necessary thickness
and so render it pliable enough to bend to the correct shape; while I
believed that by using thin plank I could bend it to shape unsteamed. I
am getting somewhat ahead of my yarn, however; for the progress outlined
above represented nearly three months' hard work, an appreciable
proportion of which had to be done a second time, owing to my
inexperience.

With the accession of our black helpers our domestic arrangements
flourished exceedingly, the only difficulty we experienced in connection
with them occurring during the first fortnight or three weeks after
their arrival, the trouble arising with Kit, who violently resented
their intrusion and had to be kept strictly tied up until he had learned
to understand that he must in nowise interfere with them. But even
after reaching this stage the natives had to be exceedingly careful how
they conducted themselves in his presence, for he never advanced farther
than the merest toleration of them, while when any of the other blacks
were on Eden, assisting me to build the cutter, it was absolutely
necessary to keep the beast closely confined to the house until they had
left.

I very soon made the discovery that had I been obliged to depend solely
upon the efforts of Billy and myself, I should have been compelled to
abandon the idea of building the cutter at a very early stage of the
operations. It was not so much that we found the work beyond our
strength--although in that respect we were often glad enough to have a
little additional help--but it was often necessary to have a plank or a
waling, or some such matter, held firmly in position at half a dozen
points or more at the same moment, while I fixed it; and it was on such
occasions that I welcomed the assistance of the natives. And as such
occasions occurred pretty frequently, it happened that I was kept _au
courant_ with everything of importance--and with a great deal that was
exceedingly unimportant--that occurred on Cliff Island. Thus I came to
know that, contrary to hope and expectation, the arming of the natives
with bows and arrows, with the resulting destruction of the raiding
apes, had been absolutely ineffective in checking the raids, which were
now occurring more frequently and in greater force than ever. It
appeared almost as though the brutes were possessed of sufficient
intelligence to understand that something had happened rendering it no
longer possible for attacks by small numbers to