Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/103

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 97 just commenced, and he was in hopes of being able to prepare one bed, at least, in time to obtain useful vegetables from it. The Rancocus had a great many planks and boards in her hold, a part of the ample provision made by her own ers for the peculiar voyage on which she had been sent. Of real cargo, indeed, she had very little, the commerce between the civilized man and the savage being ordinarily on those great principles of Free Trade, of which so much is said of late years, while so little is understood, and which usually give the lion s share of the profit to them who need it least. With some of these planks, Mark made a staging for his raft. By the time he was ready, Bob returned with a load of loam, and, on the next outward voyage, the raft was taken as well as the dingui. Mark had fitted pins and grummets, by which the raft was rowed, he and Bob im pelling it, when light, very easily at the rate of two miles in the hour. Mark found Betts s deposit of decayed vegetable matter even larger and more accessible than he had hoped for. A hundred loads might be got without even using a wheel barrow; and to all appearances there was enough of it to give a heavy dressing to many acres, possibly to the whole area of the crater. The first thing the young man did was to choose a suitable place, dig it well up, mixing a suffi ciency of guano with it, agreeably to Betts s directions, and then to put in some of his asparagus roots. After this he scattered a quantity of the seed, raking the ground well after sowing. By the time this was done, Bob had both dingui and raft loaded, when they pulled the last back to the reef, towing the boat. In this manner our two mari ners continued to work most of the time, for the next fort night, making, daily, more or less trips to the loam-rock/ as they called the place where this precious deposit had been made ; though they neglected none of their other ne cessary duties. As the distance was short, they could come and go many times in a day, transporting at each trip about as much of the loam as would make an ordinary American cart-load of manure. In the whole, by Mark s computation, they got across about fifty of these cargoes, in the course of their twelve days work. The entire day, VOL. I. 9