2.
The boat had lain there for a long time, for it was half filled with sand, and the splintered wood had that weather-worn appearance due to long exposure to the elements.

In the stern-sheets I found a rusty ten-gauge shot-gun and a sailor's sheath-knife broken short across and so rusted as to be almost unrecognizable.
"They got away," I said cheerfully; but I felt a sinking at the heart and seemed to divine the presence of bleached bones somewhere on that beach.
I did not wish Maud's spirits to be dampened by such a find, so I turned seaward again with our boat and skirted the north-eastern point of the island.

There were no beaches on the southern shore, and by early afternoon we rounded the black promontory and completed the circumnavigation of the island.

I estimated its circumference at twenty-five miles, its width as varying from two to five miles; while my most conservative calculation placed on its beaches two hundred thousand seals.

The island was highest at its extreme south-western point, the headlands and backbone diminishing regularly until the north-eastern portion was only a few feet above the sea.