I had no more doubt in my own mind, by this time, of it's being the fellow's intended "hermitage," than I had of it's being the same White-water Island I had heard of myself, or the spot which Jones seemed to know so well: 'twas likely the foremast-man had got inkling of it somewhat in the way I did; and lying, as it happened to do, between no less than three channels which the Indiaman might take, after dodging us in this fashion round the long cluster of the Maldives, she couldn't make north-westward again for the open sea, without setting Foster and his mates pretty well upon their trip. Indeed, if she were to eastward of the chain at present, as I was greatly inclined to believe, the course of the breeze made it impossible for her to do otherwise; but there was one thing always kept lurking about my mind, like a cover to something far worse that I didn't venture to dwell upon--namely, that Captain Finch might get wind of their purpose, and drive them on another tack by knocking it on the head, either at the time or beforehand, without the courage to settle _them_. Nothing in the world would have pleased me better than to pounce upon ugly Harry, at his first breakfast ashore here; but the bare horizon, and the quiet look of the island since ever we hove in sight of it, showed this wasn't to be. At any rate, however, I was bent on seeing how the land lay, and what sort of a place it was; so accordingly, as soon as the hands had got breakfast, Westwood and I at once pulled ashore with a boat's-crew well armed, to overhaul it. We found the sandy beach covered, for a good way up, with a frothy slime that, no doubt, came from the water on that side, with ever so many different kinds of blubber, sea-jelly, star-fish, and shell; while the rocky edge round to windward was hung with weed that made the blocks below it seem to rise out of every surge, like green-headed white-bearded mermen bathing. Glad enough we were to get out of the queer sulphury smell all this stuff gave out in the heat--letting the men take every one his own way into the bushes, which they enjoyed like as many schoolboys, and making, ourselves, right for the highest point. Here we saw over, through the cocoa-nut trees and wild trailing-plants below, down upon a broad bushy level toward the reefs. It was far the widest way of the island; indeed making it apparently several miles to go round the different points; and as the men were to hold right to windward, and meet again after beating the entire ground, Westwood and I struck fair through amongst the tangle of wood, to see the flat below. We roused out a good many small birds and parroquets, and several goats could be noticed looking at us off the grassy bits of crag above the trees, though they didn't seem to know what we were. As for most of the wood, it was mainly such bushes and brush as thrive without water, with a bright green flush of grass and plants after the rain at the monsoon, the prickly pear creeping over the sandy parts, till we came on a track where some spring or other apparently oozed down from the height, soaking in little rank spots amongst the ground leaves, with here and there a small rusty plash about the grass-blades, as if there were tar or iron in it. Here there were taller trees of different kinds on both sides, dwindling off into the lower bush, while, to my surprise, some of them were such as you'd never have expected to meet with on an island of the size, or so far off the land--bananas, mangoes, a shaddock or two, and a few more, common enough in India; though here they must evidently have been planted, the cocoas being the only sort natural to the place--and of them there were plenty below. Suddenly it led down into a shady hollow, out of sight of the sea altogether, where we came on what seemed to have been a perfect garden some time or other; there were two or three large broad-leaved shaddock trees, and one or two others, with a heap of rubbish in the midst of the wild Indian corn and long grass; some broken bamboo stakes standing, besides a piece of plank scattered here and there about the bushes. Right under the shade of the trees was a hole like the mouth of a draw-well, more than brimful at the time with the water from the spring; for, owing to the late rains, it made a pool close by the side, and went trickling away down amongst the brushwood. Every twig and leaf grew straight up or out, save in a narrow track toward the rising ground--no doubt made by the goats, as we noticed the prints of their hoofs on the wet mud. 'Twas evident no human being had been there for heaven knew how long; since, by the care that had been taken with the place, it was probably the only spring in the island--perhaps for leagues and leagues round, indeed.