WHEN I roused the next morning the first thought that came to me was about the building of the boat. It would be necessary to have a shed to work under, large enough to contain a boat, both for shelter from the rain and for shade from the pitiless tropical sun. The building of such a shed was therefore the first task. As a suitable shipyard I selected the side of the stream on the sands of the sea-beach, and far enough above tide to be safe from a possible storm. Here I put up eight posts in the sand. To get these posts (for they had to be hunted for among the fallen wood), to carry them one or two at a time for a distance ranging from half a mile to a mile and a half, and to set them up in holes dug at the proper distances apart, was a whole day’s work, and left me only time to overhaul my dry-salting before bed-time. I went over each piece of meat, rubbing it again with salt, and turning it the other side up, and finished by putting the weights on again as before. This salting and turning every day would be necessary for about two weeks, and then the meat would be ready for the smoke-house, which I would endeavor in the meantime to get ready to receive it.

The next day I spent getting poles for rafters, and lashing them together to form the roof of my workshop. Then a rain storm set in and lasted three days, during which I was practically confined to the house, and busied myself indoors with making an easy chair out of a dry stick of cedar that split readily into straight pieces. It was a pleasure to work in this soft, straight-grained, fragrant wood, and I made a good, strong, comfortable arm-chair, dowelling and cording the parts together, and framing a sort of base for it so that it would stand firm on the sand floor. I could now sit and read with comfort, or look at the gray, rainy sea as it stretched its misty plane away before my door. It was at this time that I began to keep an irregular sort of journal, entering my thoughts and doings from time to time as the enforced semi-idleness of rainy weather prompted me. Besides pencils and pens there was paper enough in my stock, wet and stained and wrinkled though it had been, to last me indefinitely.

As soon as the rain was over I took the first day to construct my provision and smoke-house, in order that I might store the meat in it. A doorway was cut from my living-room into this store-room, and I purposed fitting a tight door into it before smoking my pork. I busied myself after that on my work-shed until it was finished. This roof I covered with palm-leaves,—not leaves of the cocoanut-palm, but of the great, spreading fan-palm, a single one of which was often three or four feet in diameter. I had used these leaves in making my storehouse roof, and had secured a giant specimen in a horizontal position over my front door as a sort of porch, and to keep the sun out of the house when the door was open.

The work-shed when finished was about twenty-four feet long by ten feet wide, with a shed or single-pitch roof, at the upper side about eight feet, and at the lower side—which was toward the sea—about five feet from the ground. Underneath was the clean sand of the beach. I was now ready to begin the actual work of boat-building, and my first need was a supply of clay,—so great a quantity, in fact, as would take me several days of hard work to raft down the stream to the boat-shed.

You will see as I proceed what part this material was to play. After a great deal of labor, wading up and down the creek, digging, loading, rafting, and unloading, I at last accumulated a sufficient amount for my purpose in a great heap close to the boat-shed. I next proceeded to smooth the sand beneath the shed, and to compact it into a smooth, hard floor as follows: I took of perfectly dry clay several bushels in fragments, and crushed these to a fine dust; this dust I sprinkled evenly all over the sand floor to the depth of an inch or more, sprinkling and wetting the dust and the sand liberally with a bough dipped in the sea water. As the mixture grew dry I trampled it with my naked feet until it was smooth and firm, sprinkling a little dry sand on the surface and trampling it in. The result was a dustless, dry floor, hard enough to support my weight readily, and smooth enough for my purpose.

On this floor, with a stretched cord rubbed with charcoal, I marked, as carpenters do with a chalk line, a straight line twenty-one feet long or thereabouts; this was to be the length of the boat, and its centre line from stem to stern. Using the cord as a measure, I laid off at each side of this centre line, the horizontal outline of my proposed boat. The greatest breadth of beam I made about six feet, and tapered both the stem and the stern alike, after the manner of a whaleboat. At each end of the centre line I drove a stake upright, and notched the top to carry a guide line stretched from one to the other directly over the centre line. Then, with tempered clay, I marked the outline of the boat by building up a little wall about three inches in breadth and as many in height all around from stem to stern on both sides. The space inside this wall I filled with sand, sprinkled and compacted until it was level with the top of the wall. Then I added to the wall another course of clay and filled in again; and so kept on adding and filling and sloping in the wall, until I had a mound of clay-coated sand, shaped like a boat turned upside down.

