Chapter Forty Two.
An Experiment in Boat-Building.
“It is of no use to be down-hearted, Nat,” said my uncle the next morning. “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.”