Now, as we continued on our way, I pondered much over this new
discovery, and the singular appearance of these birds, of which
Jack could only give us a very slight and vague account; and I
began to long to commence to our boat, in order that we might go
and inspect them more narrowly. But by degrees these thoughts left
me, and I began to be much taken up again with the interesting
peculiarities of the country which we were passing through.

The second night we passed in a manner somewhat similar to the
first, at about two-thirds of the way round the island, as we
calculated, and we hoped to sleep on the night following at our
bower. I will not here note so particularly all that we said and
saw during the course of this second day, as we did not make any
further discoveries of great importance. The shore along which we
travelled, and the various parts of the woods through which we
passed, were similar to those which have been already treated of.
There were one or two observations that we made, however, and these
were as follows:-

We saw that, while many of the large fruit-bearing trees grew only
in the valleys, and some of them only near the banks of the
streams, where the soil was peculiarly rich, the cocoa-nut palm
grew in every place whatsoever, - not only on the hill sides, but
also on the sea shore, and even, as has been already stated, on the
coral reef itself, where the soil, if we may use the name, was
nothing better than loose sand mingled with broken shells and coral
rock. So near to the sea, too, did this useful tree grow, that in
many places its roots were washed by the spray from the breakers.
Yet we found the trees growing thus on the sands to be quite as