This labor, simple as it sounds in statement, took me over a week, and before it was done I was interrupted by the necessity for setting my smoke-house in order for curing the hams and bacon. I built for the smoking a slow fire of bark, which required attention only once or twice each day. The clay form under the boat-shed I left to get dry and hard. It was my design, as I have no doubt you have already guessed, to use this clay form as a core or groundwork, upon which to shape my boat.

The next step was a most serious task; I had to procure a piece of timber for a keel, and shape it and fit to it two pieces, one at the stem, and one at the stern. The timber must be new and strong. There was absolutely no way to get this timber except by felling a tree which must be at least a foot in diameter. I could not hope to do this with a pocket knife except by an appalling amount of labor, and at the continual risk of breaking the blade; and, moreover, I did not want to subject this valuable instrument to any more wear than was absolutely necessary. I now carried it on my person tied securely to a lanyard as my most highly prized possession. But I thought I could manage to get down a tree by the aid of fire. Having selected the tree, I plastered the trunk with wet clay all around for a height of five or six feet, excepting a space of about two feet next the ground; then piled up dry fuel on the windward side and set fire to it. After an hour or two the trunk caught fire and slowly burned. I kept checking the fire from eating upward by dabbing wet clay on, until finally the tree burned through and fell. It was a much less difficult task to burn it in two at the proper length after it was once down.

This done, the next thing was to reduce the stick to the correct lateral dimensions, which should be ten inches by three or thereabouts. As there was no saw, adze, or axe to be had, this reduction could be done in no other way so easily as by splitting the trunk with hard-wood wedges. I made several and charred them in the fire, then sharpened them and drove four of them in a line into the wood of the trunk at equal distances apart. By judicious management, driving them little by little, one after another, the trunk was riven asunder, and a second split produced a piece of the right size when a little had been split off from each edge. The plank was not as smooth as if turned out by a saw mill; but it was strong and was smooth enough for my purpose. I dragged it down to the boat-shed, and went back to the log and split off in like manner a piece of suitable size to make the stem and stern posts. I set the keel timber up on edge on the clay mould, securing it temporarily with some lumps of clay until I could mark the correct length. The stem and stern posts I cut and halved on to the keel, pinning them on by pins.

The drill by means of which I bored the holes for the pins was fashioned by inserting a piece of sharp chalcedony splinter into a split stick and securely wrapping the stick with a piece of cord. This stick or shank, which was about two feet in length, carried a ball of dry clay of three or more pounds in weight, and mounted about six inches from the chalcedony point. Through the upper end of the shank was a hole passing through which was a cord secured at each end to a loose cross-stick about a foot long. By twisting this cord around the shank the movement up and down of the loose cross-stick would cause the drill to revolve first in one direction and then in the other, the momentum of the whirling ball of clay causing the apparatus to continue its motion far enough to rewind the cord. This device is much used by primitive peoples, and it certainly proved a most effective instrument to me; for without renewing the drill point I bored five holes at each end, through the keel piece and the uprights.

The gunwale I made by splitting cane into long, thin strips half an inch in width, and laying these in a bundle tied securely round every three or four inches with a wrapping of cord. By this means I produced a sort of stiff, untwisted cable. I secured the ends of these gunwale cables firmly to the stem and stern uprights by cord passed through holes. I next got a great store of a sort of long, slender-stemmed creeper, which I fancy must have been a species of climbing palm, though I am not sure; for there was no description of it in my books. The wood of this creeper was tough and exceedingly fibrous. Of it I proposed to make the ribs of the boat, setting them about three inches apart along the whole length of the boat. The creepers which I chose for this purpose were about half an inch in diameter, and smooth and uniform in size. Holes drilled through the keel piece close to the clay mould permitted the passage of these ribs over the mould from gunwale to gunwale, where they were fastened by being inserted in the mass of cane splints and securely tied there with several wrappings of cÖir. Of course I had to stop this work from time to time to manufacture the necessary supply of cÖir.

