Chapter 6

"----that done, partake
The season, prime for sweetest scents and airs;
Then commune how that day they best may ply
Their growing work; for much their work outgrew
The hands dispatch of two gard'ning so wide."

Milton.

Our two mariners had come ashore well provided with the means of
carrying out their plans. The Rancocus was far better provided with
tools suited to the uses of the land, than was common for ships, her
voyage contemplating a long stay among the islands she was to visit.
Thus, axes and picks were not wanting, Captain Crutchely having had an
eye to the possible necessity of fortifying himself against savages.
Mark now ascended the crater-wall with a pick on his shoulder, and a
part of a coil of ratlin-stuff around his neck. As he went up, he used
the pick to make steps, and did so much in that way, in the course of
ten minutes, as greatly to facilitate the ascent and descent at the
particular place he had selected. Once on the summit, he found a part of
the rock that overhung its base, and dropped one end of his line into
the crater. To this Bob attached the bucket, which Mark hauled up and
emptied. In this manner everything was transferred to the top of the
crater-wall that was needed there, when Bob went down to the dingui to
roll up the half-barrel of sweepings that had been brought from the
ship.

Mark next looked about for the places which had seemed to him, on his
previous visit, to have most of the character of soil. He found a plenty
of these spots, mostly in detached cavities of no great extent, where
the crust had not yet formed; or, having once formed, had been disturbed
by the action of the elements. These places he first picked to pieces
with his pick; then he stirred them well up with a hoe, scattering a
little guano in the heaps, according to the directions of Betts. When
this was done, he sent down the bucket, and hauled up the sweepings of
the deck, which Bob had ready for him, below. Nor was this all Bob had
done, during the hour Mark was at work, in the sun, on the summit of the
crater. He had found a large deposit of sea-weed, on a rock near the
island, and had made two or three trips with the dingui, back and forth,
to transfer some of it to the crater. After all his toil and trouble,
the worthy fellow did not get more than a hogshead full of this new
material, but Mark thought it well worth while to haul it up, and to
endeavour to mix it with his compost. This was done by making it up in
bundles, as one would roll up hay, of a size that the young man could
manage.

Bob now joined his friend on the crater-wall, and assisted in carrying
the sea-weed to the places prepared to receive it, when both of the
mariners next set about mixing