Nat the Naturalist Part 44

The savages then had taken nothing but our boat, and the next thing was to set to work to construct another, for my uncle said he should not feel satisfied to stay where we were longer, without some means of retreat being ready for an emergency.

Before lying down we managed to ask Ebo what he thought of our being able to build a canoe that would carry us and our luxuries. For reply he laughed, pointed to our axes and to the trees, as if to say, What a foolish question when we have all the material here!

I was so wearied, and slept so heavily, that I had to be awakened by my uncle long after the sun was up.

"Come, Nat," he said, "I want you to make a fire. Ebo has gone off somewhere."

I made the fire, after which we had a hasty breakfast, and then worked hard at skin making--preserving all our specimens.

The day glided by, but Ebo did not come, and feeling no disposition to collect more, in fact not caring now to fire, we had a look round to see which would be the most likely place to cut down a tree and begin building a boat.

"It is lucky for us, Nat," said my uncle, "that Ebo belongs to a nation of boat-builders. Perhaps he has gone to search for a suitable place and the kind of wood he thinks best; but I wish he would come."

Night fell and no Ebo. The next morning he was not there; and as day after day glided by we set ourselves to work to search for him, feeling sure that the poor fellow must have fallen from some precipice and be lying helpless in the forest. But we had no success, and began to think then of wild beasts, though we had seen nothing large enough to be dangerous, except that worst wild beast of all, savage man.

Still we searched until we were beginning to conclude that he must have been seen by a pa.s.sing canoe whose occupants had landed and carried him off.

"I don't think they would, uncle," I said, though; "he is too sharp and cunning. Why, it would be like seeking to catch a wild bird to try and get hold of Ebo, if he was out in the woods."

"Perhaps you are right, Nat," said my uncle. "There is one way, though, that we have never tried, I mean over the mountain beyond where you shot that last bird. To-morrow we will go across there and see if there are any signs of the poor fellow. If we see none then we must set to work ourselves to build a canoe or hollow one out of a tree, and I tremble, Nat, for the result."

"Shall we be able to make one big enough to carry our chests, uncle?"

"No, Nat, I don't expect it. If we can contrive one that will carry us to some port we must be satisfied. There I can buy a boat, and we must come back for our stores."

We devoted the next two days to a long expedition, merely using our guns to procure food, and reluctantly allowing several splendid birds to escape.

But our expedition only produced weariness; and footsore and worn out we returned to our hut, fully determined to spend our time in trying what we could contrive in the shape of a boat, falling fast asleep, sad at heart indeed, for in Ebo we felt that we had lost a faithful friend.

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 sh.o.r.e 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."

"Exactly, my boy. But it did not, so we must set to work at once and see what we can do. Now what do you say? How are we to make a boat?"

"I've been thinking about it a great deal, uncle," I said, "and I was wondering whether we could not make a bark canoe like the Indians."

"A bark canoe, eh, Nat?"

"Yes, uncle. I've seen a model of one, and it looks so easy."

"Yes, my boy, these things do look easy; but the men who make them, savages though they be, work on the experience of many generations. It took hundreds of years to make a good bark canoe, Nat, and I'm afraid the first manufacturers of that useful little vessel were drowned. No, Nat, we could not make a canoe of that kind."

"Then we must cut down a big tree and hollow it out, uncle, only it will take a long time."

"Yes, Nat, but suppose we try the medium way. I propose that we cut down a moderately-sized tree, and hollow it out for the lower part of our boat, drive pegs all along the edge for a support, and weave in that a basket-work of cane for the sides as high as we want it."

"But how could we make the sides watertight, uncle?" I said; "there seem to be no pine-trees here to get pitch or turpentine."

"No, Nat, but there is a gum to be found in large quant.i.ties in the earth, if we can discover any. The Malays called it _dammar_, and use it largely for torches. It strikes me that we could turn it into a splendid varnish, seeing what a hard resinous substance it is. Ebo would have found some very soon, I have no doubt."

"Then I must find some without him, uncle," I said. "I shall go hunting for it whenever I am not busy boat-building."

He smiled at my enthusiasm, and after examining the skins to see that they were all dry and free from attacks of ants, we each took a hatchet and our guns, and proceeded along by the side of the sh.o.r.e in search of a stout straight tree that should combine the qualities of being light, strong, easy to work, and growing near the sea.

We quite came to the conclusion that we should have a great deal of labour, and only learn by experience which kind of tree would be suitable, perhaps having to cut down several before we found one that would do.

"And that will be bad, uncle," I said.

"It will cause us a great deal of labour, Nat," he replied smiling; "but it will make us handy with our hatchets."

"I did not mean that, uncle," I replied; "I was thinking of savages coming in this direction and seeing the chips and cut-down trees."

"To be sure, Nat, you are right. That will be bad; but as we are cut off so from the rest of the island, we must be hopeful that we may get our work done before they come."

We spent four days hunting about before we found a tree that possessed all the qualities we required. We found dozens that would have done, only they were far away from the sh.o.r.e, where it would have been very difficult to move our boat afterwards to the water's edge.

But the tree we selected offered us a thick straight stem twenty feet long, and it was so placed that the land sloped easily towards the sea, and it was sufficiently removed from the beach for us to go on with our work unseen.

We set to at once to cut it down, finding to our great delight as soon as we were through the bark that the wood was firm and fibrous, and yet easy to cut, so that after six hours' steady chopping we had made a big gap in the side, when we were obliged to leave off because it was dark.

We worked the next day and the next, and then my uncle leaned against it while I gave a few more cuts, and down it went with a crash amongst the other trees, to be ready for working up into the shape we required.

Next morning as soon as it was light we began again to cut off the top at the length we intended to have our boat, a task this which saved the labour of chopping off the branches. I worked hard, and the labour was made lighter by Uncle d.i.c.k's pleasant conversation. For he chatted about savage and civilised man, and laughingly pointed out how the latter had gone on improving.

"You see what slow laborious work this chipping with our axes is, Nat,"

he said one day, as we kept industriously on, "when by means of cross-cut saws and a circular saw worked by steam this tree could be soon reduced to thin boards ready for building our boat."

Birds came and perched near us, and some were very rare in kind, but we felt that we must leave them alone so as to secure those we had obtained, and we worked patiently on till at the end of a week the tree began to wear outside somewhat the shape of a boat, and it was just about the length we required.

It was terribly hard work, but we did not shrink, and at last, after congratulating ourselves upon having got so far without being interfered with by the savages, we had shouldered our guns and were walking back to the hut one evening when we caught sight of a black figure running across an opening, and we knew that our time of safety was at an end.