and
the base of the hills, was bare of trees, the soil being covered with a
dense growth of guinea-grass, with a few bushes and flowering shrubs
sparsely dotted about here and there--it therefore offered ideal
facilities for camping.

After George and the surgeon, accompanied by Dyer, had gone ashore and
very carefully inspected the place, it was decided at once to unbend the
ship's sails, carry them ashore, and temporarily convert them into tents
for the accommodation of all hands, which would afford the sick an
opportunity to recover their health and strength while the operation of
careening and scraping the ship was proceeding. This was accordingly
done, and by nightfall the camp was ready for occupation, and the entire
crew, with the exception of an anchor watch, slept ashore that night.

The following day was devoted to the task of transferring to the shore
the whole of the ordnance, weapons, ammunition, and a considerable
portion of the ship's stores, one party attending to this business while
a second party, under George's personal supervision, proceeded to
entrench the camp and otherwise put it into a state of defence, a third
party of half-a-dozen men, under Chichester, the surgeon, exploring the
woods in the immediate neighbourhood in search of fruit, of which they
brought in large quantities, consisting of bananas, mangoes, prickly
pears, _ananas_, custard-apples, soursops, guavas, and a sackful of
coconuts which Dyer showed the men how to open so that they could get at
and quaff the refreshing "milk." And oh, how delighted everybody was to
find himself in this tropical island paradise, where strange fruits of
the most exquisite flavour were to be had for the mere trouble of
plucking, where the air was fragrant with a thousand mingled perfumes,
where there was a perfect riot of flowers of strange shapes and most
gorgeous colouring to delight the eye, and where humming-birds flashed
hither and thither like living gems in the dazzling, blistering rays of
the sun. True, there were one or two drawbacks--the heat, for instance,
was terrific in that hemmed-in valley where only a transient breathing
of the trade-wind penetrated at rare intervals; and the men soon found
that paradise still harboured the serpent, for several snakes were seen
and one was killed--a diabolically handsome but most wicked-looking
creature clothed in a skin of greyish black ornamented with a diamond
pattern consisting of lattice-like l