at a distance as if they all lived
like bees in a hive.

As for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, useful, and
sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as I believe
was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces round on the outside,
as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close worked as a basket, in
panels or squares of thirty-two in number, and very strong, standing
about seven feet high; in the middle was another not above twenty-two
paces round, but built stronger, being octagon in its form, and in the
eight corners stood eight very strong posts; round the top of which he
laid strong pieces, knit together with wooden pins, from which he raised
a pyramid for a handsome roof of eight rafters, joined together very
well, though he had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made
himself, too, out of the old iron that I had left there. Indeed, this
fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had no
knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of wooden bellows to blow
the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work; and he formed out of the
iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer upon: in this manner he made
many things, but especially hooks, staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges.
But to return to the house: after he had pitched the roof of his
innermost tent, he worked it up between the rafters with basket-work, so
firm, and thatched that over again so ingeniously with rice-straw, and
over that a large leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house
was as dry as if it had been tiled or slated. He owned, indeed, that the
savages had made the basket-work for him. The outer circuit was covered
as a lean-to all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay from
the thirty-two angles to the top posts of the inner house, being about
twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a walk within the
outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty feet wide.

The inner place he partitioned off with the same wickerwork, but much
fairer, and divided into six apartments, so that he had six rooms on a
floor, and out of every one of these there was a door: first into the
entry, or coming into the main tent, another door into the main tent, and
another door into the space or walk that was round it; so that walk was
also divided into six equal parts, which served not only for a retreat,
but to store up any necessaries which the family