Hunger satisfied for the time-being, I set about making preparations for constructing my dwelling. Although in no need of protection from cold in this tropical climate, I remembered having read that it was not advisable to be without shelter at night, so I decided that my first task should be to construct a house, or a hut.
I first chose a clear place a little in among the palms, perhaps a dozen rods from the beach, and, as accurately as I could by pacing, I measured off an area ten feet square. Each corner I marked by driving down a short stick, and then went in search of four corner posts. After a little searching I found some straight trees about three inches in diameter, having smooth bark and with but few limbs, each tree forked about seven feet from the ground. After an hour's hard work, I succeeded in cutting down four of them with my knife; and after trimming off the branches and cutting off the tops, leaving ample forks, I dragged them to the site of lay dwelling. I next felled another pole which was cut in halves, leaving the butt end about four feet long. This I sharpened at the thickest end, and with it made holes about eighteen inches deep at each corner of the square to be occupied by my house.
Into each of these holes I set one of the forked corner posts, wedging it firmly with stones from the beach, driven solidly down all around it, filling in each with earth which I trod down firmly. Four long poles were now needed to rest one end in each of the upright forks, so as to form a frame, and I started away again, this time toward the brook, which I followed up stream. I had gone but a short distance when I came to a place where the stream widened into a broad pool. The water here was dark and apparently deep, and all around it, gracefully bending over the still depths, I found growing tall plants having small, narrow green leaves. The plants grew in clusters, and some of them were very tall, I judged from twenty-five to forty feet. I hurried forward with a view to ascertaining whether they would suit my purpose, when I immediately made a discovery which at once solved the question of obtaining an ample supply of material for building operations, both now and in the future; for the tall, graceful plants proved to be bamboos. I knew them from the descriptions I had read, and from the regular joints, just like those I had seen on the bamboo fishing rods at home.
I selected several of the bamboos, each being about two inches in diameter, and although I found them to be very hard, I managed to cut them down, and to trim off the branches and the tops. By making three trips I dragged the bamboos to my building site. Laying them along one side of the area to be occupied by the house, I found that they were nearly twenty feet long. Four of them I cut off to the required length. I then raised one on either side, one end of each pole resting in one of the forks of the uprights. A pole was then laid across each of the other sides, resting upon the poles supported by the forks, so that a sort of scaffold was formed, which needed only to be covered over to be complete.
I had worked so busily and had become so much interested that I scarcely noticed that the sun was already sinking behind the palm trees, and casting long shadows across the beach; so, as I was aware that darkness very quickly follows sunset in the tropics, I must make haste and provide a temporary shelter for the night before suspending work. I therefore cut the rest of the poles in halves and laid them across the two longer poles resting in the forks, thus forming a gridiron-like structure. With my knife I cut a large quantity of leafy branches from the shrubs that grew near at hand, and then went to the brook for an armful of wild canes. With this material I covered a portion of the scaffold, making quite a good shelter between myself and the sky.
As the sun sank lower and the shadows deepened, I felt a sense of loneliness steal over me, for the idea of spending the night alone, I knew not where, perhaps on an island, with the boundless ocean on one side, and a deep, unknown forest on the other which might conceal fierce wild animals, was not at all pleasing. But I must train myself to know no fear, and the sooner I began to school myself to this end, the better.
Although I felt sure I should not sleep with nothing to protect me and with no means of making a fire, I instinctively began to think of providing some sort of couch; and again I took my knife and cut a quantity of bushes which I piled in the form of a bed beneath the scaffold. I next cut several armfuls of the tall grass which grew all around and with it covered the couch of bushes. I now had an acceptable bed, so constructed that one end which was to serve as the head, was about a foot higher than the other.
By the time I had finished it was quite dark; but I still stood leaning against one of the corner uprights with my face turned toward the forest, hesitating what to do next, and instinctively listening for some new sound. There was no breeze stirring, and the sea lightly washed the sand with a low murmur which tended to increase my feeling of loneliness. Since sunset the air had become beautifully cool. For a long time I stood motionless.
The sounds of the night were about me; and once I started violently when I thought I heard a twig crack. Then I heard, apparently only a little distance away, a noise like a stone, thrown by some one, striking the ground; but, after the startled feeling had partly left me I reasoned that the noise was made by a ripened cocoanut falling from the tree. The indistinct notes of many insects, new and strange, filled the air, and one particularly noisy insect gave forth a sharp clipping sound like that made by shears in the hands of a barber. Sometimes a note like that of a bird varied the myriads of sounds. Feeling reassured, after a time, I cautiously lay down upon my couch, but still listening. How long I remained conscious I cannot say; but I must have been very weary from the excitement of the ship-wreck, the hardship of being cast ashore and the busy day's work.
CHAPTER V.