the plants when they got to be of an age and size to demand all the support they wanted.  So convinced did Mark become, as the season advanced, of the prudence of what he then did out of a mere impulse, that he passed hours, subsequently, in raising loam to the summit of the mount, in order to place it in the different hills.  For this purpose, Bob rigged a little derrick, and fitted a whip, so that the buckets were whipped up, sailor-fashion, after two or three experiments made in lugging them up by hand had suggested to the honest fellow that there might be a cheaper mode of obtaining their wishes.

When Mark was temporarily satisfied with gazing at his new-found treasures, he went to work to scatter the grass stood over the summit and sides of the crater.  Inside, there was not much motive for sowing anything, the rock being so nearly perpendicular; but on the outside of the hill, or ‘mountain,’ as Bob invariably called it, the first ten or twelve feet excepted, there could be no obstacle to the seeds taking; though from the want of soil much of it, Mark knew, must be lost; but, if it only took in spots, and gave him a few green patches for the eye to rest on, he felt he should be amply rewarded for his trouble.  Bob scattered guano wherever he scattered grass-seed, and in this way they walked entirely round the crater, Mark using up at least half of Friend Abraham White’s provision in behalf of the savages of Fejee, in the way of the grasses.  A gentle soft rain soon came to moisten this seed, and to embed it with whatever there was of soil on the surface, giving it every chance to take root that circumstances would allow.

This preliminary step taken towards covering the face of the mount with verdure, our mariners went to work to lay out their garden, regularly, within the crater.  Mark manifested a good deal of ingenuity in this matter.  With occasional exceptions the surface of the plain, or the bottom of the crater, was an even crust of no great thickness, compared of concrete ashes, scoriae &c., but which might have borne the weight of a loaded wagon.  This crust once broken, which it was not very difficult to do by means of pick and crows, the materials beneath were found loose enough for the purposes of agriculture, almost without using the spade.  Now, space being abundant, Mark drew lines, in fanciful and winding paths, leaving the crust for his walks, and only breaking into the loose materials beneath, wherever he wished to form a bed.  This variety served to amuse him and Betts, and they worked with so much the greater zeal, as their labours produced objects that were agreeable to the eye, and which amused them now, while they promised to benefit them hereafter.  As each bed, whether oval, winding or straight, was dug, the loam and sea-weed was mixed up in it, in great abundance, after which it was sown, or planted.