id not want the house; but,
strangely enough, I felt much more comfortable when it was built and
furnished, because, after all, it was a source of infinite satisfaction
to me to feel that I had a _home_ I could call my own. I had grown very
weary of living like an animal in the bush, and lying down to sleep at
night on the bare ground. It was this same consideration of "home" that
induced me to build a little hut for poor Gibson.

The floor of my house was two or three feet above the ground in order to
escape the ravages of the rats. There was only one storey, of course,
and the whole was divided into two rooms--one as a kind of sitting-room
and the other as a bedroom. The former I fitted out with home-made
tables and chairs (I had become pretty expert from my experience with the
girls); and each day fresh eucalyptus leaves were strewed about, partly
for cleanliness, and partly because the odour kept away the mosquitoes. I
also built another house about two days' tramp up the mountains, and to
this we usually resorted in the very hot weather.

Now here I have a curious confession to make. As the months glided into
years, and I reviewed the whole of my strange life since the days when I
went pearling with Jensen, the thought began gradually to steal into my
mind, "Why not wait until civilisation COMES TO YOU--as it must do in
time? Why weary yourself any more with incessant struggles to get back
to the world--especially when you are so comfortable here?" Gradually,
then, I settled down and was made absolute chief over a tribe of perhaps
five hundred souls. Besides this, my fame spread abroad into the
surrounding country, and at every new moon I held a sort of informal
reception, which was attended by deputations of tribesmen for hundreds of
miles around. My own tribe already possessed a chieftain of their own
but my position was one of even greater influence than his. Moreover, I
was appointed to it without having to undergo the painful ceremonies that
initiation entails. My immunity in this respect was of course owing to
my supposed great powers, and the belief that I was a returned spirit. I
was always present at tribal and war councils, and also had some
authority over other tribes.

I adopted every device I could think of to make my dwelling home-like,
and I even journeyed many miles in a NNE. direction, to procure cuttings
of grape vines I had seen; but I must say that this at any rate was
labour in v