The inhabitant of San Ambrosio shall be indebted to him for an alleviation of his sorrows; for companionship in them.

What is there visionary about this hope?
Had he not already conceived the project of preparing a barque to explore that unknown coast?
God seems to encourage his design, by sending him at once this double manna for the body and soul, the _porro_, which will suffice for his nourishment, and this writing, which the wave has just brought, to impose on him a duty.
He immediately sets himself to the work, and obstacles are powerless to chill his generous excitement.

Of the vegetable productions of the island, the red cedar and myrtle are those which grow of the largest size;[1] but yet their trunks are not large enough to serve when hollowed out for a barque.

Well! he will construct a raft.
[Footnote 1: The _myrtus maximus_ attains 13 metres (a little more than 42 feet) in height.] He fells young trees, cuts off their branches, rolls them to the shore, on a platform of sand, which the waves reach at certain periods; he fastens them solidly together with a triple net-work of plaited leather, cords woven of the fibre of the aloe, supple and tough vines; he chooses another with diverging and horizontal roots, the habitual direction taken by all the large vegetables of this island, the sand of which is covered only by two feet of earth.

This shall be the mast.