An hour before day, I waked my sons to assist me in removing the bees to
the new abode I had prepared for them. I commenced by plastering up the
entrance to their present dwelling with clay, leaving only room to admit
the bowl of my pipe. This was necessary, because I had neither masks nor
gloves, as the regular bee-takers have. I then began to smoke briskly,
to stupify the bees. At first we heard a great buzzing in the hollow,
like the sound of a distant storm: the murmur ceased by degrees, and a
profound stillness succeeded, and I withdrew my pipe without a single
bee appearing. Fritz and I then, with a chisel and small axe, made an
opening about three feet square, below the bees’ entrance. Before we
detached this, I repeated the fumigation, lest the noise and the fresh
air should awake the bees; but there was no fear of such a thing,—they
were quite stupified. We removed the wood, and through this opening
beheld, with wonder and admiration, the work of this insect nation.
There was such a store of wax and honey, that we feared we should not
have vessels to contain it. The interior of the tree was filled with the
honeycombs; I cut them carefully, and placed them in the gourds the boys
brought me. As soon as I had made a little space, I placed the upper
comb, on which the bees were hanging in clusters, in the new hive, and
put it on the plank prepared for it; I then descended with the rest of
the honeycomb, and filled a cask with it, which I had previously washed
in the stream; this we covered with sailcloth and planks, lest the
bees, attracted by the smell, should come to claim their own. We left
out some comb for a treat at dinner, and my wife carefully put by
the rest.
To prevent the bees returning to their old abode, we placed some burning
tobacco in the hollow, the smell and fumes of which drove them from the
tree, when they wished to enter; and, finally, they settled in the new
hive, where the queen bee, doubtless, had fixed herself.
We now began our work; we emptied the cask of honey into a large boiler,
except a little reserved for daily use; we added a little water, placed
the boiler on a slow fire, and reduced it to a liquid mass; this was
strained through a bag into the cask, and left standing all night to
cool. The next morning the wax had risen to the top, and formed a hard
and solid cake, which we easily removed; and beneath was the most pure
and delicious honey. The barrel was then carefully closed, and placed in
a cool place. We now proceeded to examine the interior of the tree. I
took a long pole, and tried the height from the window I had made; and
tied a stone to a string to sound the depth. To my surprise, the pole
penetrated without resistance to the very branches where our dwelling
was, and the stone went to the roots. It was entirely hollow, and I
thought I could easily fix a winding staircase in this wide tunnel. It
would seem, that this huge tree, like the willow of our country, is
nourished through the bark, for it was flourishing in luxuriant beauty.
We began by cutting a doorway, on the side facing the sea, of the size
of the door we had brought from the captain’s cabin, with its
framework, thus securing ourselves from invasion on that side. We then
cleansed, and perfectly smoothed the cavity, fixing in the middle the
trunk of a tree about ten feet high, to serve for the axis of the
staircase. We had prepared, the evening before, a number of boards from
the staves of a large barrel, to form our steps. By the aid of the
chisel and mallet, we made deep notches in the inner part of our tree,
and corresponding notches in the central pillar; I placed my steps in
these notches, riveting them with large nails; I raised myself in this
manner step after step, but always turning round the pillar, till we got
to the top. We then fixed on the central pillar another trunk of the
same height, prepared beforehand, and continued our winding steps. Four
times we had to repeat this operation, and, finally, we reached our
branches, and terminated the staircase on the level of the floor of our
apartment. I cleared the entrance by some strokes of my axe. To render
it more solid, I filled up the spaces between the steps with planks, and
fastened two strong cords from above, to each side of the staircase, to
hold by. Towards different points, I made openings; in which were placed
the windows taken from the cabin, which gave light to the interior, and
favoured our observations outside.
The construction of this solid and convenient staircase occupied us
during a month of patient industry; not that we laboured like slaves,
for we had no one to constrain us; we had in this time completed several
works of less importance; and many events had amused us amidst our toil.
A few days after we commenced, Flora produced six puppies; but the
number being too large for our means of support, I commanded that only a
male and female should be preserved, that the breed might be
perpetuated; this was done, and the little jackal being placed with the
remainder, Flora gave it the same privileges as her own offspring. Our
goats also, about this time, gave us two kids; and our sheep some lambs.
We saw this increase of our flock with great satisfaction; and for fear
these useful animals should take it into their heads to stray from us,
as our ass had done, we tied round their necks some small bells we had
found on the wreck, intended to propitiate the savages, and which would
always put us on the track of the fugitives.
