Eiulo had been watching these proceedings with great interest; and he
now intimated by signs that he would make a trial. Taking the sticks,
he cut one of them to a point, with Arthur's knife, and made a small
groove along the flat surface of the other, which he then placed with
one end upon the ground, and the other against his breast, the grooved
side being upwards. Placing the point of the first stick in the groove,
he commenced moving it up and down along the second, pressing them hard
together. The motion was at first slow and regular, but increased
constantly in rapidity. By-and-bye the wood began to smoke again, and
then Eiulo continued the operation with greater vigour than ever. At
length a fine dust, which had collected at the lower extremity of the
groove, actually took fire; Arthur quickly inserted the edge of a
sun-dried cocoa-nut leaf in the tiny flame, and it was instantly in a
blaze.
"Bravo!" shouted Max, "that's what I consider a decided triumph of
heathenism over civilisation, and the story-books."
Morton now seized the sticks again, and imitating Eiulo's method of
proceeding, succeeded in kindling them, though it took him a
considerable time to do it: thus it was satisfactorily established, by
actual experiment, that we could obtain a fire whenever we should want
one.
The question was now raised, whether we should continue our exploration
further that day, or remain where we were until the following morning;
and as the heat was still very oppressive, and we were sufficiently
tired already, the latter course was unanimously determined upon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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