94 
A CONVINCING ARGUMENT. 
various wild animals, we tliouglit it better to be pre- 
pared. 
Upon landing, we hauled up the boat above high-water 
mark, after which Stevens gave orders for all hands to be 
back by sunset, and cautioned them to keep together as 
much as possible, as there were knoAvn to be both pan- 
thers and tigers in the jungle of those large islands. He 
ended by pointing out the tracks he had seen in the 
morning, and repeating his caution in regard to their keep- 
ing company. The sight of those huge hollows, which 
had evidently been imprinted since the last tide, caused 
some of them to glance back at the schooner as they fol- 
lowed a small path that took them through the jungle to 
the opposite beach; the sight of the tracks had had the 
desired eftect; they kept as close together as the nature 
of the path would admit. 
We now started for a point of the island that was 
about two miles oft^ keeping upon the hard sand of the 
beach, and, with the exception of a few projecting points 
of rock that caused us to wade through the water, 
had a cool and shady walk. At the end of a mile we 
crossed a running stream of cool, fresh water, and, after 
rounding the point, came upon another. This latter 
oozed through the sand on our right, and caused us to 
ascend the elevation to see where it came from. We 
found a beautiful little pond, into the upper end of w^hich 
the waters of the low back-land emptied and subse- 
quently worked their way through the sandbank into 
the sea. 
The beach of this pond was of a dark-blue sand, and 
its inner banks were of a soft aii^ velvet-like turf; the 
