to decide on suitable names for the different spots we had visited on this coast.
“For,” said I, “it will become more and more troublesome to explain what we mean, unless we do so. Besides which, we shall feel much more at home if we can talk as people do in inhabited countries: instead of saying, for instance, ‘the little island at the mouth of our bay, where he found the dead shark,’ ‘the large stream near our tent, across which we made the bridge,’ ‘that wood where we found cocoa nuts, and caught the monkey,’ and so on. Let us begin by naming the bay in which we landed. What shall we call it?”
“Oyster Bay,” said Fritz.
“No, no!—Lobster Bay,” cried Jack, “in memory of the old fellow who took a fancy to my leg!”
“I think,” observed his mother, “that, in token of gratitude for our escape, we should call it Safety Bay.”
This name met with general approbation, and was forthwith fixed upon.
Other names were quickly chosen. Our first place of abode we called Tentholm; the islet in the bay, Shark's Island; and the reedy swamp, Flamingo Marsh. It was some time before the serious question of a name for our leafy castle could be decided. But finally it was entitled Falconhurst;[1] and we then rapidly named the few remaining points: Prospect Hill, the eminence we first ascended; Cape Disappointment, from whose rocky heights we had strained our eyes in vain search for our ship's company; and Jackal River, as a name for the large stream at our landing place concluded our geographical nomenclature.
In the afternoon the boys went on with their various employments. Fritz finished his cases, and Jack asked my assistance in carrying out his plan of making a cuirass for Turk, out of the
- ↑ Horst, in German, means “nest” or “eyrie.”
