“Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to the N. of N. N. E.

“Skeleton Island E. S. E. and by E.

“Ten feet.”

A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right before us, the anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high, adjoining on the north the sloping southern shoulder of the Spy-glass, and rising again toward the south into the rough, cliffy eminence called the Mizzenmast Hill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly with pine trees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a different species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbors, and which of these was the particular “tall tree” of Captain Flint could only be decided on the spot, and by the readings of the compass.