All the blacks remained at the Reef, where Mark himself passed a good deal of his time.  In their next visit to the Peak, they found things flourishing, and the garden looking particularly well.  The Vulcanists had their melons in any quantity, as well as most vegetables without limits.  It was determined to divide the cows, leaving one on the Peak, and sending the other to the crater, where there was now sufficient grass to keep two or three such animals.  With a view to this arrangement, Bob had been directed to fence in the garden and stack, by means of ropes and stanchions let into the ground.  When the Anne returned to the Reef, therefore, from her first voyage to the Peak, a cow was sent over in her.  This change was made solely for the convenience of the milk, all the rest of the large stock being retained on the plain, where there was sufficient grass to sustain thousands of hoofs.

But the return cargo of the Anne, on this her first voyage, was composed mainly of ship-timber.  Heaton had found a variety of the teak in the forests that skirted the plain, and Bigelow had got out of the trees the frame of a schooner that was intended to measure about eighty tons.  A craft of that size would be of the greatest service to them, as it would enable the colonists to visit any part of the Pacific they pleased, and obtain such supplies as they might find necessary.  Nor was this all; by mounting on her two of the carronades, she would effectually give them the command of their own seas, so far as the natives were concerned at least.  Mark had some books on the draughting of vessels, and Bigelow had once before laid down a brig of more than a hundred tons in dimensions.  Then the stores, rigging, copper, &c., of the ship, could never be turned to better account than in the construction of another vessel, and it was believed she could furnish materials enough for two or three such craft.  Out of compliment to his old owner, Mark named this schooner in embryo, the ‘Friend Abraham White,’ though she was commonly known afterwards as the ‘Abraham.’

The cutting of the frame of the intended schooner was a thing easy enough, with expert American axemen, and with that glorious implement of civilization, the American axe.  But it was not quite so easy to get the timber down to the cove.  The keel, in particular, gave a good deal of trouble.  Heaton had brought along with him both cart and wagon wheels, and without that it is questionable if the stick could have been moved by any force then at the command of the colony.  By suspending it in chains beneath the axles, however, it was found possible to draw it, though several of the women had to lend their aid in moving the mass.  When at the head of the Stairs, the timber was lowered on the rock, and was slid downwards, with occasional lifts by the crowbar and handspike.  When it reached the water it was found to be much too heavy to float, and it was by no means an easy matter to buoy it up in such a way that it might be towed.  The Anne was three times as long making her passage with this keel in tow, as she was without it.  It was done, however, and the laying of the keel was effected with some little ceremony, in the presence of nearly every soul belonging to the colony.