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I RECEIVE A LETTER |
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We chose four trees to answer the purpose, and did not cut the branches off close, but left them as rests for the beams of our platform.
We surrounded this platform when made with a high and strong network of rushes and branches, leaving an opening for entrance; and we covered the roof with the waterproof leaves of the Talipot palm. These leaves grow so large that ten men can be covered by one of them. Our fort was really rather like Falcon's Nest,
To ascend the platform, we cut notches in a beam which descended perpendicularly to the ground, and which could be raised and lowered at pleasure.
We did not, however, keep steadily to this work, but went off on various small expeditions in the meantime, and among our most important discoveries were some ripe bananas, and some of the great pods of the cocoa tree from which I promised I would make cocoa.
Fritz was the most adventurous, for he went off in his cajack the whole of one day, and following the coast line, penetrated further than any of us had ever done yet. He even went inland up the mouth of a great river he had found. He brought back a marvellous account of what he had |
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