He made a quantity of bricks, and brought them home, and put them to dry
in the sun. He also cut great pieces of the turtle, and wrapped them in
fresh banana-leaves, and inclosed them in clay. He then tried to make a
large narrow-necked vessel, and failed utterly; so he made the clay into
a great rude platter like a shallow milk-pan. Then he peeled the sago-log
off which he had cut his wheels, and rubbed it with turtle fat, and,
using it as a form, produced two clay cylinders. These he set in the sun,
with bricks round them to keep them from falling. Leaving all these to
dry and set before he baked them, he went off to the marsh for
fern-leaves. The soil being so damp, the trees were covered with a
brownish-red substance, scarce distinguishable from wool. This he had
counted on. But he also found in the same neighborhood a long
cypress-haired moss that seemed to him very promising. He made several
trips, and raised quite a stack of fern-leaves. By this time the sun had
operated on his thinner pottery; so he laid down six of his large thick
tiles, and lighted a fire on them with dry banana-leaves, and cocoanut,
etc., and such light combustibles, until he had heated and hardened the
clay; then he put the ashes on one side, and swept the clay clean; then
he put the fire on again, and made it hotter and hotter, till the clay
began to redden.
While he was thus occupied, Miss Rolleston came from the jungle radiant,
carrying vegetable treasures in her apron. First she produced some golden
apples with reddish leaves.
"There," said she; "and they smell delicious."
Hazel eyed them keenly.
"You have not eaten any of them?"
"What! by myself?" said Helen.
"Thank Heaven!" said Hazel, turning pale. "These are the manchanilla, the
poison apple of the Pacific."
"Poison!" said Helen, alarmed in her turn.
"Well, I don't _know_ that they are poison; but travelers give them a
very bad name. The birds never peck them; and I have read that even the
leaves, falling into still water have killed the fish. You will not eat
anything here till you have shown it me, will you?" said he, imploringly.
"No, no," said Helen; and sat down with her hand to her heart a minute.
"And I was so pleased when I found them," she said; "they reminded me of
home. I wonder whether these are poison, too?" and she opened her apron
wide, and showed him some long yellow pods, with red specks, something
like a very large banana.
"Ah, that is a very different affair," said Hazel, delighted; "these are
plantains, and the greatest find we have made yet. The fruit is meat, the
wood is thread, and the leaf is shelter and clothes. The fruit is good
raw, and better baked, as you shall see, and I believe this is the first
time the dinner and the dish were both baked together."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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