bootmaking, and for some time did not attempt to provide ourselves with footwear, though afterwards we contrived to make some strange and uncouth foot-gloves: I can call them by no other name. [1] This was clearly the candle-nut, of which more is said presently.--H.S. CHAPTER THE TENTH OF THE NAMING OF OUR ISLAND--OF A FLEET OF CANOES, AND OF THE MEANS WHEREBY WE PREPARE TO STAND A SIEGE We had now fairly established ourselves as the owners of the island, having a comfortable house, domestic animals, and a sufficient store of food, the only article in which we were lamentably deficient being clothes. The necessity we were under of working hard with our hands left us little time for commiseration, and I verily believe that we were in the main as cheerful and happy as we could have been anywhere. And now that the completion of our hardest tasks left us a little leisure, it came into our heads that we ought to give our property a name, or rather it was Billy that thought of it, he saying that since I was clearly king of the country, it was ridiculous not to be able to say what country it was. "Call it Smoking Island," says he, "because of that old smoker up there." To this I objected that it was not a pretty name, and besides, the mountain was not always smoking. "Well then," he said, "call it Lonely Island, because it is lonely, and so are we." To this I replied that a more cheerful name would suit me better, and suggested that we should call it Perseverance Island, since all our present comforts sprang from our persevering in the face of difficulties. But this Billy would by no means agree to, saying that it looked like bragging, and besides he hated the word perseverance, because he had to write it so many times on his slate at school, and it made him think of raps on the knuckles. He told me that he had been for a few months at a charity school, but he played truant so often that the master refused to have him any longer, at which he was very glad. After considering sundry other names, to which either Billy or I had some objection, we finally settled on Palm Tree Island, both because most of the trees of the island were palms, and because we got our first comfort, when we were deserted, from the cocoa-nut palms on the hill-side.