166 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



unconcerned heads at the apparition of our in- 

 terested faces appearing from above, usually up- 

 side down. A beautiful little red-footed dove flut- 

 tered from under our feet, and added to her plump, 

 partridge-like appearance by simulating a broken 

 wing in an attempt to lure us from the two white 

 eggs lying under a boulder on a heap of twigs. 



Presently we came to such a barrier of thorny 

 scrub that we went inland, still aiming for the high- 

 est point of Our Island. Its center was a cup- 

 like depression sloping toward the sea, and here 

 an incongruous memory smote me. The evenly 

 spaced, low, gnarled trees, the seeded grasses grow- 

 ing long and rank beneath, the rocks lying in tum- 

 bled lines here and there, strangely resembled an 

 abandoned New England orchard with crmnbled 

 stone-walls and once-cultivated air. There was 

 even a sort of pit which needed only a sidewise 

 glance to be a cellar, the forlorn remnant of a home, 

 such as one finds on a country back-road, or comes 

 upon in a short-cut across young timber-land. 

 Surely an unexpected comparison, for of all places 

 in the world the Galapagos and New England are 

 the least alike. 



The sunlight was no longer cool, nor were we, as 

 we struggled up the steep inner side of the cup, 

 cut off from any breeze and lacking anything that 

 could be called shade. A final scramble and we 

 emerged on the pinnacle rim to a panorama that 

 made us gasp. Far off was the misty loom that we 

 knew for Chatham Island, twenty-five miles away, 

 while close at hand were the shores of Hood with 



