Chapter Twenty Five.
The Cabin by the Lake.
A Democrat in the Woods—Echo-vale and Lake Laicomo—The “Wild Frenchman” Discovered at last.
“A few firm stakes they planted in the ground,
Circling a narrow space, but large enow,
These strongly interknit they closed around
With basket-work of many a pliant bough.
The roof was like the sides; the door was low,
And rude the hut, and trimmed with little care,
For little heart had they to dress it now:
Yet was the humble structure fresh and fair.
And soon the inmates found that peace might sojourn there.”
It took us an entire week to complete the frame of our building, and this alone involved an amount and variety of labour which few of us had anticipated when we commenced it. One day was consumed in selecting, felling, and trimming a tree, tall and straight enough to serve as a ridge-pole. We next had to get out some thirty rafters of hibiscus to support the roof. Then, as we had no nails, (Max’s ship with the hardware not having yet arrived), we were obliged to adopt the means used by the Polynesian builders for fastening the rafters to the ridge-pole and cross-pieces, which consists of tying them firmly in their places with sennit. To supply the place of sennit, we manufactured a quantity of cord from twisted hibiscus bark, which answered the purpose very well.
At length the skeleton of the house was completed. Twenty-seven strong posts, (including the three tall centre ones), deeply planted in the ground, supported the string pieces and the ridge-pole. Fifteen slender rafters, regularly placed at small intervals, descended from the ridge-pole to the eaves on either side, and the whole was firmly bound together with tough and durable withes of our own manufacture.
The thatching occupied another week, and but for Eiulo’s skill and dexterity, we should never have accomplished this nice and difficult operation, except after a very bungling and imperfect fashion. Arthur understood very well how it should be done, but his knowledge was theoretical rather than practical, while Eiulo had acquired considerable skill in the art, by building and thatching miniature houses in the woods, an amusement which he and his young playmates had often practised at home. The only thing now remaining to be done, was to make a number of coarse mats, with which to enclose the sides of the house—as far as in such a climate it is desirable to enclose them—together with an additional supply, ready to be put up in bad weather, on fastenings constructed for the purpose. But for this, there seemed to be no immediate necessity. The sides of the building were low, and the eaves extended two feet beyond them, and as we had an excellent roof above us, we considered ourselves tolerably prepared, even for rainy weather. However, we commenced manufacturing mats, in which, with the instruction and example of Arthur and Eiulo, we were tolerably successful; but we proceeded with this very much at our leisure. One or two brief showers, like that which had exerted so sudden an influence in hastening the commencement of our building scheme, afforded us the most satisfactory evidence of the good qualities of our roof, which did not admit a drop of rain. But at the same time we became aware of another defect in our house, as a dwelling in wet weather. We had no floor but the bare earth, and though Arthur had so levelled it, and protected it by a little trench and embankment, that no water from the adjacent grounds could reach us, except by the gradual process of saturation, still it was very damp after a severe rain. To remedy this, Arthur talked from time to time of making a floor of cement, which would dry to the hardness of stone, and through which the moisture from the ground could not penetrate. When asked where lime was to be obtained with which to make his cement he assumed an air of mystery, and merely said that there would be no difficulty on that score. One day, after we had got a large supply of mats completed, and ready for use, he again recurred to the subject of improving our floor, and explained that he intended to prepare his mortar or cement, from sand and lime, the latter of which was to be procured by burning coral rock in a pit. He prevailed upon Morton, Browne, and myself to set about digging a “lime-pit” in the gully beside Castle-hill, while he took Eiulo and Johnny with him in the boat, to go in search of a quantity of the sponge-shaped coral, which, he said, was the best adapted to his purpose.
Max pronounced the whole project a humbug, and refusing to have anything to do with it, equipped himself with club and cutlass, and started off on a solitary excursion towards the south-easterly part of the island, which we had not yet explored. He returned in the afternoon with a glowing account of the discoveries he had made, among which were a beautiful pond of fresh water, a stream flowing into it, and a waterfall.
