about it was that the branches, which grew out from the
stem horizontally, sent down long shoots or fibres to the ground, which,
taking root, had themselves become trees, and were covered with bark
like the tree itself. Many of these fibres had descended from the
branches at various distances, and thus supported them on natural
pillars, some of which were so large and strong that it was not easy at
first to distinguish the offspring from the parent stem. The fibres
were of all sizes and in all states of advancement, from the pillars we
have just mentioned to small cords which hung down and were about to
take root, and thin brown threads still far from the ground, which
swayed about with every motion of wind. In short, it seemed to us that,
if there were only space afforded to it, this single tree would at
length cover the whole island.

Shortly after this we came upon another remarkable tree, which, as its
peculiar formation afterwards proved extremely useful to us, merits
description. It was a splendid chestnut, but its proper name Jack did
not know. However, there were quantities of fine nuts upon it, some of
which we put in our pockets. But its stem was the most wonderful part
of it. It rose to about twelve feet without a branch, and was not of
great thickness; on the contrary, it was remarkably slender for the size
of the tree. But to make up for this, there were four or five wonderful
projections in this stem, which I cannot better describe than by asking
the reader to suppose that five planks of two inches thick and three
feet broad had been placed round the trunk of the tree, with their
_edges_ closely fixed to it, from the ground up to the branches, and
that these planks had been covered over with the bark of the tree and
incorporated with it. In short, they were just natural buttresses,
without which the stem could not have supported its heavy and umbrageous
top. We found these chestnuts to be very numerous. They grew chiefly
on the banks of the stream, and were of all sizes.

While we were examining a small tree of this kind Jack chipped a piece
off a buttress with his axe, and found the wood to be firm and easily
cut. He then struck the axe into it with all his force, and very soon
split it off close to the tree--first, however, having cut it across
transversely above and below. By this means he satisfied himself that
we could now obtain short planks, as it were all ready sawn, of any size
and t