We now improved every pleasant day to the utmost, in completing our preparations for the period of heavy rains, which Arthur declared to be close at hand. Browne and Morton made a fish-pond by building a dam of loose stones across the rapids below the fall, just where the stream entered the lake. It was soon well-stocked, without any trouble on our part, with fish resembling roach and perch, numbers of which were carried over the fall, and prevented by the dam from escaping into the lake. We also collected a large quantity of bread-fruit bark, and of the fibrous netting which binds the stalk of the cocoa-nut leaf to the trunk, to be worked up in various ways. This singular fabric, which in texture somewhat resembles coarse cotton cloth, is often obtained from the larger trees in strips two or three feet wide. It is strong and durable, and is used by the natives for making bags, and for other similar purposes. Garments too, are sometimes made from it, though for that purpose tappa is preferred. While the leaves are young and tender, this remarkable substance is white and transparent, quite flexible, and altogether a delicate and beautiful fabric, but not sufficiently strong to be put to any useful purpose: as it becomes older and tougher, it assumes a yellow colour, and loses much of its flexibility and beauty. A quantity of hibiscus bark was also collected, to be used in the manufacture of cord for fishing-lines, nets, etcetera. While the rest of us were actively engaged, under Arthur's direction, in accumulating a stock of these materials, Max devoted all his energies to the task of capturing an enormous eel which frequented the upper end of the lake. But he exhausted all his ingenuity in this endeavour without success. The monster had a secure retreat among the submerged roots of an old buttress tree, beneath an overhanging bank, from which Max daily lured him forth by throwing crumbs into the water; but, after devouring the food that was thrown to him, he would immediately return to his stronghold under the bank. Max was at great pains to manufacture a fish-hook out of a part of a cork-screw found in the till of the blue chest, by means of which he confidently expected to bring matters to a speedy and satisfactory issue between himself and his wary antagonist. But the latter would not touch the bait that concealed the hook. Driven to desperation by this unexpected discomfiture, Max next made sundry attempts to spear and "harpoon" him, all of which signally failed, so that at the end of the brief interval of fine weather, this patriarch of the lake, whose wisdom seemed to be proportioned to his venerable age and gigantic size, remained proof against all the arts and machinations of his chagrined and exasperated enemy. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. WINTER EVENINGS AT HOME. AMUSEMENTS AND OCCUPATIONS--STORY-TELLING--THE SOUTH-SEA LYCEUM.