After working her way through a great many channels, some wide and some narrow, some true and some false, the Bridget reached the southern verge of the group, about noon.  Mark then supposed himself to be quite twenty miles from the Reef, and the Peak appeared very little nearer than when he left it.  This startled him on the score of distance; and, after meditating on all his chances, the young man determined to pass the remainder of that day where he was, in order to put to sea with as much daylight before him as possible.  He desired also to explore the coast and islands in that vicinity, in order to complete his survey of the cluster.  He looked for a convenient place to anchor his boat, accordingly, ate his dinner, and set out on foot to explore, armed as usual with a fowling-piece.

In the first place, an outlet to the sea very different from that on the eastern side of the group, was found here, on its southern.  The channel opened into a bay of some size, with an arm of rock reaching well off on the weather side, so that no broken water was encountered in passing into or out of it, provided one kept sufficiently clear of the point itself.  As there was abundance of room, Mark saw he should have no difficulty in getting out into open water, here, or in getting back again.  What was more, the arm, or promontory of rock just mentioned, had a hummock near a hundred feet in height on its extremity, that answered admirably for a land-mark.  Most of this hummock must have been above water previously to the late eruption, though it appeared to our explorer, that all the visible land, as he proceeded south, was lifted higher and on a gradually-increasing scale, as if the eruption had exerted its force at a certain point, the new crater for instance, and raised the earth to the northward of that point, on an inclined plane.  This might account, in a measure, for the altitude of the Peak, which was near the great crevice that must have been left somewhere, unless materials on its opposite side had fallen to fill it up again.  Most of these views were merely speculative, though the fact of the greater elevation of all the rocks, in this part of the group, over those further north, was beyond dispute.  Thus the coast, here, was generally fifty or eighty feet high; whereas, at the Reef, even now, the surface of the common rock was not much more than twenty feet above the water.  The rise seemed to be gradual, moreover, which certainly favoured this theory.

As a great deal of sand and mud had been brought up by the eruption, there was no want of fresh water.  Mark found even a little brook, of as perfectly sweet a stream as he had ever tasted in America, running into the little harbour where he had secured the boat.  He followed this stream two miles, ere he reached its source, or sources; for it came from at least, a dozen copious springs, that poured their tribute from a bed of clean sand several miles in length, and which had every sign of having been bare for ages.