We felt it would be prudent to restrict the camp, properly so called, to the northern point of the island, and taking six termitaries as points of support, we placed abattis between them. Everything was ready to our hands, branches, logs, brushwood, thorns, etc. We cut down the trees at the lower end of the island, which cleared our firing range, though it also rather spoiled the look of the landscape. We levelled the site of our camp, razed many of the ant-hills to the ground, and mounted our two guns, one pointing up-stream, on a huge trunk which seemed to have been placed where it was on purpose, which commanded the bank almost as far as Say itself, whilst the other was placed on a big trunk which we drove firmly into the ground, and would keep the people on the banks down-stream in awe. At each gun sentries were always on guard. Then the unfortunate _Aube_ was unloaded, patched up somehow, provided with sixteen oars, and armed with the machine-gun belonging to the _Davoust_, all ready to advance to the attack or the defence whether to Say or to Dunga. In a word, the urgent preliminary work was rapidly accomplished in a very few days, and then in comparative security we began building what the natives call the _tata_, that is to say, an earthwork such as surrounds sedentary villages, or a fortified redoubt serving as the residence of a chief. Even if you had not been brought up a mason, you would very soon become one in the Sudan; at least you will learn to build as the negroes do. There are neither stones, lime, nor sand, nothing but water and more or less argillaceous soil. With that you must make bricks, mortar, and the mixture for graining, if graining you mean to have. The clay is kneaded with the feet, and when it is ready, what are called _tufas_ are made of it, that is to say, flat or cylindrical bricks, which the mason or _baré_ places horizontally between two layers of mortar. The _baré_ sits astride on the wall he is building and chants the same tune over and over again, whilst his assistants silently pass up the _tufas_ to him. I have noticed that all over the world masons and tile-makers are as light-hearted as birds. Our best mason in this case was a big Sarracolais named Samba Demba, who generally acted as groom to our bicycle Suzanne. When he was at work on the wall it grew apace, and we too grew gay as we saw it rise, for with it increased our sense of security. When the building went on well, we felt that everything else would go well too.