Johnny was much dissatisfied with the poverty of these preparations for
the rainy season. He thought we ought to have laid in a large stock of
salted or smoked fish, besides catching a score or two of turtle, and
depositing them safely upon their backs in some convenient place, ready
to be converted into soup, at any moment by the magic of Max's culinary
art.
Arthur thought that we need not anticipate a season of continuous storms
or steady rains--that though the prevailing weather for some months
would be tempestuous, there would nevertheless be some fine days in
nearly every week, during which we could venture forth.
Another storm, as violent as the last, fully decided us to make the
contemplated removal to the cabin, and that without further delay.
Johnny transported thither his entire collection of shells, corals,
etcetera, which had now grown to be quite extensive. Arthur carried
over an armful of specimens of plants and flowers, which had long been
accumulating for an "herbarium." Max, however, averred that they were a
part of the materials for a treatise on "The Botany of Polynesia," which
Arthur cherished the ambitious design of composing, and which was to be
published with coloured plate, simultaneously with the history of our
adventures. In order that he too might have some indoor occupation
during the anticipated bad weather, Max provided himself with a huge
log, hacked and sawed with great labour, from a bread-fruit tree, blown
down in the last gale, out of which he declared it to be his purpose to
build a miniature ship, destined to convey the aforesaid history,
together with Arthur's botanical treatise, to America.
The day fixed for our final migration to "Lake Laicomo," at length
arrived, and taking a farewell for "the season," of our deserted
tenement at Castle-hill, we set out for the cabin, to spend our first
night there. It was not without some feelings of regret that we left a
spot now become so familiar, to bury ourselves in the woods out of sight
of the sea. It seemed almost like going again into exile. Johnny, in
particular, felt greatly humiliated, at being obliged to abandon the
house which had cost us so much toil, to take refuge in one constructed
by others. He seemed to look upon this as a kind of tacit admission of
our own utter incapacity to provide for ourselves in that respect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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