as well as a relish, to all the dishes the young
man cooked; and the tea, sugar and coffee, promising to hold out years
longer, the table still gave him little concern. Once in a month, or so,
he treated himself to a bean-soup, or a pea-soup, using the stores of
the Rancocus for that purpose, foreseeing that the salted meats would
spoil after a time, and the dried vegetables get to be worthless, by
means of insects and worms. By this time, however, there were fresh
crops of both those vegetables, which grew better in the winter than
they could in the summer, in that hot climate. Fish, too, were used as a
change, whenever the young man had an inclination for that sort of food,
which was as often as three or four times a week; the little pan-fish
already mentioned, being of a sort of which one would scarcely ever
tire.

It being a matter of some moment to save unnecessary labour, Mark seldom
cooked more than once in twenty-four hours, and then barely enough to
last for that day. In consequence of this rule, he soon learned how
little was really necessary for the wants of one person, it being his
opinion that a quarter of an acre of such soil as that which now
composed his garden, would more than furnish all the vegetables he could
consume. The soil, it is true, was of a very superior quality. Although
it had lain so long unproductive and seemingly barren, now that it had
been stirred, and air and water were admitted, and guano, and sea-weed,
and loam, and dead fish had been applied, and all in quantities that
would have been deemed very ample in the best wrought gardens of
christendom, the acre he had under tillage might be said to have been
brought to the highest stage of fertility. It wanted a little in
consistency, perhaps; but the compost heap was very large, containing
enough of all the materials just mentioned to give the garden another
good dressing. As for the grass, Mark was convinced the guano was
all-sufficient for that, and this he took care to apply as often as once
in two or three months.

Our young man was never tired, indeed, with feasting his eyes with the
manner in which the grass had spread over the mount. It is true, that he
had scattered seed, at odd and favourable moments, over most of it, by
this time; but he was persuaded the roots of those first sown would have
extended themselves, in the course of a year or two, over the whole
Summit. Nor were these grasses thin and sickly, threatening as early