rve for a hive, and put it on a stand, We then made a straw
roof to keep it from the sun and wind, and as by this time it grew dark,
we left the hive there for the night.
Next day, the boys, whose wounds were now quite well, went with me to
help to move the bees to the new home we had made for them. Our first
work was to stop with clay all the holes in the tree but one through
which the bees were wont to go in to their nest. To this I put the bowl
of a pipe, and blew in the smoke of the weed as fast as I could. At
first we heard a loud buzz like the noise of a storm afar off; but the
more I blew my pipe the less grew the sound, till at last the bees were
quite still.
We now cut out a piece of the trunk, three feet square, and this gave us
a full view of the nest. Our joy was great to find such a stock of wax,
for I could see the comb reached far up the tree. I took some of the
comb, in which the bees lay in swarms, and put it by on the plank.
We then put the gourd on the comb that held the swarm, and took care
that the queen bee was not left out. By these means we soon got a hive
of fine bees, and the trunk of the tree was left free for our use.
We had now to try the length of the hole. This we did with a long pole,
and found it reached as far up as the branch on which our house stood.
We now cut a square hole in that side of the trunk next the sea shore,
and made one of the doors that we had brought from the ship to fit in
the space. We then made the sides smooth all the way up, and with planks
and the staves of some old casks, built up the stairs round a pole which
we made fast in the ground. To do this we had to make a notch in the
pole and one in the side of the trunk for each stair, and thus go up
step by step till we came to the top. Each day we spent a part of our
time at what we could now call the farm, where the beasts and fowls were
kept, and did odd jobs as well, so that we should not make too great a
toil of the flight of stairs, which took us some six weeks to put up.
One day Fritz caught a fine EA-GLE, which he tied by the leg to a branch
of the tree, and fed with small birds. It took him a long while to tame,
but in time he taught it to perch on his wrist, and to feed from his
hand. He once let it go, and thought he would have lost it, but the bird
knew it had a good friend, for it came back to the tree at night. From
that time it was left free, though we thought that some day its love of
war a
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