20 ON THE BOSOM OF THE DEEP






PREFATORY:

THE LEGATEES OF DEUCALION


We were both of us not a little stiff as the result of
sleeping out in the open all that night, for even in Grand Canary
the dew-fall and the comparative chill of darkness are not to be
trifled with. For myself on these occasions I like a bit of a run
as an early refresher. But here on this rough ground in the middle
of the island there were not three yards of level to be found, and
so as Coppinger proceeded to go through some sort of dumb-bell
exercises with a couple of lumps of bristly lava, I followed his
example. Coppinger has done a good deal of roughing it in his
time, but being a doctor of medicine amongst other things--he takes
out a new degree of some sort on an average every other year--he is
great on health theories, and practises them like a religion.

There had been rain two days before, and as there was still a
bit of stream trickling along at the bottom of the barranca, we
went down there and had a wash, and brushed our teeth. Greatest
luxury imaginable, a toothbrush, on this sort of expedition.