Also Farrell refused
to budge until he had built his bonfire. When this was done we had
another pretty fierce quarrel because, tired of waiting, I took a
humour to punish him by making him wait in his turn while I did some
tailoring. . . . No: we didn't dress in goatskins. There were no
goats. But I had visions of piecing up a rabbit-skin coat and, in
the meantime, of cutting up the boat's sail into drawers and jumpers,
our clothes by this time being worse than a disgrace. But I believe
that I held out chiefly to annoy him; and, having annoyed him
sufficiently, I gave way to his final argument--that our boots were
wearing out fast and, if we didn't make the expedition at once,
likely enough we never should.
"So we started on what proved to be a two days' tramp, and thereby
came pretty near to wrecking ourselves.
"The third cone, which--in that clear atmosphere--seemed to stand
close behind the second, turned out to be separated from it by a good
five miles as the crow flies. But on the north-western shore the sea
had breached the reefs and swept in to form a salt lagoon in the
great hollow, so that we had to fetch a circuit of at least seven
miles to the southward, avoiding a tangle of forest in which the
lagoon ended, and clambering along a volcanic ridge with the sea
often sheer on our right.
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