ing fresh water flowing through it.
Daphne of course at once took the lead in the arrangements necessary for
what threatened to be a somewhat protracted sojourn; and by her
directions (it was singular how rapidly we were learning to make
ourselves mutually understood) I proceeded in the first instance to
clear away the grass, as far as possible, from a circular space some
fifteen feet in diameter, within a few yards of the bank of the stream.
Daphne, meanwhile, having borrowed Smellie's knife, went off into the
forest, from which she soon afterwards returned with a heavy load of
long tough pliant wands. Flinging these upon the ground, she next
busied herself in lighting a fire on the partially cleared space,
employing me to procure for her the necessary materials; and when a
large enough bonfire had been constructed, and the embers were all red-
hot, she spread them carefully over the whole of the space upon which I
had been working, and thus effectually destroyed what grass I had been
unable to remove. This done our next task was to cut all the wands or
wattles to a uniform length of about twenty-seven feet and point them at
both ends; after which, by driving the ends into the soil on opposite
sides of our cleared circle of ground, we soon had complete the
framework of a hemi-spherical bee-hive-like structure. A second load of
wattles was, however, necessary to strengthen this framework to Daphne's
liking, and leaving poor Smellie for the nonce to take care of himself,
the pair of us set out to procure them. Daphne led me to a dense brake
wherein immense numbers of these wattles were to be found, and leaving
me to cut as many as I could carry, proceeded further afield in quest of
building material of another sort I had completed my task and was back
in camp preparing my load for use when Daphne returned; and this time
she came staggering in under a tremendous load of palm-leaves, which I
rightly guessed were to be used for thatch. So we toiled on during the
whole of that day, which, like the preceding, was intensely hot, and by
dusk our hut was so far complete as to be capable of affording us a
shelter during the succeeding night. By mid-day of the following day it
was quite finished; and an efficient shelter having thus been provided
for Smellie from the scorching rays of the sun, we were then in a
position to give him our undivided attention, of which he by that time
stood in most urgent need.

The ensuing fort