I did not sleep more than two or three hours, notwithstanding my fatigue, for the sun was near the zenith when I arose, and as I wished to complete my task before night, I set to work without delay. There are plenty of large stones to be picked up in most parts of the forest, for the heavy rains lay bare the rocky subsoil wherever there is much slope, so I had little difficulty in finding the material for the cairn, although it was heavy work carrying what I had collected to the camp. In one of my excursions I took my way, with the wicker bag, down the path that led from the camp, as I had observed the ground to be more stony in that direction, and I had walked barely half a mile when I came to the river, which here made a sweep to the east and then turned away westward again. At this point there was a small rapid, and the bed of the stream was full of waterworn fragments of rock, most of them of considerable size. With these I filled up my bag, but before returning to the camp I baited a couple of my hooks with fragments of snail and secured the lines to overhanging branches so that the baited hooks nearly touched the bottom. I made several journeys to the river, returning each time with a bag of stones on my head, a number of others in my pocket, and a big one under each arm, and in the course of the afternoon I caught four good sized fish. The day’s wants being thus provided for, I proceeded with my melancholy task, and before nightfall I had built up a cairn over poor Aminé’s grave that nearly covered the floor of the little hut, and had moreover strengthened the hut itself with a number of thorny branches, which I hoped would effectually prevent the beasts from tearing it open. The short remainder of the daylight I spent in making more secure the hut in which I was to sleep, and in collecting an abundance of firewood; and when the darkness at length closed in I cooked my frugal meal and then made up the fire. I did not turn in for a long time, but sat by the fire, in the blackest dejection, gazing at the crackling sticks, meditating upon my forlorn and hopeless condition, and thinking of the poor murdered girl who lay under the cairn, whom but yesterday I was so anxious to be rid of, and whose cheerful prattle I would have given so much to listen to again. At length, as I felt that I was becoming sleepy and the prowling beasts were stealing up on all sides, I again fed the fire and banked it up with grass and sods of earth, and retiring to my hut, secured the doorway with strong lashings of creeper. But I spent a miserable and unrestful night, for as soon as the fire burned low the camp was filled with the most hellish uproar, and several times a vigorous scratching at the frail wall of my hut had to be stopped by a thrust of my spear between the frame poles. Towards morning, however, the hubbub subsided, and I fell into a sound sleep from which I did not waken until the sunlight was streaming in through the chinks in the thatch.