e following year. As soon as they were quite
dry they were packed up in a corner of the cabin for use.

These birds were, it may be said, the only produce of the island, with
the exception of fish, and the eggs taken at the time of their first
making their nests. Fish were to be taken in large quantities. It was
sufficient to put a line over the rocks, and it had hardly time to go
down a fathom before anything at the end of it was seized. Indeed, our
means of taking them were as simple as their voracity was great. Our
lines were composed of the sinews of the legs of the man-of-war birds,
as I afterwards heard them named; and, as these were only about a foot
long, it required a great many of them knotted together to make a line.
At the end of the line was a bait fixed over a strong fish-bone, which
was fastened to the line by the middle; a half-hitch of the line round
one end kept the bone on a parallel with the line until the bait was
seized, when the line being tautened, the half-hitch slipped off and the
bone remained crossways in the gullet of the fish, which was drawn up by
it. Simple as this contrivance was, it answered as well as the best
hook, of which I had never seen one at that time. The fish were so
strong and large, that, when I was young, the man would not allow me to
attempt to catch them, lest they should pull me into the water; but, as
I grew bigger I could master them. Such was our food from one year's
end to the other; we had no variety, except when occasionally we broiled
the dried birds or the fish upon the embers, instead of eating them
dried by the sun. Our raiment, such as it was, we were also indebted to
the feathered tribe for. The birds were skinned with the feathers on,
and their skins sewn together with sinews, and a fish-bone by way of a
needle. These garments were not very durable, but the climate was so
fine that we did not suffer from the cold at any season of the year. I
used to make myself a new dress every year when the birds came; but by
the time that they returned, I had little left of my last year's suit,
the fragments of which might be found among the rocky and steep parts of
the ravine where we used to collect firing.

Living such a life, with so few wants, and those periodically and easily
supplied, hardly varied from one year's end to another, it may easily be
imagined that I had but few ideas. I might have had more, if my
companion had not been of such a taciturn a