They ate them as oysters, and as they had a strong peppery taste, they were palatable without condiments of any sort.
Their hunger was thus appeased for the time, but not their thirst, which increased after eating these naturally-spiced molluscs.

They had then to find fresh water, and it was not likely that it would be wanting in such a capriciously uneven region.

Pencroft and Herbert, after having taken the precaution of collecting an ample supply of lithodomes, with which they filled their pockets and handkerchiefs, regained the foot of the cliff.
Two hundred paces farther they arrived at the cutting, through which, as Pencroft had guessed, ran a stream of water, whether fresh or not was to be ascertained.

At this place the wall appeared to have been separated by some violent subterranean force.

At its base was hollowed out a little creek, the farthest part of which formed a tolerably sharp angle.
The watercourse at that part measured one hundred feet in breadth, and its two banks on each side were scarcely twenty feet high.