We marked out the lines of our house, on the level plateau near the lake, which was almost the only even spot on the island, and allowed us a space of about twenty feet square, which I thought was large enough, thinking besides of the great labour we should be put to if we tried to make too big a house. But when it came to erecting our corner-posts we were in a great quandary. The ground was pretty soft, and deeper than at other parts of the island, which I guessed was due to the heavy rains washing earth down from the hill above. With spades or shovels we might have dug holes to a considerable depth, and then slipped the trunks in, and having thus disposed of a part of the dead weight of them, we might have raised them to an erect position with levers, or by pushing them up with our hands as men raise a long ladder. But with no tools save our blunt axes we saw that such excavation would demand unconscionable toil, and besides, after we should have accomplished it, we should be hard put to it to make the earth around the timber sufficiently firm and compact; so we had to consider another way, which gave us a great deal of trouble. Indeed, it baffled us for several days, in which, however, we were not idle, but occupied ourselves in other concerns. [Sidenote: A Flagstaff] One of these was the erecting of a signal-post. Although, when we talked matters over--as we often did, both in the daytime and especially at night before we fell asleep--when we talked things over, I say, we always concluded that there was little or no chance of being rescued, and made our plans as if we were to remain on this island for the rest of our lives; yet we thought it right to take our measures for attracting any friendly ship that might heave in sight. We must not, of course, attempt to raise any permanent signal, for such a thing would beyond question be discovered by the savages of some neighbouring island when going about in their canoes, and the last thing we could wish was to bring savages into our peaceful domain. On the other hand, unless we had some means of signalling, a ship might easily pass us by before we could communicate with it, for the island was so small that no vessel would heave to on the mere chance of finding water, since its most important river, if it had one, could not be more than a mere brook in size. Being thus decided that we ought to have some kind of signal ready, in such a case, we determined that nothing could be better than a flagstaff, even if we should never have a flag.