carry them with us. We therefore filled them with sand, that the sun
might not warp them, and left them to dry, till we returned.

As we went on, Fritz amused himself with cutting spoons from the rind of
the gourd, and I tried to do the same with the fragments of the
cocoa-nut; but I must confess my performances were inferior to those I
had seen in the museum in London, the work of the South Sea islanders.
We laughed at our spoons, which would have required mouths from ear to
ear to eat with them. Fritz declared that the curve of the rind was the
cause of that defect: if the spoons had been smaller, they would have
been flat; and you might as well eat soup with an oyster-shell as with
a shovel.

While we talked, we did not neglect looking about for our lost
companions, but in vain. At last, we arrived at a place where a tongue
of land ran to some distance into the sea, on which was an elevated
spot, favourable for observation. We attained the summit with great
labour, and saw before us a magnificent prospect of land and water; but
with all the aid our excellent telescope gave us, we could in no
direction discover any trace of man. Nature only appeared in her
greatest beauty. The shore enclosed a large bay, which terminated on the
other side in a promontory. The gentle rippling of the waves, the varied
verdure of the woods, and the multitude of novelties around us, would
have filled us with delight, but for the painful recollection of those
who, we now were compelled to believe, were buried beneath that
glittering water. We did not feel less, however, the mercy of God, who
had preserved us, and given us a home, with a prospect of subsistence
and safety. We had not yet met with any dangerous animals, nor could we
perceive any huts of savages. I remarked to my son that God seemed to
have destined us to a solitary life in this rich country, unless some