It would not be easy to portray to the reader all the delight which these specks of incipient verdure conveyed to the mind of Mark Woolston.  It far exceeded the joy that would be apt to be awakened by a relief from an apprehension of wanting food at a distant day, for it resembled something of the character of a new creation.  He went from hill to hill, and everywhere did he discover plants, some just peeping through the ashes, others already in leaf, and all seemingly growing and thriving.  Fortunately, Kitty had not been on the mount for the last fortnight, her acquired habits, and the total nakedness of the hills, having kept her below with the other animals, since her first visits.  Mark saw the necessity of keeping her off the elevation, which she would certainly climb the instant anything like verdure caught her eyes from below.  He determined, therefore, to confine her to the ship, until he had taken the precautions necessary to prevent her ascending the mount.  This last was easily enough done.  On the exterior of the hills there were but three places where even a goat could get up.  This was owing to the circumstance that the base of the ascent rose like a wall, for some ten or twelve feet, everywhere but at the three points mentioned.  It appeared to Mark as if the sea had formerly washed around the crater, giving this form to its bottom for so wall-like was the rock for these ten or twelve feet, that it would have defied the efforts of a man for a long time, to overcome the difficulties of the ascent.  At two of the places where the debris had made a rough footing, half an hour’s work would remove the material, and leave these spots as impassable as the others.  At the third point, it might require a good deal of labor to effect the object.  At this last place, Mark told Betts it would be necessary, for the moment, to make some sort of a fence.  Within the crater, it was equally difficult to ascend, except at one or two places; but these ascents our mariners thought of improving, by making steps, as the animals were effectually excluded from the plain within by means of the sail which served for a curtain at the gateway, or hole of entrance.

As soon as Mark had recovered a little from his first surprise, he sent Bob below to bring up some buckets filled with the earth brought from Loam Rock, or island.  This soil was laid carefully around each of the plants, the two working alternately at the task, until a bucket-full had been laid in each hill.  Mark did not know it at the time, but subsequent experience gave him reason to suspect, that this forethought saved most of his favourites from premature deaths.  Seed might germinate, and the plants shoot luxuriantly from out of the ashes of the volcano, under the united influence of the sun and rains, in that low latitude, but it was questionable whether the nourishment to be derived from such a soil, if soil it could yet be called, would prove to be sufficient to sustain