As we had taken no refreshment since setting out in the morning, we now began to feel the need of it. At the edge of the eminence, on the southern side, grew several large cocoa-nut trees, fully three feet in diameter at the base, and rising to the height of seventy or eighty feet at the very least. Eiulo was the only one of our number, who would have dreamed of undertaking to climb either of them; he, however, after finding a young purau, and providing himself with a strip of the bark, fastened the ends about his ankles, and then firmly clasping the trunk of one of the trees with his hands and feet alternately, the latter being as wide apart as the ligature would permit, he vaulted rapidly and easily upward, and soon gained the dizzy height where the nuts grew. Once fairly perched in the tuft of the tree among the stems of the enormous leaves, where he looked scarcely larger than a monkey, he quickly supplied us with as many cocoa-nuts as we could put to present use. Loading ourselves with the fruit, we returned to our first resting-place, and after piling the nuts in a heap, reclined around it, after the manner of the ancients at their banquets, while we enjoyed our repast. Though all these nuts were gathered from the same tree, and, in fact, from the same cluster, some of them contained nothing but liquid, the kernel not having yet begun to form, and in these the milk was most abundant and delicious: in others, a soft, jelly-like, transparent pulp, delicate and well-flavoured, had commenced forming on the inner shell: in others, again, this pulp had become thicker and firmer, and more like the kernel of the imported nut, the milk having diminished in quantity, and lost in a great measure its agreeable taste.
Johnny, after having tried all the different varieties with the zeal of an epicure, declared that he was beginning to get sick of cocoa-nuts: he wondered whether we should have to live entirely on cocoa-nuts and shell-fish, and whether there was not some bread-fruit on the island.
“If there is,” said Browne, “it will be of no use to us, unless we can find means to make a fire, and cook it.”
“Make a fire!” cried Johnny, “that’s easy enough—all we’ve got to do, is just to get two dry sticks and rub them together briskly for a few minutes. None of the shipwrecked people I ever read of, had any trouble about that.”
“How lucky we are,” cried Max, gravely, “in having some one with us, who has read all about all the desert islanders that have ever lived, and can tell us just what to do in an emergency! Please get a couple of those dry sticks which you speak of, Johnny, and show us how unfortunate castaways in our condition, are accustomed to kindle a fire.”
Without seeming, in the simplicity of his heart, to suspect for a moment the perfect good faith and sincerity of Max’s compliment, Johnny commenced casting about for some sticks or pieces of wood, with which to make the experiment. He soon found a fallen branch of the inocarpus, well baked by the sun, and which had long lost every particle of moisture. Breaking it into two pieces, he began to rub them together with great zeal, and apparently with perfect faith in the result: gradually he increased his exertions, manifesting a commendable perseverance, until the bark began to fly, and the perspiration to stream down his face; but still there was no fire nor any sign of it.
Meantime, Max encouraged him to proceed.
“Keep it a-going, Johnny!” he cried, “if you stop for half a second, you lose all your labour; only persevere, and you’re sure to succeed; none of the shipwrecked people you ever read of had any trouble about it, you know.”
But Johnny concluded that the sticks could not be of the right kind, and notwithstanding Max’s exhortations, he at last gave up the attempt.
Morton, however, not discouraged by this unfortunate result, nor by Max’s disposition to make fun of the experiment expressed a belief that the thing could be done, and after preparing the sticks by cutting away one of the rounded sides of each, he went to work with an earnestness and deliberation, that caused us to augur favourably of his success. After nearly ten minutes powerful and incessant friction, the sticks began to smoke, and Johnny, tossing his cap into the air, gave an exulting “Hurrah!”