ong upon dried meat. My want of
occupation occasioned me also to employ some of my time in fishing,
which I seldom had done while Jackson was alive; and this created a
variety in my food, to which, for a long while, I had been a stranger.
Jackson did not care for fish, as to cook it we were obliged to go up
the ravine for wood, and he did not like the trouble. When the birds
came, I had recourse to my book on Natural History, to read over again
the accounts of the Man-of-War birds, Gannets, and other birds mentioned
in it; and there was a vignette of a Chinaman with tame cormorants on a
pole, and in the letter-press an account of how they were trained and
employed to catch fish for their masters. This gave me the idea that I
would have some birds tame, as companions, and, if possible, teach them
to catch fish for me; but I knew that I must wait till the young birds
were fit to be taken from the nest.

I now resolved that during the time the birds were mating, I would go to
the ravine and remain there several days, to collect bundles of
firewood. The firewood was chiefly cut from a sort of low bush, like
the sallow or willow, fit for making baskets, indeed fit for anything
better than firewood; however, there were some bushes which were of a
harder texture, and which burnt well. It was Jackson who told me that
the former were called Willow and used for making baskets, and he also
showed me how to tie the faggots up by twisting the sallows together.
They were not, however, what Jackson said they were--from after
knowledge, I should say that they were a species of Oleander, or
something of the kind.

Having roasted several dozen of eggs quite hard, by way of provision, I
set off one morning, and went to the ravine. As Jackson had said
before, you had to walk under a wall of rock thirty feet high, and then
pass through a water-course to get up to the ravine, which increased the
distance to where the shrubs grew, at least half a mile. It was over
this wall that the captain fell and was killed, because Jackson would
not assist him. I gained the thicket where the bushes grew, and for
three days I worked very hard, and had cut down and tied about fifty
large faggots, when I thought that I had collected enough to last me for
a long while; but I had still to carry them down, and this was a heavy
task, as I could not carry more than one at a time. It occurred to me
that if I threw my faggots over the wall opposite to whe