consecrate the
Sabbath to repose. With his eyes half closed, he is inhaling,
undoubtedly, the perfume of his myrtles, the soft fragrance of his
heliotropes? No, something sweeter still pre-occupies him. Is he
dreaming of his friends in Scotland, of his first love? He has never
known friendship, and the beautiful Catherine is far from his memory.
What is he then doing in his hammock? He is smoking his pipe.

His pipe! Has he a pipe? He has them of all forms, all sizes--made of
spiral shells of various kinds, of maripa-nuts, of large reeds; all
set in handles of myrtle, stalks of coarse grain, or the hollow bones
of birds. In these he is luxurious; he has become a connoisseur; but
this has not been the difficulty. Before every thing else, tobacco was
wanting.

In consequence of his encounter with Marimonda, he ransacked the woods
and meadows, seeking among all plants those which approximated nearest
to the nature of the nicotiana. As it was necessary to judge by their
taste, he bit their leaves--chewed them, still in imitation of the
monkey: but, to his new and profound humiliation, less skilful or less
fortunate than the latter, he obtained at first no other result than a
sort of poisoning: one of these plants being poisonous.

For several days he saw himself condemned to absolute repose and a
spare diet. His mouth, swollen, excoriated, refused all nourishment;
his throat was burning; his body was covered with an eruption, and his
languid and trembling limbs scarcely permitted him to drag himself to
the stream to quench there the thirst by which he was devoured.

He believed himself about to die; and grief then imposing silence on
pride, with his eyes turned towards the sea, he allowed a
long-repressed sigh to escape his heart. It was a regret for his
absent country.

Very soon these alarming symptoms disappeared; his strength returned;
his water-cresses and wild sorrel completed the cure. Would he have
dared to ask it of the other productions of his island? He had become
suspicious of nature; these, at least, he had long known.

Scarcely had he recovered, when the want of tobacco made itself felt
anew with more force than ever. What to him imports experiment, what
imports danger? Is it not to procure this precious, indispensable
herb,--which the world had easily done without for thousands of years?

This time, nevertheless, become more prudent, he no longer addresses
himself to the sense of taste; but to odor,