This preliminary step taken towards covering the face of the mount with verdure, our mariners went to work to lay out their garden, regularly, within the crater. Mark manifested a good deal of ingenuity in this matter. With occasional exceptions the surface of the plain, or the bottom of the crater, was an even crust of no great thickness, compared of concrete ashes, scoriæ &c., but which might have borne the weight of a loaded wagon. This crust once broken, which it was not very difficult to do by means of pick and crows, the materials beneath were found loose enough for the purposes of agriculture, almost without using the spade. Now, space being abundant, Mark drew lines, in fanciful and winding paths, leaving the crust for his walks, and only breaking into the loose materials beneath, wherever he wished to form a bed. This variety served to amuse him and Betts, and they worked with so much the greater zeal, as their labours produced objects that were agreeable to the eye, and which amused them now, while they promised to benefit them hereafter. As each bed, whether oval, winding or straight, was dug, the loam and sea-weed was mixed up in it, in great abundance, after which it was sown, or planted.
Mark was fully aware that many of Friend Abraham White's seeds, if they grew and brought their fruits to maturity, would necessarily change their properties in that climate; some for the worse, and others for the better. From the Irish potato, the cabbage, and most of the more northern vegetables, he did not expect much, under any circumstances; but, he thought he would try all, and having several regularly assorted boxes of garden-seeds, just as they had been purchased out of the shops of Philadelphia, his garden scarce wanted any plant that was then known to the kitchens of America.
Our mariners were quite a fortnight preparing, manuring, and sowing their parterre, which, when complete, occupied fully half an acre in the very centre of the crater, Mark intending it for the nucleus of future similar works, that might convert the whole hundred acres into a garden. By the time the work was done, the rains were less frequent, though it still came in showers, and those that were still more favourable to vegetation. In that fortnight the plants on the mount had made great advances, showing the exuberance and growth of a tropical climate. It sometimes, nay, it often happens, that when the sun is the most genial for vegetation, moisture is wanting to aid its power, and, in some respects, to counteract its influence. These long and periodical droughts, however, are not so much owing to heat as to other and local causes, Mark now began to hope, as the spring advanced, that his little territory was to be exempt, in a great measure, from the curse of droughts, the trades, and some other causes that to him were unknown, bringing clouds so often that not only shed their rain upon his garden, but which served in a great measure to mitigate a heat that, without shade of some sort or other, would be really intolerable.
With a view to the approaching summer, our mariners turned their attention to the constructing of a tent within the crater. They got some old sails and some spars ashore, and soon had a spacious, as well as a comfortable habitation of this sort erected. Not only did they spread a spacious tent for themselves, within the crater, but they erected another, or a sort of canopy rather, on its outside, for the use of the animals, which took refuge beneath it, during the heats of the day, with an avidity that proved how welcome it was. This outside shed, or canopy, required a good deal of care in its construction, to resist the wind, while that inside scarce ever felt the breeze. This want of wind, or of air in motion, indeed, formed the most serious objection to the crater, as a place of residence, in the hot months; and the want of breeze that was suffered in the tent, set Mark to work to devise expedients for building some sort of tent, or habitation, on the in net itself, where it would be always cool, provided one could get a protection from the fierce rays of the sun.
After a good deal of search, Mark selected a spot on the 'Summit,' as he began to term the place, and pitched his tent on, it. Holes were made in the soft rocks, and pieces of spars were inserted, to answer for posts. With a commencement as solid as this, it was not difficult to make the walls of the tent (or marquee would be the better word, since both habitations had nearly upright sides) by means of an old fore-course. In order to get the canvas up there, however, it was found necessary to cut out the pieces below, when, by means of the purchase at the derrick, it was all hoisted to the Summit.
These several arrangements occupied Mark and Bob another fortnight, completing the first quarter of a year they had passed on the Reef. By this time they had got accustomed to their situation, and had fallen into regular courses of duty, though the increasing heats admonished both of the prudence of not exposing themselves too much beneath the fiery sun at noon-day.
Chapter VIII.
"Now from the full-grown day a beamy shower
Gleams on the lake, and gilds each glossy flower,
Gay insects sparkle in the genial blaze,