She presently appeared, bearing a porcelain dish laden with most lovely transparent jelly. Cut with a spoon and laid before us it quivered and glittered in the light.
"Ambrosia!" exclaimed Fritz, tasting it. It was indeed delicious, and, still marveling from whence the mother could have obtained a dish so rare, we disposed of all that she had set before us.
"Aha," laughed the mother, "is not this an excellent substitute for tobacco, far more refreshing than the nasty weed itself. Behold the product of my mysterious seaweed."
"My dear wife," exclaimed I, "this dish is indeed a masterpiece of culinary art, but where had you met with it? What put it into your head?"
"While staying with my Dutch friends at the Cape," replied she, "I often saw it, and at once recognized the leaves on Shark Island. Once knowing the secret, the preparation of the dish is extremely simple; the leaves are soaked in water, fresh every day, for a week, and then boiled for a few hours with orange juice, citron, and sugar."
We were all delighted with the delicacy, and thanked the mother for it most heartily, the boys declaring that they must at once go off again to the island to collect as many of the leaves as they could find. I agreed to accompany them, for I wished to examine the plantations we had made there.
All were flourishing, the palms and mangroves had shot up in a most marvelous manner, and many of the seeds which I had cast at random among the cliffs in the rocks had germinated, and promised to clothe the nakedness of the frowning boulders.
Away up among the rocks, too, we discovered a bright sparkling spring of delicious water, at which, from the footprints around, we saw that the antelopes must have refreshed themselves.
Finding everything so satisfactory, we were naturally anxious to discover how our colony and plantations on Whale Island had fared. It was evident at a glance that the rabbits had increased; the young and tender shoots of the trees bore the marks of many greedy, mischievous little teeth. The cocoanut palms alone had they spared.
Such depredations as these could not be allowed, and with the help of the boys I erected round each stem a hedge of prickly thorn, and then prepared again to embark; before we did so, however, I noticed that some of the seaweed had also been gnawed by the rabbits, and wondering what it could have been to tempt them, I collected some of it to examine more fully at home.