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Updated: June 24, 2025
We bound the tops of the branches together with sepos, and then thatched it with large palm-leaves, which would effectually keep out the rain should any fall. Working with a will, the operation did not take us as long as might be supposed; and a very complete hut was constructed, with walls which no jaguar or puma could break through, or any ordinary-sized snake or other animal penetrate.
We at once set to work; and as we had no axe, we were compelled to break off by main strength, having first deeply notched them with our knives, as many small palms of equal girth as we could collect. We then had to cut up a number into short lengths, to serve as crosspieces. Having collected our materials, we set to work to bind them together with thin sepos.
Reaching a widespreading bough, therefore, interlaced by a number of sepos not more than a foot from the water, those who were leading climbed on it, and assisted up Marian, Arthur and I following. Here we were all able to rest, sheltered from the rays of the sun, by this time striking down with great force, and concealed from anyone at a distance by the thick foliage which surrounded us.
Here and there, tall trunks had fallen prostrate, or were inclining at various angles, and suspended by a network of sepos to the boughs of their neighbours, some actually crossing the stream and forming bridges from side to side.
A mass of sepos hung down and formed a regular hammock close under a bough, and by carefully arranging a few more sepos, Uncle Paul and Arthur made it so secure that it was impossible for her to fall out. They told me to take a berth of a similar character close to her, while Uncle Paul formed one for himself on a bough, a little on one side.
At all events, there was no present prospect, as far as we could see, of our getting away from our present abode. Arthur proposed that we should form a raft. This would not have been difficult, as we had several large knives among us, and with some labour we might have cut off branches from the trees and bound them together with sepos.
Across it was thrown a curious bamboo-bridge, the lower portion of which rested on the calm water beneath it. The bamboos of which it was composed were securely lashed together by sepos, making it very elastic.
Before me rose a perpendicular cliff, like a wall of cyclopean masonry, surmounted by trees and shrubs; all around hung from the wide-stretching boughs a rich tracery of sepos and creepers of all sorts; vast arums hung suspended in the air, and numberless gay-coloured flowers; while at my feet rushed, boiling and foaming, the rapid stream, amid rocks, against which the water broke in masses of spray.
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