Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/120

86 throw sticks, or stones over one of these, my intention being to construct a rope-ladder if we could once succeed in getting a string across a strong bough.

Finding we could not succeed in that way, I resolved other schemes in my mind, and meantime went with Jack and Fritz to a small brook close by, where I showed them how to place the skins to steep and soften in the water, with stones placed on them to keep them beneath the surface.

When dinner was over, I prepared our night quarters. I first slung our hammocks from the roots of the tree, which meeting above us, formed an arched roof, then covering the whole with sail-cloth, we made a temporary tent, which would at least keep off the night damps and noxious insects.

Leaving my wife engaged in making a set of harness for the ass and cow, whose strength I intended to employ the following day in drawing the beams up to our tree, I walked down with Fritz and Ernest to the beach to look for wood suitable for building our new abode, and also to discover, if possible, some light rods to form a ladder. For some time we hunted in vain, nothing but rough drift wood was to be seen, utterly unfit for our purpose. Ernest at length pointed out a quantity of bamboos half buried in the sand. These were exactly what I wanted, and stripping them of their leaves I cut them into lengths of about five feet each; these I bound in bundles to carry to the tree, and then began to look about for some slight reeds to serve as arrows.

I presently saw what I required in a copse at a little distance. We advanced cautiously lest the thicket should contain some wild beast or venomous serpent. Juno rushed ahead; as she did so a flock of flamingoes, which had been quietly feeding, rose in the air. Fritz instantly firing brought a couple of the birds to the ground, the rest of the squadron sailing away in perfect order, their plumage continually changing, as they flew, from beautiful rose to pure white, as alternately their snowy wings and rosy