Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/176

170 *HE CRATER; CHAPTER XII. "All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour : treason, felony, Sword, pike, gun, or need of any engine Would I not have ; but nature should bring forth, Of its own kind, all foizen, all abundance To feed my innocent people." Tempest. FOR the next ten days Mark Woolston did little but ex plore. By crossing the channel around the Reef, which he had named the Armlet (the young man often talked to himself), he reached the sea-wall, and, once there, he made a* long excursion to the eastward. He now walked dryshod over those very reefs among which he had so re cently sailed in the Bridget, though the ship-channel through which he and Bob had brought in the Rancocus still re mained. The two buoys that had marked the narrow pas sage were found, high and dry ; and the anchor of the ship, that by which she rode after beating over the rocks into deep water, was to be seen so near the surface, that the stock could be reached by the hand. There was little difference in character between the newly-made land to windward and that which Mark had found in the opposite direction. Large pools, or lakes, of salt water, deposits of mud and sand, some of which were of considerable extent and thickness, sounds, creeks, and arms of the sea, with here and there a hummock of rock that rose fifteen or twenty feet above the face of the main body, were the distinguishing peculiarities. For two days Mark explored in this direction, or to windward, reaching as far by his estimate of the distance, as the place where he had bore up in his cruise in the Bridget. Finding a great many obstacles in the way, channels, mud. &c., he determined, on the afternoon of the second day, to return home, get a stock of supplies, and come out in the boat,