Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/90

 grants. Our men began to clear a patch of land, by cutting down a number of pine trees, the almost exclusive natives of the wood, and, having selected a spot for the foundation, we placed four stems of trees in a parallelogram, having a deep notch in each end, mutually to fit and embrace each other. When the walls, by this repeated operation, were high enough, we laid on the rafters, and covered the roof with boughs of the fir, and the bark of the birch tree, filling the interstices with moss and mud. By practice, I became a very expert engineer, and with the assistance of thirty or forty men, I could build a very good house in a day.

We next cleared, by burning and rooting up, as much land as would serve to sustain the little colony for the ensuing season; and, having planted a crop of corn and potatoes, and given the settlers many articles useful in their new abode, we left them agreeably to our orders and to my great joy returned to dear Halifax