hrough which
not the smallest patch of sky was visible. Around their huge, but
shapely, stems, which one might look upon as forming the pillars of a
natural temple, a number of flowering parasites twined in luxuriant
wreaths, and hung in festoons from the tower branches. A considerable
space around the boles of some of these trees was completely covered by
an elegant species of creeping plant with fine cut foliage of a delicate
pea-green, and large clusters of scarlet blossoms, about which, swarms
of brilliantly-coloured insects, of the butterfly tribe, were hovering.

"Here we may actually, and not figuratively, indulge in the luxury of
`reposing on the beds of flowers,'" said Max, throwing himself down at
the foot of a towering candle-nut, amid a soft mass of this vegetable
carpeting. All were sufficiently tired by the long march of the
morning, to appreciate the luxury, and our entire company was soon
stretched upon the ground, in attitudes in which comfort rather than
grace, was consulted.

"What do you think of this, Johnny?" said Max, "it strikes me, as being
quite romantic and like the story-books--almost up to the Arabian
Nights. If the history of our adventures should ever be written, (and
why shouldn't it be?) here's material for a _flowery_ passage. Just see
how this would sound, for instance:--`And now our little band of
toil-worn castaways,' (that's us), `weary and faint with their
wanderings through the desert, (that's Cape Desolation, or Sea-bird's
Point, or whatever Johnny in his wisdom shall conclude to call it),
arrived at a little oasis, (this is it), a green spot in the wilderness,
blooming like the bowers of Paradise, where stretched at ease, upon beds
of bright and odoriferous flowers, they reposed from the fatigues of
their journey.' There, that sentence, I flatter myself is equal in
harmony and effect, to the opening one in the history of Rasselas,
Prince of Abyssinia--there's my idea of the style in which our
adventures should be recorded."

As we had taken no refreshment since setting out in the morning, we now
began to feel the need of it. At the edge of the eminence, on the
southern side, grew several large cocoa-nut trees, fully three feet in
diameter at the base, and rising to the height of seventy or eighty feet
at the very least. Eiulo was the only one of our number, who would have
dreamed of undertaking to climb either of them; he, however, after
finding a young purau, and pro