Such interruptions were a relief to me, and I would sit in the shade of the palms spinning away and thinking of my Mohawk Valley home, or gazing out upon the broad sea, where the perfect shading from deep blue to faint cobalt and fainter green, the long swell, and the transparent, curling breakers, the restless sea fowl, and the serene, cloud-flecked sky, formed a view of which I never tired. It is a mistake, it seems to me, to speak of the sea as a lonesome thing. Its ceaseless motion, its constant change of color and of mood, never exactly alike and yet never entirely unlike, all lend to it an indefinable charm. It may, indeed, be filled with solitude, but it also is filled with companionship for the solitary, as I learned then to realize.

The island was the home of an astonishing number of species of small birds; several different varieties of the parrot family flew from tree to tree in flocks; different kinds of finches, many of bright plumage, in great numbers haunted the bushes about the stream; larks, flycatchers, gorgeous scarlet tanagers, little wrens, and tiny humming-birds were very numerous. The bird that I took most interest in was a daring little fellow, perhaps some sort of wren, of a brownish color, specked with pearly white spots. This self-contained and self-satisfied little fowl had a habit of carrying his tail stuck straight up in the air and cocking his head to one side in a most comical manner. This species seemed quite fearless of me, and I often saw them come hopping up on the ground near to where I sat, as though bent on ascertaining what sort of creature I was. Scarcely bigger than a walnut, with a tiny “chirp, chirp,” these dainty creatures seemed to be introducing themselves politely to me, and deprecating any possible unfriendliness that might have arisen, or might thereafter arise between us on account of an occasional seed stolen from my stack. At one time I had the notion to capture one or more of these little birds and train them as pets; but their courage and confidence utterly disarmed me.

When all the vine ribs had been fitted to the boat the next thing was to apply an exterior sheathing. This also I constructed of the long smooth creepers, uniform in size and laid close together each piece extending the whole length of the boat. I secured the ends of these vines to the stem and stern pieces by setting them into a groove or rebate, and dowelling a piece of wood down firmly upon them. At intervals I sewed or tied the rib and plank vines together with strong thin cord. When this was done I had the form of a boat, but of course it would leak like a sieve, and moreover would be crank as a basket. The next thing was to procure some sort of gum or resin, with which to coat the whole structure and thus bind it all together and strengthen it, as well as to make it water-tight.

There were trees of the pine or fir species growing on the island, high on the rocky backbone. I could see them distinctly, and had little doubt that they would furnish me with at least some of the ingredients for a sort of pitch, that might be made to answer my purpose. Up to this time I had never ascended the precipitous rocks and cliffs which formed a miniature mountainrange running north and south through the centre of the island. Now I resolved to make the attempt and to ascertain definitely what could be found there in the way of pitch or resin, among the several species of evergreens. To ascend these cliffs and rocks through the thickets and tangled vines was no easy task. Giant beds of fern, fallen tree-trunks, jungles of thorny bush, barred the way apparently at all points. The most feasible route seemed to be up a chasm through which came a tinkling rivulet to join the stream, with many a fall and leap, boiling now, and now dashing in spray over the fern-embowered rocks. It was a hard, hot climb. The humming-birds, like flying jewels,—rubies, topazes, amethysts, lapis lazuli,—darted to and fro in a dozen varieties, pausing to hover over the deep, scarlet chalices of the trumpet flower. Far above in the clear, deep blue of heaven slowly swung a circling vulture on motionless wing, a mere speck against the light.

