We had had so little flesh-meat hitherto that we had not felt the lack of utensils, such as knives and forks; for bread-fruit needed nothing but our fingers, and eggs we always boiled hard. But now that we had the means of procuring flesh, I began to think of knives and forks and other things which we commonly use at home, though I have been told that our forefathers employed nothing but their fingers up to not so very long ago. Seeing that we should not be able for a few days to take up our work on the new hut, while Billy was recovering of his wounds, I thought it a fair opportunity to provide ourselves with articles of this sort if we could. We had no lack of material for handles, and it was not a very hard matter to shape a two-pronged fork of wood with the axe; but it was different with the knives, since we had nothing that would serve for blades except flints. However, by searching about the hillside I found several thin and fairly flat pieces of flint which we contrived to split still thinner and to sharpen by continually grinding them against the rocks, and when we had fixed them into handles which we made of the hollow shoots of a certain tree, we had knives, clumsy indeed, and not very sharp, but good enough to sever the limbs of the animals we killed for food, and also to part the meat into pieces when it was cooked.
Salt and Water
This same matter of meat put it into our heads to get salt for ourselves, and fresh water; for neither could we relish the food without the one nor quench our thirst without the other, cocoa-nut juice after pork having very disagreeable effects. We got water from the sea in some of the shallow pans that I had made, and found that by leaving these exposed the water in course of time evaporated, leaving a very rough and common kind of salt behind, and mixed with other substances. As for fresh water, we found when we boiled water from the lake, and allowed it to stand till it cooled and then poured it off, that it almost wholly lost the sulphurous taste, and we could drink it without hurt, which was a great comfort to us. We also put some of our pans out when rain fell, which happened pretty often, so that I have forgot to mention it; and with our fare thus enlarged, and being provided with conveniences that we had not dreamt of at first, our lot was much improved; and indeed we only wanted some means of replenishing our wardrobe to be set up for life.
What with one thing and another, I think near a month must have passed before we returned to our work on the big hut. There may be some who will blame us for this dilatoriness, and say that we ought to have continued on one task until it was finished; but I will say to them that if we had done so we might not only have fallen ill for want of change in our food, but we might have starved in the winter through not laying up a store; and besides, these critics have never been, I dare say, alone upon a desolate island. However, we did go back to our work, and the four corner posts being set up, as I have said, we had next to build the walls, which we did in the following manner.
The Hut