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They climbed the almost perpendicular rocks on the opposite side of the stream, took headers, and footers, and siders from any height under five-and-twenty feet, dived, swam in every conceivable attitude, and without any apparent exertion, deep under the water, or upon its surface. But all this was only a preparation for the special sight we had come to see.
The intermediate ones are supported below by wooden braces, securely fastened at the bottom. The roof is always arched, is one brick, or eight inches, thick, and is laid in headers, fourteen being used in each superficial foot. Many of the kilns have in the center a round hole, from sixteen to eighteen inches in diameter, which is closed by a cast iron plate.
The walls of the house consist of characteristic brickwork of red stretchers and black headers laid up in Flemish bond, with square piers at the front corners and on each side of the entrance, and there is the more or less customary projecting belt at the second-floor level.
When Captain Hansen lighted the fuse and hooked the fish-hook into the tail-end of a native's loin-cloth, that native was smitten with so ardent a desire for the shore that he forgot to shed the loin-cloth. He started for'ard, the fuse sizzling and spluttering at his rear, the natives in his path taking headers over the barbed wire at every jump. Bertie was horror-stricken. So was Captain Hansen.
And another, that he would plunge from the rocks, and take headers, diving into the deep, cold water, drinking as he dived. And the third, that he would be washed up and down with the rippling waves, living on the land, yet ever in the water. Then the fourth said, "Verily, you know not how to wish, and I will teach you. I would live in the water all the time, and swim about in it forever."
The wall in question is built of a hardish grey limestone, the blocks being laid alternately as stretchers and headers. The latter is a true cornice, composed of a small torus or bead, a scotia, and a fillet.
By and-by the timid ones begin to fly off, or take "headers" into the stream; but a few of the bolder, or more composed, remain, only taking the precaution to spread their wings ready for instant flight. These weavers seem to have "cock nests," built with only a roof, and a perch beneath, with a doorway on each side. The natives say they are made to protect the bird from the rain.
It is an instinct, deep-rooted in bricklayers, against which unprofessional remonstrance is useless an instinct that he fights against with difficulty whenever popular prejudice calls for full bricks on the face. So when the wall is not to be rendered in compo or plaster, he just shoves a few in, on the courses of stretchers, leaving every course of headers to a lifetime of effrontery.
I had to take dangerous headers into the cabin, as the whole ship's interior was now full of water, but all I could manage to secure were a tomahawk and my bow and arrows, which had been given me by the Papuans. I had always taken a keen interest in archery, by the way, and had made quite a name for myself in this direction long before I left Switzerland. I also took out a cooking-kettle.
They made soft, pitiful, complaining noises. Two or three took headers overboard, like so many frogs, and then one began to squeak exactly like a rat. By that time, Castro, with his fixed blade, had cut their grapnel rope close to the ring.
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