The Crater; or, Vulcan’s Peak A Tale of the Pacific

addition to all the ruder and commoner tools, that could be used by a people without domestic animals, a small supply of rugs, coarse clothes, coarse earthen-ware, and a hundred simi­lar things, that would be very serviceable to any who knew how to use them. Most of the seeds came from these thought­ful merchants.

In striking the balance between the advantages and disad­vantages of his own situation, as compared with that of other shipwrecked mariners, Mark confessed that he had quite as much reason to be grateful as to repine. The last he was re­solved not to do, if possible; and he pursued his walk in a more calm and resigned mood than he had been in since the ship entered among the shoals.

a very little work, too, might keep it out, when I come to think on it. Sparrow-grass would grow there, as it is, desperately well; and Friend Abraham White had both seeds and roots put up for the use of the savages, if a body only know’d whereabouts to look for them, among the lot of rubbish of that sort, that he sent aboard».

With feelings of this character, did Mark and Betts keep their fi rst Sabbath on the reef. The former read the morning service, from beginning to end, while the latter sat by, an at­tentive listener. The only proof given of any difference in reli­gious faith between our mariners, was of so singular a nature as to merit notice. Notwithstanding Bob’s early familiarity with Mark, his greater age, and the sort of community of feel­ing and interest created by their common misfortune, the for­mer had not ceased to treat the last with the respect due to his offi ce. This deference never deserted him, and he had riot once since the ship was embayed, entered the cabin without pull­ing off his hat As soon as church commenced, however, Bob resumed his tarpaulin, as a sort of sign of his own orthodoxy in the faith of his fathers; making it a point to do as they had done in meeting, and slightly concerned lest his companion might fall into the error of supposing he was a man likely to be converted. Mark also observed that, in the course of that Sab­bath, Bob used the pronouns ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’ on two or three occasions, sounding oddly enough in the mouth of the old salt.

time, that, in his opinion, there was the frame and the other materials of a pinnace, or a large boat, somewhere in the hold, which it was intended to put together, when the ship reached the islands, as a convenience for cruising about among them to trade with the savages, and to transport sandal-wood. The mate had never heard of this boat, but acknowledged that a part of the hold-had been stowed while he was up at Bristol, and it might have been taken in then. Bob confessed that he had never seen it, though he had worked in the stevedore’s gang; but was confi dent he had heard Friend Abraham White and Captain Crutchely talking of its dimensions and uses. Accord­ing to his recollection it was to be a boat considerably larger than the launch, and to be fi tted with masts and sails, and to have a half-deck. Mark listened to ah1 this patiently, though he fi rmly believed that the honest fellow was deceiving him­self the whole time. Such a craft could scarcely be in the ship, and he not hear of it, if he did not actually see it; though he thought it possible that the captain and owners may have had some such plan in contemplation, and conversed together on it, in Betts’s presence. As there were plenty of tools on board, however, by using stuff of one sort or another, that was to be found in the ship, Mark had strong hopes of their being able, between them, to construct, in the course of time – though he believed a long time might be necessary – a craft of some sort, that should be of suffi cient stability to withstand the bil­lows of that ordinarily mild sea, and enable them to return to their homes and friends. In conversing of things of this sort, in religious observances, and in speculating on the probable fate of their shipmates, did our mariners pass this holy day.