insects, I sealed it up, and
stood it in a dry place for future consideration.

Even this curious find was not all I discovered, nor the most important,
although at the time I made my second discovery I did not attach any
value to it. It was this. When I came to the third side of the room,
opposite the door, I came upon a sort of niche or cupboard, close up to
the ceiling, which had no door, but simply a piece of lace tacked over
the aperture, and then thickly papered over some seven or eight times.
The opening was about ten inches high, eight inches wide, by six inches
deep, and in it stood two leathern drinking cups, capable of containing
about a pint each. In the first I took down was a tiny vial and three
gem rings, and in the second a small roll of paper, which upon unrolling
I found to be about two feet long by four inches wide. Upon it, in very
faded ink, was a long list of something in French. It looked like a very
heavy washing bill, and I was about to throw it away when I reflected
that it might tell something about the lace and the rings, so I rolled
it up in a linen bandage, and put it and the other articles in my
clothes box, so that some day I might get it deciphered.

All this made me very excited, and I am afraid my thoughts were more on
my discoveries than upon my work, for the new paper was very badly put
on the walls; it was not hung perpendicularly, and had several gaping
joints, which annoyed me all the time I was on the island. But I had not
paper enough to recover the walls, as I used the rest for my
bed-chamber; therefore it remained, a lasting memorial of my
slovenliness and bad workmanship.

About this time I shot a curious specimen--too large for stuffing--a
grampus. I was in my boat one day fishing for whiting, when I heard a
peculiar noise behind me, and looking round, saw a huge monster rise
from the sea about a hundred yards off, and make straight for me. Before
getting to the boat he dived again and again, when I saw that it was
apparently a young whale. Instinctively I clutched my gun, and as the
monster dived within a dozen yards of my boat I watched its rising; up
he came, not twenty feet away, whereupon I let him have both barrels at
the back of his head, and to my surprise he immediately turned over,
belly upward, gave a shudder, and was dead. I took my prize in tow, and
found on landing that it was upwards of ten feet long, and must have
weighed several hundredweight, for out of t