noon
To this species of medical treatment , however , I would by no means accede , much as he insisted upon it ; and so we partook of our usual morsel , and silently resumed our journey . It was now the fourth day since we left Nukuheva , and the gnawings of hunger became painfully acute . We were fain to pacify them by chewing the tender bark of roots and twigs , which , if they did not afford us nourishment , were at least sweet and pleasant to the taste . Our progress along the steep watercourse was necessarily slow , and by noon we had not advanced more than a mile . It was somewhere near this part of the day that the noise of falling waters , which we had faintly caught in the early morning , became more distinct ; and it was not long before we were arrested by a rocky precipice of nearly a hundred feet in depth , that extended all across the channel , and over which the wild stream poured in an unbroken leap . On each hand the walls of the ravine presented their overhanging sides both above and below the fall , affording no means whatever of avoiding the cataract by taking a circuit round it . ` What 's to be done now , Toby ? '