had died in the sea and been washed ashore. Indeed, as
I went along a little farther, and had reached nearly to the place where
I had left the Dean, I found the whole carcass of a narwhal lying among
the rocks, where it had been thrown by the waves, and very near it I
discovered also a dead seal. About these there were several foxes, which
went scampering away as soon as they saw me. They had evidently come
there to get their dinner; for they had torn a great hole in the side of
the dead narwhal, and two of them had begun on the seal. I thought if I
could get some of the skins of these pretty foxes, they would be nice
warm things to wrap the Dean's hands and feet in, so I began flinging
stones at them as hard as I could; but the cunning beasts dodged every
one of them, and, running away up the hillside, chattered in such a
lively manner that it seemed as if they were laughing at me, which
provoked me so much that I went on vowing to get the better of them in
one way or another.

"All this time, you must remember, I had left the poor Dean by himself,
and you may be sure I was very anxious to get back to him; but before I
tell you anything more about him, I must stop a minute longer to
describe more particularly this island on which I had been cast away.
You must understand there were no trees on it at all; and, indeed, there
were scarcely any signs of vegetation whatever. On the south side, where
we landed after the wreck, the hillside was covered for a short distance
with thick grass, and above this green slope there were great tall
cliffs like the palisades of the Hudson River,--which you must all see
some time; but all the rest of the way around the island I saw scarcely
anything but rough rocks, very sharp and hard to walk over. In some
places, however, where the streams of melted snow had spread out in the
level places, patches of moss had grown, making a sort of marsh. Here I
discovered some flowers in full bloom, and among them were the buttercup
and dandelion, just like what we find in the meadows here, only not a
quarter so large; but my head was too much filled with more serious
thoughts at that time to care about flowers.

"You can hardly imagine anything so dreary as this island was. Indeed,
nothing could be worse except the prospect of living on it all alone,
without any shelter, or fire, or proper clothing, and without any
apparent chance of ever escaping from it.

"I found, however, a sort of apology fo