fearful ordeal on
the reef, and what extraordinary exertions were needed to wrench her
several parts asunder. But a detailed description of the varied schemes
to which we were obliged to resort in order to effect our purpose would
be of no interest to the general reader; I will therefore content myself
with the bare statement that it cost us six weeks of the hardest labour
I ever performed in my life to reduce the _Martha Brown_ to her
component parts, and to stack the materials upon the beach in readiness
for use in the construction of the new schooner.

In fairness to ourselves, however, it must be said that during part of
that time there were only four of us engaged upon the work, Cunningham
being busy upon calculations of stability, the relative positions of the
centre of gravity and the metacentre of the new schooner, and I know not
what beside, in connection with the determination of the amount of
ballast that would be needed, the position of the masts, and the area
and proportions of the several sails--for now that the engineer was
fairly mounted upon his new hobby there was no possibility of dragging
him out of the saddle. He had several novel theories which he was
anxious to test, and he was resolutely determined that the new schooner
should be as nearly perfect as his skill could make her; he therefore
simply scoffed at us when we pointed out that time was flying,
indignantly demanded to be told what mattered a few days more or less in
comparison with the importance of the matters with which he was dealing,
and returned to his figures with renewed zest.

But all things come to an end sooner or later, and the day at length
arrived when Cunningham completed his final calculation, drew his last
line, and carefully rolled up his completed drawings, to await the
moment when they would be called for upon the beginning of the important
task of laying the keel of the new schooner.

Now, if I have succeeded in portraying anything like a true picture of
our life upon the island, the reader will have gathered the impression
that, after the first day following the wreck, we were constantly in a
condition of breathless activity, due to the fact that there were so
many matters, each of apparently paramount importance, all clamouring
for our instant attention, and that, at the beginning at least, we
strove to attend to all these several matters at the same time, doing
first a little to this, and then a little to that or