. "Cheer up, my lad, and let's look our difficulties in the
face. That's the way to overcome them, I think."

"I feel better this morning, uncle," I said.

"Nothing like a good night's rest, Nat, for raising the spirits. This
loss of the boat and then of our follower, if he is lost, are two great
misfortunes, but we must bear in mind that before all this hardly
anything but success attended us."

"Except with the savages, uncle," I said.

"Right, Nat: except with the savages. Now let's go down to the shore
and have a good look out to sea."

We walked down close to the water, and having satisfied ourselves that
no canoes were in sight, we made a fire, at which our coffee was soon
getting hot, while I roasted a big pigeon, of which food we never seemed
to tire, the supply being so abundant that it seemed a matter of course
to shoot two or three when we wanted meat.

"I'd give something, Nat," said my uncle, as we sat there in the soft,
delicious sea air, with the sunshine coming down like silver rays
through the glorious foliage above our heads--"I'd give something, Nat,
if boat-building had formed part of my education."

"Or you had gone and learned it, like Peter the Great, uncle."

"Exactly, my boy. But it did not, so we must set to work at once and
see what we can do. Now what do you say? How are we to make a boat?"

"I've been thinking about it a great deal, uncle," I said, "and I was
wondering whether we could not make a bark canoe like the Indians."

"A bark canoe, eh, Nat?"

"Yes, uncle. I've seen a model of one, and it looks so easy."

"Yes, my boy, these things do look easy; but the men who make them,
savages though they be, work on the experience of many generations. It
took hundreds of years to make a good bark canoe, Nat, and I'm afraid
the first manufacturers of that useful little vessel were drowned. No,
Nat, we could not make a canoe of that kind."

"Then we must cut down a big tree and hollow it out, uncle, only it will
take a long time."

"Yes, Nat, but suppose we try the medium way. I propose that we cut
down a moderately-sized tree, and hollow it out for the lower part of
our boat, drive pegs all along the edge for a support, and weave in that
a basket-work of cane for the sides as high as we want it."

"But how could we make the sides watertight, uncle?" I said; "there
seem to be no pine-trees here to get pitch or turpentine."

"No, Nat, but there is a gum to be found in