If simply overturned by the wind, it must have lain where it fell; at all events, it could not have rolled far from the cairn, or pile of stones, in the centre of which we had wedged it. By what agency had this disappearance come to pass?
That it was the work of wild animals could not for a moment be conceived; so the event filled us with vague but very alarming conjectures.
With his hatchet, Probart the carpenter cut down and prepared a long and slender tree to replace the lost boom on the top of the Devil's Mountain, as we now termed it; and while one portion of us assisted him in this, the other set about the capture of some of the wild goats with which the woods of the island abounded, as we were anxious to procure the milk of the females, and the flesh of their kids.
This was a most arduous task, as they were so fleet of foot; and when pursued, or when in search of those bitter and astringent plants of which they are so fond, they could gain the most dangerous pinnacles and ledges of rock that overhung the sea. In such places there grew a kind of wild laburnum, and Hislop did not fail to remind me that Theocritus described it as the favorite food of the goat.
We often saw these agile quadrupeds spring, without pause, fear, or hesitation, from pinnacle to pinnacle, or from ledge to ledge of rock, where, had they missed footing, they must have fallen a thousand feet or more, either into the ocean on one side, or some ravine on the other; and there, perched far aloft, they would remain, looking at us quietly, and reminding me of the couplet:
"High hung in air the hoary goat reclined,
His streaming beard the sport of every wind."
By great industry, and the exertion of incredible labor and activity, we succeeded in capturing five, by isolating them from their flocks and chasing them into chasms and corners from which they had no means of escape, and then we secured them by the running rigging of the longboat.
Some of the females afforded milk, a rarity and nourishment to us who had been so long at sea. The flesh of a kid we thought delicious; and lest we should tire of roasted and broiled, Jack Burnet, the ship's cook, contrived to boil some pieces of a goat in its own skin, stretched upon sticks, with a fire underneath, salt for a spice, and sliced pumpkin for vegetables.
Of the horns, when carefully scraped and cleaned, we made very efficient drinking-cups, in which our rum, duly mixed with water, was doled out to us by Hislop, the keeper of our provision-store.
The eggs of the sea-birds were a constant object of search, and being an expert climber, I frequently collected great numbers of those laid in the crevices of the rocks by the sea-gull and storm-finch.