In two days we completed a lime-pit of proper dimensions. Arthur and his assistants had in the same time collected and brought to the spot a sufficient quantity of coral rock; we then covered the bottom of the pit with fuel, and laid the coral, previously broken into small pieces, upon it. The pile was next kindled, and when the fuel was consumed, we found that the coral had yielded a supply of excellent lime, fine and beautifully white. Without going into further details, it is enough to say that the rest of Arthur’s plan was carried out with the same success. The cement was made, and a thick layer of it spread over the floor of the house, as evenly and smoothly as could well be done, with no better trowels than gigantic oyster-shells. In three days it was hard as marble, and our house was now as complete as we could make it. It had cost us a great deal of severe toil; we had found the construction of it no such holiday employment as we had imagined; but it was the fruit of our own ingenuity and perseverance, the work of our own hands, and we regarded it with much complacency. Johnny impartially compared it with the dwellings of I don’t know how many other desert islanders, and found it superior in some point to each and all of them.
Being now in a state of complete preparation, as we flattered ourselves, for all sorts of weather, we began to feel as though a regular out-and-out storm, would be rather a luxury than otherwise. These bright skies and sunny days were very well in their way, but it wasn’t in anticipation of them, that we had been planning and working for a month or more. There was no use at all for our model house in such fine weather; indeed, while it continued, our old lodgings under the green forest leaves and the star-light, were far preferable. It took full half a dozen of our sleeping-mats, (and we had but three apiece), laid upon the stony floor of our dwelling, to make a couch half as soft as those heaps of leaves, which we used to pile up beneath the trees for our beds, and which we could not now introduce into the house for fear of “making a litter.” The prudent citizen—who, having at the threatened approach of winter laid in a bountiful provision of wood and coal, put up his hall-stoves and his double windows, now feels quite ready, in the strength of anthracite and hickory, to snap his fingers in the face of Jack Frost, and bid him do his worst—is not more impatient to have the thermometer fall to the neighbourhood of zero, in order that he may realise the comforts he has paid for, than were we for the advent of such a storm, as would enable us to say to one another, “Ah! is it not fortunate that we have a roof over our heads? What should we do now, if we had not made timely preparation?”
Well, at last we had our wish. A shower came up one day, in the afternoon, which did not cease in half an hour, as the previous ones had done. On the contrary, when darkness came on the rain still continued falling steadily, with no sign of abatement. Johnny was in ecstasies. This was evidently no night for camping out; it was a night to justify all our expenditure of labour, in planning and perfecting our dwelling. We hung up every extra mat, and fastened them securely with the store of wooden pegs and pins prepared for that purpose. To be sure, we were in complete darkness, but then we were perfectly snug and comfortable; and what a luxury, to lie sheltered from the storm, and listen to the pattering of the rain upon the root and the dismal sound of the water dripping from the eaves!
The second morning after this rain-storm, which had so pleasantly tested the qualities of our dwelling, we started, under Max’s guidance, to make an excursion to that part of the island, to the south-east of Castle-hill, of which he had given so glowing an account. After half an hour’s toilsome march over uneven ground, we entered a grove, which, to Johnny’s great exultation, was composed almost entirely of bread-fruit trees. They grew with much regularity, at almost equal distances, so as to form broad straight avenues, overarched by a canopy of spreading branches and dark glossy leaves. Vistas of shapely diamond-chequered trunks stretched away in every direction, in long and shady perspective. Among the dense masses of foliage, hung a profusion of large globes, of a light-delicate green, or a golden yellow, the splendid fruit of this noblest and most stately tree of the tropics. The ripe and the unripe fruit hung side by side from the same branches, and Johnny could hardly be persuaded to postpone gathering a supply of it until our return. Our course had been upon the whole rather an ascending one, so that this grove must have occupied an elevated situation. The ground over which it extended was nearly level, with slight wave-like undulations. As we approached its eastern limit, Max told us to prepare ourselves for the most charming spectacle that we had ever beheld. He walked on before with the air of a cicerone when about to exhibit a chef d’oeuvre, and stood waiting and beckoning for us at the border of the grove. On joining him we found that he had scarcely exaggerated in his descriptions of the spot.
