WHEN I rose from my bed the next day, I said to my wife: "Does it not
seem, my dear, as if God had led us to this place, and that we should do
wrong to leave it?"
"What you say may be quite true, so far as it goes," she said; "but I
must tell you that the mid-day heat is more than we can bear, and that
if we stay here we may have to keep watch at night, for there are, no
doubt, wild beasts of some kind that will find us out; and we should
not trust too much to our dogs, who may lose their lives in a fight with
them."
"I dare say you are right," said I; "but I do not yet see how we can
cross the stream. We shall first have to build a bridge."
The boys were now all out of their beds; and while my wife went to milk
the cow and cook some food, I made my plans known to them. They were all
glad when they heard that we were to leave, and each said he, would help
to build the bridge.
The first thing to be done was to find some strong planks; and Fritz,
Ernest, and I went down to the shore, and got in the boat, which the
tide took down to the bay.
On a piece of land which lay to the left we could see some large dark
thing, round which flew a flock of sea gulls. We put up a sail and
caught a gust of wind which had sprung up, and this soon brought the
boat to the spot. We made no noise, but crept up the shore step by step,
and we got so near that Ernest brought down some of the birds with a
stick. Fritz was the first to find out that what the sea gulls had just
left was the huge fish he had shot in the sea. We cut off some rough
skin, which we thought might serve for files, and then went back to the
boat. I took a glance at the shore ere I got in, and to my great joy saw
some of the planks and spars from the wreck lay on the ground not far
off. Our next care was to bind these so as to make a raft, which we tied
to the stern of the boat, and then, by the use of our oars, soon made
our way up the stream to the place where the bridge was to be built. Our
young friends were glad to see us back so soon, and ran to meet us; Jack
had a cloth in his hand, in which was a store of cray fish and crabs
just caught in some of the nooks of a rock up the stream.
"Do not fail to give God thanks," said I, "that our lot has been cast
where we can pick up more food than we can eat."
It would take a long time to tell how we brought all the wood up to the
spot, built piers of stone in the stream, and put the planks one by one
in the place; it was late at night when we left off work, and once more
sought our tent.
The next day we saw the sun rise, and took our first meal in haste, for
we knew we should have a long day's toil. All the stores that we could
not take with us were laid by in the tent, the door of which was made
safe by a row of casks, that we put round it. My wife and Fritz soon led
the way; the cow went next; then the ass, with Frank on its back. Jack
led the goats, and on the back of one of them sat the ape. Ernest took
charge of the sheep, and I brought up the rear as chief guard. We took
care to cross the bridge one at a time, and found it bore our weight
well; but once or twice we thought the cow would step in the stream, or
fall off the boards, when she went to the sides to drink.
Just as we had left the bridge, Jack cried out, "Be quick! here is a
strange beast with quills as long as my arm." The dogs ran, and I with
them, and found a large POR-CU-PINE, in the grass. It made a loud noise,
and shot out its quills at the dogs, and made them bleed. At this Jack
shot at the beast, which fell dead on the spot. My wife's first thought
was to dress the wounds made by the quills, which had stuck in the
nose of one of the dogs, while the boys made haste to pluck some of the
quills from the skin of their strange prize.
At last our march came to an end, and I saw for the first time the great
trees that my wife had told me of. They were of vast size, and were, I
thought, fig trees. "If we can but fix our tent up there," I said, "we
shall have no cause to dread, for no wild beasts can reach us." We sent
Frank off to find sticks, with which to make a fire, and my wife made
some soup of the flesh of the beast we had slain, though we did not like
it so well as we did the ham and cheese we brought with us.