116 THE CRATER; was complete as to shade, with the advantage of letting the breeze circulate, and had a reasonable chance of escaping from the calamities of a flood. Mark, too, was satisfied with the result, and the very next day after this task was completed, our shipwrights set to work to lay their keel. That day was memorable on another account. Bob had gone to the Summit in quest of a tool left there, in fitting up the boat of Mark, and while on the mount, he ascer tained the important fact that the melons were beginning to ripen. He brought down three or four of these deli cious fruits, and Mark had the gratification of tasting some of the bounties of Providence, which had been bestowed, as a reward of his own industry and forethought. It was necessary to eat of these melons in moderation, however ; but it was a great relief to get them at all, after subsisting for so long a time on salted meats, principally, with no other vegetables but such as were dry, and had been long in the ship. It was not the melons alone, however, that were getting to be ripe; for, on examining himself, among the vines which now covered fully an acre of the Summit, Mark found squashes, cucumbers, onions, sweet-potatoes, tomatoes, string-beans, and two or three other vegetables, all equally fit to be used. From that time, some of these plants were put into the pot daily, and certain slight ap prehensions which Woolston had begun again to entertain on the subject of scurvy, were soon dissipated. As for the garden within the crater, which was much the most exten sive and artistical, it was somewhat behind that on the Summit, having been later tilled ; but everything, there, looked equally promising, and Mark saw that one acre, well worked, would produce more than he and Belts could consume in a twelvemonth. It was an important day on the Reef when the keel of the pinnace was laid. On examining his materials, Mark ascertained that the boat-builders had marked and num bered each portion of the frame, each plank, and every thing else that belonged to the pinnace. Holes were bored, and everything had been done in the boat-yard that could be useful to those who, it was expected, were to put the work together in a distant part of the world. This greatly facilitated our new boat-builders labours in the