We stood at the top of a smooth and gradual descent. Before us lay a secluded valley, from which the land rose on every side, to about the elevation of the grove behind us. In some places it ascended in gentle slopes, in others by abrupt acclivities. In the bosom of the valley spread a little lake of oval form, fringed in some places with shrubbery, while in others, groups of casuarinas extended their long drooping boughs in graceful arches over the water. After pausing a moment we descended to the margin of the pond, which was so limpid that we could distinguish every pebble at the bottom. At the upper or northern end, and near the point at which we had come out of the grove, a small stream precipitated itself some fifteen feet down a rocky declivity, and fell into a circular basin a few yards in diameter. Overflowing this basin, it found its way into the lake by another descent of a few feet. Around the basin, and on both sides of the waterfall, were several curious columns of basalt, and irregular picturesque piles of basaltic rock. The plash of the water, falling into the rocky basin, was the only sound that broke the Sabbath-like silence that pervaded the valley. There was, or seemed to be, something unreal and dream-like about the scene, that made us pause where we stood, in silence, as though the whole were an illusion, which a word or a motion would dispel.
“How beautiful!” exclaimed Browne, at last, and a soft clear echo, like the voice of the tutelary spirit of the valley, answered, “Beautiful!”
“Hark!” cried Johnny, “what a charming echo. Listen again,” and he shouted “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah!” softly responded the echo, and almost in the same breath a harsh voice, apparently close at hand, and which was evidently not an echo, cried out, “Hillioh—oh!”
We started, and gazed around us, and at each other, in astonishment, but we could see nothing from which this strange exclamation could proceed.
“That,” said Johnny, in a trembling whisper, and seizing Browne’s hand, “that is the voice of the wild Frenchman I heard in the woods near Castle-hill.”
“Yes,” answered Max, gravely, “who knows but there are cannibals here? You had better be careful, Johnny, how you hurrah in the woods.” Max’s manner made me suspect that he possessed some clue to the mystery which the rest of us lacked.
“I don’t care,” answered Johnny, stoutly, while the apprehensive glances which he cast around on every side, hardly agreed with his valiant words, “I shall hurrah in spite of all the savages on the island.”
“Hillioh!—Hillioh!” yelled the same voice, more fiercely than before.
Max burst into a fit of laughter, when following the direction of his eye, we looked up, and espied an enormous parrot perched upon a purau branch, directly over our heads, from which he eyed us with a disdainful and truculent air.
“There’s your wild Frenchman at last, Johnny,” said Max, “I expect he’ll call us to account presently for our treatment of his hat.”
“Don’t give up de sheep!” screamed the parrot.
“Come,” said Max, “what’s the use of trying to talk English: it’s quite plain you’re a Parly-vous.”
“Vive l’empéreur!” shrieked the parrot.
“No doubt you can give us a song, monsieur,” pursued Max; “favour us with ‘Polly put the kettle on,’ s’il vous plait.”
The bird twisted his head round, as though giving earnest attention to what was said; then, after a moment, which from his wise look seemed to be occupied in profoundly considering the reasonableness of the request, he burst forth with—
“Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivée!”
Shrieking out the two lines as though they composed a single word. Apparently satisfied with this display of his accomplishments, he spread his wings, and flew heavily across the lake, alighting not far from the shore, whence we could hear him occasionally uttering a shrill cry.
“Do you see where the parrot is now?” inquired Morton of me, a moment afterwards.
“Yes, I see his green feathers among the foliage, but not very distinctly.”
“Unless I am much mistaken,” pursued he, “there is a shed or building of some kind among the trees, on the other side of the lake, where he has alighted.”
On shifting our ground a little, we could all perceive between the boughs of the trees, something, that did in fact look like a low wooden building, and after a moment’s consultation, it was agreed that Morton and Max should cross the stream, (which could easily be done where it poured into the lake), and reconnoitre, while the rest awaited their report.
By leaping from stone to stone, and wading occasionally for short distances, they picked their way to the other side, and presently disappeared among the casuarinas. After about fifteen minutes they returned to the shore, and called for us to come over, saying that they had discovered a building, which appeared, however, to have been long deserted. Browne took Johnny upon his back, and we forded the rapids as the others had done.
