who were
thousands and thousands of miles from the savage island in which I was
held a captive--when I reflected that my dreadful fate would for ever be
concealed from them, and that, with hope deferred, they might continue to
await my return long after my inanimate form had blended with the dust of
the valley, I could not repress a shudder of anguish.

How vividly is impressed upon my mind every minute feature of the scene
which met my view during those long days of suffering and sorrow. At my
request my mats were always spread directly facing the door, opposite
which, and at a little distance, was the hut of boughs that Marheyo was
building.

Whenever my gentle Fayaway and Kory-Kory, laying themselves down beside
me, would leave me awhile to uninterrupted repose, I took a strange
interest in the slightest movements of the eccentric old warrior. All
alone, during the stillness of the tropical mid-day, he would pursue his
quiet work, sitting in the shade and weaving together the leaflets of his
cocoa-nut branches, or rolling upon his knee the twisted fibres of bark to
form the cords with which he tied together the thatching of his tiny
house. Frequently suspending his employment, and noticing my melancholy
eye fixed upon him, he would raise his hand with a gesture expressive of
deep commiseration, and then, moving towards me slowly, would enter on
tip-toes, fearful of disturbing the slumbering natives, and, taking the
fan from my hand, would sit before me, swaying it gently to and fro, and
gazing earnestly into my face.

Just beyond the pi-pi, and disposed in a triangle before the entrance of
the house, were three magnificent bread-fruit trees. At this moment I can
recall to my mind their slender shafts, and the graceful inequalities of
their bark,