At last I reached the top, a sort of broken rocky plateau covered with trees among which were numerous evergreens. After a brief rest to recover breath, I examined some of the trees, and found to my great delight a species of pitch pine among them. The scaly, reddish bark was bedewed with tears of gum which I knew would with a little boiling or drying be converted into a hard resin. Without losing any time I went to work with my knife upon the trees. I bared a place of its bark on each of a dozen trunks, about three feet in height and six inches in width, and cut a notch at the bottom to collect the gum, scoring the bared place with cross cuts at intervals of a few inches. This occupied me until it was within two hours of sunset, and I dared stay no longer that day, for fear of being benighted on the way home.

Early next morning I returned with my lasso, an earthenware vessel, and my burning-glass. The wounded trees had already begun to yield a supply of sticky sap or gum, which I scraped down and collected in the earthen pot, until it was quite full. I placed this to melt and boil over a slow fire and proceeded to wound about a dozen more trees. That night I slept on the summit, and worked hard all next day collecting and boiling the resin, so that when I went the next night to the house I was able to carry with me twenty-five or thirty pounds of the material,—a hard, dark resin.

At this labor I spent about a week longer, sometimes going home at night, and sometimes sleeping on the rocks, until I had got together, as I thought, sufficient for my purpose. Now I wanted some grease to mix with the resin, and concluded to kill a pig for this purpose. I had to wait two days to find the herd, but finally succeeded in capturing a fine young porker, which yielded a good store of lard and fat, much more indeed than I needed for the pitch kettle, as well as a fine supply of fresh pork-chops and some meat for the smoke-house.

I melted the resin in my five-gallon pot, and added to it sufficient melted pig-fat, so that the pitch when cold would be quite stiff and hard, but not brittle. With this hot, tenacious pitch I payed the whole exterior of the boat with a good thick coat, penetrating and filling all the interstices. When this was hard and cold I tried to lift the boat from the clay core in order to turn it over. To my disgust I found that the pitch had stuck it fast to the core in a thousand places, so that it could not be moved. There was nothing to do, therefore, except to undermine the whole structure, dig the sand out, and take out the dry, hard clay from below, piece by piece,—an immense labor, as you may well conceive. But this was finally accomplished without injury to the boat. I found that the structure was entirely too flexible for practical navigation, and that it would be necessary to deck over the greater part, if for no other reason than to stiffen it. I decided to make an air-tight compartment at each end, extending about three feet, and carry a deck fore and aft over the entire boat, excepting a well hole in the middle, six feet long by three feet wide, which was to be surrounded by a washboard, or raised edge, about six inches in height. Having cleared away the dÉbris, I turned my boat right side up.

I was very anxious to get this boat completed, and had been working hard at it every day for over a month. I wanted to know if it would at least float properly, and therefore labored from early dawn to dark without cessation. One night I had been restless and wakeful, and got up without appetite for parched seed and smoked meat. Fancying this was merely from excitement about the work, and from want of variety in diet, I concluded that the next day I would knock off work for a time and go fishing. But when I went down to the shed and got to work I felt tired and languid. There was a great pain in my head, chilly sensations ran up and down my back, and pains in the limbs and a general depression of spirits warned me of an approaching illness. Fearing a collapse I started for the house, when suddenly I grew faint and fell on the sand, and lay there for several hours, a fierce fever raging through me. An intense thirst stimulated my feeble energies to make one or two attempts to reach the house; but I failed and crawled back to the shed. Once I managed to reach the creek and get a drink, but it was preferable to suffer thirst, I thought, rather than make the attempt again. About sundown the fever left me, and though much weakened I felt well enough to get to the house, light a candle from the last sparks of my neglected fire, and turn into my hammock.

Evidently I was seized with some malarious disorder. Anxious to know what I could do for myself in the way of medicine, I got the Dispensatory and began a search for febrifuges. I could not hope to find Peruvian bark on the island as this region was, I conceived, out of its habitat. However, I made pencil notes of everything I could find mentioned as a febrifuge. Among other things I noted that it was customary in the Campagna near Rome for the fever-stricken inhabitants to make a sort of tea of sliced lemons, which was said to cure the Campagna fever. Now I remembered to have seen wild limes growing along the upper part of the creek, and thought if I could get strength enough to gather some the next day I would try an infusion of them.

