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Updated: June 10, 2025
You forget yourself, my man; and you seem to forget also that you came to this island of your own free will. I did not invite you. I did not even want you; I was doing quite well without your assistance, as I can again, if necessary. So let me have no more threats of any sort, or I shall be compelled, for peace and quietness' sake, to request my friend Bowata and his people to take charge of you.
To build a boat of these dimensions, with only Billy to help me, was a sufficiently ambitious project; but I had learned a good deal while building our existing boat; and, after all, I felt sure that if I should need more manpower, Bowata would willingly lend me some of his people.
I was greatly vexed to hear this, for it was evident that the existence of such formidable beasts in the group constituted a growing menace to the human life in it; and I was wondering how this menace was to be fought, when Bowata and his people, without consulting me, made an attempt to solve the problem, which, for a short time at least, seemed to be crowned with success.
This was the opportunity for Bowata and his party, who, with arrows ready fitted to their bow-strings, again rose from behind the covering rocks and let fly at the enemy.
While Billy and I stood watching the rapid march of the flames, one of the natives, noticing our interest in the spectacle, approached and informed us that Bowata and one of his sons, determined to drive the apes off Apes' Island, had that morning crossed Apes' Channel in the punt which I had given them, with the avowed intention of setting the entire island on fire, beginning at its northern extremity in order to drive the apes away from that part of the island from whence they were wont to start to swim the channel and thence working round the shore to the eastern extremity of the island, hoping thus to drive the anthropoids in a westerly and southerly direction, right away from Cliff Island.
Billy and I were agreed that they totalled sixteen, which, if I had understood Bowata aright, was far and away the most formidable number that had ever been encountered; and I looked to our rifles and edged the boat in a little nearer the shore, to be ready for possible eventualities; then, as the first arrow was discharged, I brought the boat to the wind and hove her to.
Landing Bowata and his son to conduct the defence of their island, I took aboard the boat seven natives, who, the chief assured me, were among his most expert bowmen, and headed across the channel toward Apes' Island, my plan being to cruise to and fro opposite the spot where the apes were mustering, and to pick off as many of the brutes as possible while passing.
Bowata concluded his communication with an entreaty that I would lend my aid to repel the threatened attack. I at once acceded to this request, and, with the two natives aboard the sailing boat and their punt in tow, proceeded to Eden, where I collected all the arms and ammunition we possessed, and, taking Billy with me, made sail for Cliff Island.
But the latter were quite ready for them. The success of Bowata and his fellow archers, thus far, had inspired them with such confidence in themselves and their weapons that I believe not a man of them would have turned tail so long as a single arrow remained to them, and as the surviving apes advanced they were met by such a withering flight of arrows that not one of them lived actually to emerge from the water; and then, with yells of triumph, the victors rushed into the water and gave the coup de grace to such of the apes as betrayed any signs of lingering life.
Next in order came a "cold collation" that I had caused to be prepared for the delectation of Bowata and his petty chiefs, the whole of whom I had invited over to Eden to witness the launch, and Billy having been brought ashore in the islanders' boat we forthwith fell to, all hands doing full justice to the feast.
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