Page:The Swiss Family Robinson - 1851.djvu/77

66 strength of their wings. Few birds have so many advantages"

My boys occupied themselves in binding their captive and dressing his wound; while I sought some of the canes which had done flowering, to cut off the hard ends, to point my arrows. These are used by the savages of the Antilles. I then selected the highest canes I could meet with, to assist me in measuring, by a geometrical process, the height of the tree. Ernest took the canes, I had the wounded flamingo, and Fritz carried his own game. Very loud were the cries of joy and astonishment at our approach. The boys all hoped the flamingo might be tamed, of which I felt no doubt; but my wife was uneasy, lest it should require more food than she could spare. However, I assured her, our new guest would need no attention, as he would provide for himself at the river·side, feeding on small fishes, worms, and insects. His wounds I dressed, and found they would soon be healed; I then tied him to a stake, near the river, by a cord long enough to allow him to fish at his pleasure, and, in fact, in a few days, he learned to know us, and was quite domesticated. Meantime, my boys had been trying to measure the tree with the long canes I had brought, and came laughing to report to me, that I ought to have got them ten times as long to reach even the lowest branches. "There is a simpler mode than that," said I, "which geometry teaches us, and by which the highest mountains can be measured."

I then showed the method of measuring heights by triangles and imaginary lines, using canes of different lengths and cords instead of mathematical