Near this was a pond, the water of which he had tasted and found it highly bituminous; and, making further researches, he had found at the bottom of a rocky ravine a very wonderful thing--a dark resinous fluid bubbling up in quite a fountain, which, however, fell down again as it rose, and hardly any overflowed.

It was like thin pitch.
Of course in another hour he was back there with a great pot, and half filled it.

It was not like water, it did not bubble so high when some had been taken; so he just took what he could get.

Pursuing his researches a little further he found a range of rocks with snowy summits apparently; but the snow was the guano of centuries.

He got to the western extremity of the island, saw another deep bay or rather branch of the sea, and on the other side of it a tongue of high land running out to sea.