yself down upon the warm sand, and instantly
fell asleep.

"When I awoke the sun was shining brilliantly, and the gale had broken,
although it was still blowing a strong breeze. I looked out to seaward,
and at once sighted the wreck, about two miles away, dismasted, and hard
and fast upon the reef. Then, glancing at my surroundings, I perceived
that I had landed upon a beach of fine white sand, backed by country
densely wooded, with hills stretching away to north and south. The
sight of the trees suggested possibilities of fruit, the thought of
which reminded me that I was hungry; and I was about to make a plunge
into the woods in search of something to eat when I heard a voice
hailing, and, looking in the direction from which the hail had come, I
saw, to my great satisfaction, Van Ryn and Fleming, about a quarter of a
mile along the beach.

"Naturally we at once joined forces, and, they being like myself,
hungry, we forthwith proceeded to hunt for food, speedily finding an
abundance of cocoa-nuts that had fallen, ripe, from the trees that lined
the inner edge of the beach. We ate and drank our fill of the fruit and
milk of the nuts, and then, having meanwhile discussed our plans for the
future, we began our quest for a practicable path inland, for the idea
of camping on the beach, night after night, had few attractions for us.
But the undergrowth was so dense and impenetrable that it was not until
we had traversed quite a mile of the beach, under the rays of a
scorching sun, that we at length found a spot where, by cutting and
hacking the monkey-rope and creepers with our knives, we finally
succeeded in working our way into a valley enclosed between two ranges
of hills running practically parallel.

"My word! that was hot work, I assure you, Mr Blackburn. Of course
there was no lack of shade, but, on the other hand, there was no air.
The atmosphere was simply stifling, and what with that and the labour of
hewing a way through the dense undergrowth--much of it consisting of
bushes covered with tough, sharp thorns that got hold of our clothes,
and not infrequently our skins, and refused to let go--the perspiration
poured from us like water, and simply drenched our clothes. But the
monkey-rope, the creepers, the thorns, and the heat were not the worst
of our troubles; the whole place was swarming with mosquitoes that
hovered about us in clouds and bit us savagely in a hundred places at
once. And, as though these