Following Max and Morton, we soon reached a kind of landing-place, half-way between the lake and the top of the ascent, in the centre of which was a low wooden building, surrounded by a rude fence of pointed stakes. Entering through a gate, hung upon leather hinges, we found ourselves in front of the hut. It appeared to be built of timber which had once composed part of a ship, and was put together with considerable skill. The yard was full of rank weeds, and damp masses of lichen and moss hung from the eaves of the house, and covered its roof. The door, which was furnished with a lock and brass-handle, was closed, but not fastened; we opened it, and entered a large square-room, lighted by four windows, two of which had evidently been taken from the stern of a vessel; the remaining two seemed to have once constituted the upper parts of sash-doors. These windows were well put into the sides of the house, and from the appearance of all the work about the room, I inferred that it had been done by persons accustomed to that kind of labour. A pine-table, which had lost half of one leg, and two chairs without backs, composed the entire furniture of this apartment. A rude shelf was fastened against the wall between two of the windows, upon which a number of earthen-ware dishes were arranged. A smaller apartment was partitioned off with rough boards from the first, with which it communicated by a simple opening or doorway, without any door.
In this second room were several low wooden frames, probably designed as bedsteads, ranged side by side, and a large chest stained or painted blue. In one corner stood a small square writing-table, of some dark-coloured wood, with several drawers. In another corner, Max discovered a rusty gridiron and sauce-pan, a small iron pot and a toasting-fork, upon which he pounced with the eagerness of a miser lighting upon hidden treasures. The chest was empty, but a small box, or till, fixed in one end of it, contained a number of vials, a cork-screw, a tin-canister, and a French Bible, upon the last of which Arthur seized with as much avidity as Max had evinced in appropriating the cooking utensils. Johnny pulled open the drawers of the little writing-table, and found a bunch of quills, a spool of green ribbon, a file of invoices and bills of lading, a bottle of ink, and about half a ream of letter-paper, which he declared was just what was wanted for the purpose of writing “our story.”
The place had a gloomy and deserted air, and we unanimously agreed that neither the dwelling nor its location was nearly as pleasant as our own at Castle-hill.
There were several articles which we wished to carry away with us, but we concluded to postpone this until a future visit. Max, however, having once laid hold of the gridiron, seemed extremely loath to part with it again, and, finally yielding to the irresistible fascination which it evidently had for him, he threw it over his shoulder as we started on our return, and brought it away with him. Having been fastidiously purified by repeated scourings and ablutions, it proved very useful in preparing our meals, of which fresh fish frequently formed the principal part.
In the evening, as we sat at the terraced top of Castle-hill, Johnny took seriously in hand the important business of finding appropriate names for the discoveries of the day.
The valley beyond the grove of bread-fruit, he concluded to call “Echo Vale.” For the lake itself, quite a variety of names was suggested, none of which, however, seemed to be entirely satisfactory. After puzzling over the subject a long while without any result, and working himself into quite a nervous and excited state, a happy thought seemed all at once to suggest itself and turning to Arthur, he eagerly demanded what was “the most beautiful lake in all the world?”
“Loch Katrine, to be sure!” said Browne; “some would say Loch Lomond, but that is the second.”
“Lake George!” cried Max, decisively.
“Lake Como, in Switzerland, is said to be, by the tourists and the poets,” answered Arthur, to whom the question had been more particularly addressed.
The last name seemed to please Johnny exceedingly, and after repeating it several times with approbation, he inquired of Arthur, “What it was that Olla, in the Cannibal story, called her pet wood-pigeon?”
“Lai-evi,” answered Arthur.
“And you said that meant Little Captive,” pursued Johnny with great animation, “and the ‘Lai’ means ‘little,’ I suppose?”
“Yes, ‘Lai’ is the diminutive.”
“Well, then, I have it at last! Our lake, though so small, is—”
“Quite a Como for its size,” interrupted Max, “and so it shall be called—”
“Lake Laicomo!” cried Johnny, exultingly.
I am thus particular in mentioning these names, chiefly for the benefit of all persons engaged in the preparation of new editions of the school geographies and atlases; and I take this opportunity, at Johnny’s especial request, to call their attention to the matter, in order that our island and its geographical dimensions may be accurately laid down and described in future works of the kind referred to.