on would be unnecessary.
A bar, consisting of a coral patch, very near the surface, stretched
across the mouth of the cove, rendering it almost impossible for a shark
to enter.

Johnny named the spot, "The Mermaid's Cove," but this possessive
designation was merely complimentary, for so far were we from renouncing
the cove in favour of the mermaids, that from the day on which we
discovered it, it became one of our favourite and regular resorts.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE CABIN BY THE LAKE.

A DEMOCRAT IN THE WOODS--ECHO-VALE AND LAKE LAICOMO--THE "WILD
FRENCHMAN" DISCOVERED AT LAST.

"A few firm stakes they planted in the ground,
Circling a narrow space, but large enow,
These strongly interknit they closed around
With basket-work of many a pliant bough.
The roof was like the sides; the door was low,
And rude the hut, and trimmed with little care,
For little heart had they to dress it now:
Yet was the humble structure fresh and fair.
And soon the inmates found that peace might sojourn there."

It took us an entire week to complete the frame of our building, and
this alone involved an amount and variety of labour which few of us had
anticipated when we commenced it. One day was consumed in selecting,
felling, and trimming a tree, tall and straight enough to serve as a
ridge-pole. We next had to get out some thirty rafters of hibiscus to
support the roof. Then, as we had no nails, (Max's ship with the
hardware not having yet arrived), we were obliged to adopt the means
used by the Polynesian builders for fastening the rafters to the
ridge-pole and cross-pieces, which consists of tying them firmly in
their places with sennit. To supply the place of sennit, we
manufactured a quantity of cord from twisted hibiscus bark, which
answered the purpose very well.

At length the skeleton of the house was completed. Twenty-seven strong
posts, (including the three tall centre ones), deeply planted in the
ground, supported the string pieces and the ridge-pole. Fifteen slender
rafters, regularly placed at small intervals, descended from the
ridge-pole to the eaves on either side, and the whole was firmly bound
together with tough and durable withes of our own manufacture.

The thatching occupied another week, and but for Eiulo's skill and
dexterity, we should never have accomplished this nice and difficult
operation, except after a very bungling and imperfect fashion. Arthur
understood very well