Chapter 12

"All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, gun, or need of any engine
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth
Of its own kind, all foizen, all abundance
To feed my innocent people."

_Tempest._

For the next ten days Mark Woolston did little but explore. By crossing
the channel around the Reef, which he had named the 'Armlet' (the young
man often talked to himself), he reached the sea-wall, and, once there,
he made a long excursion to the eastward. He now walked dryshod over
those very reefs among which he had so recently sailed in the Bridget,
though the ship-channel through which he and Bob had brought in the
Rancocus still remained. The two buoys that had marked the narrow
passage were found, high and dry; and the anchor of the ship, that by
which she rode after beating over the rocks into deep water, was to be
seen so near the surface, that the stock could be reached by the hand.

There was little difference in character between the newly-made land to
windward and that which Mark had found in the opposite direction. Large
pools, or lakes, of salt water, deposits of mud and sand, some of which
were of considerable extent and thickness, sounds, creeks, and arms of
the sea, with here and there a hummock of rock that rose fifteen or
twenty feet above the face of the main body, were the distinguishing
peculiarities. For two days Mark explored in this direction, or to
windward, reaching as far by his estimate of the distance, as the place
where he had bore up in his cruise in the Bridget. Finding a great many
obstacles in the way, channels, mud, &c., he determined, on the
afternoon of the second day, to return home, get a stock of supplies,
and come out in the boat, in order to ascertain if he could not now
reach the open water to windward.

On the morning of the fourth day after the earthquake, and the
occurrence of the mighty change that had altered the whole face of the
scene around him, the young man got under way in the Bridget. He shaped
his course to windward, beating out of the Armlet by a narrow passage,
that carried him into a reach that stretched away for several miles, to
the northward and eastward, in nearly a straight line. This passage, or
sound, was about half a mile in width, and there was water enough in
nearly all parts of it to float the largest sized vessel. By this
passage the poor hermit, small as was his chance of ever seeing such an
event occur, hoped it might be possible to come to the very side of the
Reef in a ship.

When about three leagues from the crater, the 'Hope Channel,' as Mark
named this long and direct passage, divided into two, one trending still
more to