The education of the young buffalo was one of the employments that
varied our labour as carpenters. Through the incision in his nostrils, I
had passed a small stick, to the ends of which I attached a strap. This
formed a kind of bit, after the fashion of those of the Hottentots; and
by this I guided him as I chose; though not without much rebellion on
his part. It was only after Fritz had broken it in for mounting, that we
began to make it carry. It was certainly a remarkable instance of
patience and perseverance surmounting difficulties, that we not only
made it bear the wallets we usually placed on the ass, but Ernest, Jack,
and even little Francis, took lessons in _horsemanship_, by riding him,
and, henceforward, would have been able to ride the most spirited horse
without fear; for it could not be worse than the buffalo they had
assisted to subdue.
In the midst of this, Fritz did not neglect the training of his young
eagle. The royal bird began already to pounce very cleverly on the dead
game his master brought, and placed before him; sometimes between the
horns of the buffalo, sometimes on the back of the great bustard, or the
flamingo; sometimes he put it on a board, or on the end of a pole, to
accustom it to pounce, like the falcon, on other birds. He taught it to
settle on his wrist at a call, or a whistle; but it was some time before
he could trust it to fly, without a long string attached to its leg, for
fear its wild nature should carry it from us for ever. Even the indolent
Ernest was seized with the mania of instructing animals. He undertook
the education of his little monkey, who gave him sufficient employment.
It was amusing to see the quiet, slow, studious Ernest obliged to make
leaps and gambols with his pupil to accomplish his instruction. He
wished to accustom Master Knips to carry a pannier, and to climb the
cocoa-nut trees with it on his back; Jack and he wove a small light
pannier of rushes, and fixed it firmly on his back with three straps.
This was intolerable to him at first; he ground his teeth, rolled on the
ground, and leaped about in a frantic manner, trying in vain to release
himself. They left the pannier on his back night and day, and only
allowed him to eat what he had previously put into it. After a little
time, he became so accustomed to it, that he rebelled if they wished to
remove it, and threw into it everything they gave him to hold. He was
very useful to us, but he obeyed only Ernest, who had very properly
taught him equally to love and fear him.
Jack was not so successful with his jackal; for, though he gave him the
name of _“The Hunter,”_ yet, for the first six months, the carnivorous
animal chased only for himself, and, if he brought anything to his
master, it was only the skin of the animal he had just devoured; but I
charged him not to despair, and he continued zealously his instructions.
During this time I had perfected my candle manufacture; by means of
mixing the bees’ wax with that obtained from the candle-berry, and by
using cane moulds, which Jack first suggested to me, I succeeded in
giving my candles the roundness and polish of those of Europe. The wicks
were for some time an obstacle. I did not wish to use the small quantity
of calico we had left, but my wife happily proposed to me to substitute
the pith of a species of elder, which answered my purpose completely.
I now turned myself to the preparation of the caoutchouc, of which we
had found several trees. I encouraged the boys to try their ingenuity in
making flasks and cups, by covering moulds of clay with the gum, as I
had explained to them. For my part, I took a pair of old stockings, and
filled them with sand for my mould, which I covered with a coating of
mud, and left to dry in the sun. I cut out a pair of soles of buffalo
leather, which I first hammered well, and then fastened with small tacks
to the sole of the stocking, filling up the spaces left with the gum, so
as to fix it completely. Then, with a brush of goats hair, I covered it
with layer upon layer of the elastic gum, till I thought it sufficiently
thick. It was easy after this to remove the sand, the stocking, and the
hardened mud, to shake out the dust, and I had a pair of waterproof
boots, without seam, and fitting as well as if I had employed an English
shoemaker. My boys were wild with joy, and all begged for a pair; but I
wished first to try their durability, compared with those of buffalo
leather. I began to make a pair of boots for Fritz, using the skin drawn
from the legs of the buffalo we had killed; but I had much more
difficulty than with the caoutchouc. I used the gum to cover the seams,
so that the water might not penetrate. They were certainly not elegant
as a work of art, and the boys laughed at their brother’s awkward
movements in them; but their own productions, though useful vessels,
were not models of perfection.
We then worked at our fountain, a great source of pleasure to my wife
and to all of us. We raised, in the upper part of the river, a sort of
dam, made with stakes and stones, from whence the water flowed into our
channels of the sago-palm, laid down a gentle declivity nearly to our
tent, and there it was received into the shell of the turtle, which we
had raised on some stones of a convenient height, the hole which the
harpoon had made serving to carry off the waste water through a cane
that was fitted to it. On two crossed sticks were placed the gourds that
served us for pails, and thus we had always the murmuring of the water
near us, and a plentiful supply of it, always pure and clean, which the
river, troubled by our water-fowl and the refuse of decayed leaves,
could not always give us. The only inconvenience of these open channels
was, that the water reached us warm and unrefreshing; but this I hoped
to remedy in time, by using bamboo pipes buried in the earth. In the
mean time, we were grateful for this new acquisition, and gave credit to
Fritz, who had suggested the idea.
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