Mark had adopted a system of diet and a care of his person, that kept him in perfect health, illness being the evil that he most dreaded.  His food was more than half vegetable, several plants having come forward even in the winter; and the asparagus, in particular, yielding at a rate that would have made the fortune of a London gardener.  The size of the plants he cut was really astounding, a dozen stems actually making a meal.  The hens laid all winter, and eggs were never wanting.  The corned pork gave substance, as well as a relish, to all the dishes the young man cooked; and the tea, sugar and coffee, promising to hold out years longer, the table still gave him little concern.  Once in a month, or so, he treated himself to a bean-soup, or a pea-soup, using the stores of the Rancocus for that purpose, foreseeing that the salted meats would spoil after a time, and the dried vegetables get to be worthless, by means of insects and worms.  By this time, however, there were fresh crops of both those vegetables, which grew better in the winter than they could in the summer, in that hot climate.  Fish, too, were used as a change, whenever the young man had an inclination for that sort of food, which was as often as three or four times a week; the little pan-fish already mentioned, being of a sort of which one would scarcely ever tire.

It being a matter of some moment to save unnecessary labour, Mark seldom cooked more than once in twenty-four hours, and then barely enough to last for that day.  In consequence of this rule, he soon learned how little was really necessary for the wants of one person, it being his opinion that a quarter of an acre of such soil as that which now composed his garden, would more than furnish all the vegetables he could consume.  The soil, it is true, was of a very superior quality.  Although it had lain so long unproductive and seemingly barren, now that it had been stirred, and air and water were admitted, and guano, and sea-weed, and loam, and dead fish had been applied, and all in quantities that would have been deemed very ample in the best wrought gardens of christendom, the acre he had under tillage might be said to have been brought to the highest stage of fertility.  It wanted a little in consistency, perhaps; but the compost heap was very large, containing enough of all the materials just mentioned to give the garden another good dressing.  As for the grass, Mark was convinced the guano was all-sufficient for that, and this he took care to apply as often as once in two or three months.

Our young man was never tired, indeed, with feasting his eyes with the manner in which the grass had spread over the mount.  It is true, that he had scattered seed, at odd and favourable moments, over most of it, by this time; but he was persuaded the roots of those first sown would have extended themselves, in the course of a year or two, over the whole Summit.  Nor were these grasses thin and sickly, threatening