The Island Home | Page 5

western ocean with a rich vermilion glow. The smooth white beach before us, upon which the long-rolling waves broke in even succession, retired in a graceful curve to the right and was broken on the left by the wooded point already mentioned.
As you looked inland, the undulating surface of the island, rising gradually from the shore, and covered with the wild and luxuriant vegetation of the tropics, delighted the eye by its beauty and variety. The noble Bread-fruit tree--its arching branches clothed with its peculiarly rich and glossy foliage; the elegantly shaped Casuarina, the luxuriant Pandanus, and the Palms, with their stately trunks, and green crests of nodding leaves, imparted to the scene a character of oriental beauty.
"Why do they call so lovely a spot as this a desert island, I wonder?" exclaimed Johnny, after gazing around him a few moments in silence.
"Did you ever hear of a desert island that wasn't a lovely spot!" answered Max. "Why, your regular desert island should combine the richest productions of the temperate, torrid, and frigid zones--a choice selection of the fruits, flowers, vegetables, and animal; of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This would by no means come up to the average standard. I doubt if you could find upon it so much as a goat or a poll-parrot much less an `onager,' a buffalo, or a boa-constrictor, some of which at least are indispensable to a desert island of any respectability."
"Why, then, do they call such delightful places desert islands!" repeated Johnny. "I always thought a desert was a barren wilderness, where there was nothing to be seen but sand, and rocks, and Arabs."
"I believe they are more properly called desolate islands," said Arthur; "and that seems proper enough; for even this island with all its beauty, is supposed to be uninhabited, and it would be a very lonely and desolate home. Would you like to live here, Johnny, like Robinson Crusoe, or the Swiss family?"
"Not all alone, like Robinson Crusoe. O no! that would be horrible; but I think we might all of us together live here beautifully a little while, if we had plenty of provisions, and plenty of arms to defend ourselves against the savages; and then of course we should want a house to live in, too."
"Nonsense," said Max, "what should we want of provisions?--the sea is full of fish, and the forest of birds; the trees are loaded with fruit; there are oysters and other shell-fish in the bays, and no doubt there are various roots, good for food, to be had by digging for them. As to a house, we might sleep very comfortably, in such weather as this, under these Tournefortias, and never so much as think of taking cold; or we could soon build a serviceable hut, which would be proof against sun and rain, of the trunks and boughs of trees, with a thatch of palm-leaves for a roof. Then in regard to arms, of course, if it should be our fate to set up for desert islanders, we should be well supplied in that line. I never heard of any one, from Robinson Crusoe down, being cast away on a desert island, without a good store of guns, pistols, cutlasses, etcetera, etcetera. Such a thing would be contrary to all precedent, and is not for a moment to be dreamed of."
"But we haven't any arms," said Johnny, "except those old rusty cutlasses that Spot put into the yawl, and if we should be cast away, or left here, for instance, where should we get them from?"
"O, but we are not cast away yet," replied Max. "This is the way the thing always happens. When people are cast away, it is in a ship, of course."
"Why, yes; I suppose so," said Johnny, rather doubtfully. "Well--the ship is always abundantly supplied with every thing necessary to a desert island life; she is driven ashore; the castaways--the future desert islanders--by dint of wonderful good fortune, get safely to land; the rest of course are all drowned, and so disposed of; then, in due time, the ship goes to pieces, and every thing needful is washed ashore and secured by the islanders--that's the regular course of things--isn't it, Arthur!"
"Yes, I believe it is, according to the story-books, which are the standard sources of information on the subject."
"Or sometimes," pursued Max, "the ship gets comfortably wedged in between two convenient rocks, (which seem to have been designed for that special purpose), so that the castaways can go out to it on a raft, or float of some kind, and carry off every thing they want--and singularly enough, although the vessel is always on the point of going to pieces, that catastrophe never takes place, until every thing which can be of any use is secured."
"Do you suppose, Arthur,"