That night I slept pretty well, and in the morning got up feeling fairly well. But warned by yesterday’s experience, I dreaded a recurrence of the chill and fever, either that day or the next. So I went immediately and gathered a quantity of the ripest of the limes. These I sliced thin with my knife and poured boiling water over them in a small vessel, and set them aside to steep. As soon as the infusion was cold I took a small sip to see what the effect would be. I found no bad consequences, and in an hour took another larger sip. This I kept up every hour all day, and did some work on the boat. That night I drank about a quart of hot water, and buried myself in a bed of dry grass in the house, with a small fire going. I was soon in a profuse perspiration, and after a while fell sound asleep and awoke in the morning hungry. Whether the lime tea checked the fever, or whether the attack was no more than a passing biliousness, I do not know. At any rate I soon recovered, and was not ill again while on the island.

I now resumed work persistently on the boat, and finally the air-tight compartments and decking, made like the rest of the vessel of vines coated with pitch, were done. I got some rollers under the boat and pushed it into the creek, where it floated true and buoyant as I could desire. Mooring it securely I got on board and found it stanch, and every way much better than I had hoped. To my great joy it did not leak a drop, though I had expected to have a great deal of patching to do.

My next task was to rig a mast and sail. The mast I had already brought down from the heights, in the form of a slender evergreen, trimmed and peeled of its bark. Nor was I long in stepping and rigging it with the necessary stays. The making of the sail was a much longer matter. I had given this question a great deal of thought, and while at work on the boat had carefully weighed several different devices, but had been unable to hit upon a feasible plan. Therefore I deferred it until the very last thing, fitting on a rudder and even making and burning a water jar and a cover for it to contain a supply of fresh water on board, before regularly beginning work on the sail. Finally, however, all was finished except the sail, and I was forced to the task. The best thing I could think of for the purpose was strips of bark woven on cord after the fashion in which some window blinds are made from wooden slats and cord; and as this could best be used with what I believe is termed a latteen rig, that is to say a single short mast in the centre of the boat, with a long yard suspended at its top and inclined upward from the bow aft, upon which the sail is hung, I changed my mast and stepped it to suit such a rig. Then I procured a long, slender, tapering pole for a yard. I found a tree with a smooth, flexible inner bark, and after a great deal of labor secured a sufficient quantity, cut in strips one and a half inches in width, and some of it as long as the boom. Then I spun a great quantity of cord, and tied doubled lengths of it to the boom at intervals of a foot. Then laying the boom down on the beach I placed a strip of the bark alongside it and tied it there with all the cords; by the side of that I added another a little shorter and tied it, and so on until I had built up a triangular sail of the bark strips attached to the boom by the cords, the strips running parallel with the boom. In order to make it hold the wind better, I punched holes in the edges of the bark strips, and tied the edges of adjacent strips together.

When I had this sail complete and rigged to the mast the wind was blowing away from the shore, and I had to wait until the next day to give it a trial. But I made everything ready, including food and water and a ballasting of stones, and on the next morning, the wind blowing quietly on shore, I went on board, cast off, and poled the craft out of the creek, watching a good chance to push her through the breakers at the bar. I got safely out, and hoisted the sail. For a moment she fell off and rose and sunk with the swell, but taking the wind fair, presently leaned down until the lee gunwale was nearly buried in the green water, and began to forge ahead rapidly, fairly sliding through the water, with the wake running away behind and a white curl of foam racing from the bow. I tried her on all tacks, on and off the wind, ratching and running before it, and found that the best point of sailing was on the wind. This was entirely satisfactory. So delighted was I with the operation of the boat that I tacked away in stretches of two or three miles until I had beat up a good league from the island, and then turned and ran before the wind straight for the creek, where I arrived safe, and moored the boat securely in her snug harbor.

The building of this boat had taken me three months; but it was at last finished, and offered me a means, at the first fair wind, of sailing away for Martinique or some adjacent island, a port which I could fairly expect to make in two or three days at farthest. I went to bed that night in a happier and more contented frame of mind than I had theretofore experienced on the island.