We then worked at our fountain, a great source of pleasure to my wife
and to all of us. We raised, in the upper part of the river, a sort of
dam, made with stakes and stones, from whence the water flowed into our
channels of the sago-palm, laid down a gentle declivity nearly to our
tent, and there it was received into the shell of the turtle, which we
had raised on some stones of a convenient height, the hole which the
harpoon had made serving to carry off the waste water through a cane
that was fitted to it. On two crossed sticks were placed the gourds that
served us for pails, and thus we had always the murmuring of the water
near us, and a plentiful supply of it, always pure and clean, which the
river, troubled by our water-fowl and the refuse of decayed leaves,
could not always give us. The only inconvenience of these open channels
was, that the water reached us warm and unrefreshing; but this I hoped
to remedy in time, by using bamboo pipes buried in the earth. In the
mean time, we were grateful for this new acquisition, and gave credit to
Fritz, who had suggested the idea.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXVII.
One morning, as we were engaged in giving the last finish to our
staircase, we were alarmed at hearing at a distance strange, sharp,
prolonged sounds, like the roars of a wild beast, but mingled with an
unaccountable hissing.
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