On the 21st of November, Smith began laying out the ditch which was to enclose the plateau on the west. There were two or three feet of vegetable earth, and beneath that the granite. It was, therefore, necessary to manufacture some more nitro-glycerine, and the nitro-glycerine had its accustomed effect. In less than a fortnight a ditch, twelve feet wide and six feet deep was excavated in the plateau. A new outlet was in like manner made in the rocky border of the lake, and the waters rushed into this new channel, forming a small stream, to which they gave the name of Glycerine Creek. As the engineer had foreseen the level of the lake was lowered but very slightly. Finally, for completing the enclosure, the bed of the stream across the beach was considerably enlarged, and the sand was kept up by a double palisade. By the middle of December all these works were completed, and Prospect Plateau, shaped something like an irregular pentagon, having a perimeter of about four miles, was encircled with a liquid belt, making it absolutely safe from all aggression. During this month the heat was very great. Nevertheless, the colonists, not wishing to cease work, proceeded to construct the poultry-yard. Jup, who since the enclosing of the plateau had been given his liberty, never quitted his masters nor manifested the least desire to escape. He was a gentle beast, though possessing immense strength and wonderful agility. No one could go up the ladder to Granite House as he could. Already he was given employment; he was instructed to fetch wood and carry off the stones which had been taken from the bed of Glycerine Creek. “Although he’s not yet a mason, he is already a ‘monkey,’“ said Herbert, making a joking allusion to the nickname masons give their apprentices. And if ever a name was well applied, it was so in this instance! The poultry-yard occupied an area of 200 square yards on the southeast bank of the lake. It was enclosed with a palisade, and within were separate divisions for the proposed inhabitants, and huts of branches divided into compartments awaiting their occupants. The first was the pair of tinamons, who were not long in breeding numerous little ones. They had for companions half-a-dozen ducks, who were always by the water-side. Some of these belonged to that Chinese variety whose wings open like a fan, and whose plumage rivals in brilliance that of the golden pheasant. Some days later, Herbert caught a pair of magnificent curassows, birds of the gallinaceæ family, with long rounding tails. These soon bred others, and as to the pellicans, the kingfishers, the moorhens, they came of themselves to the poultry-yard. And soon, all this little world, after some disputing, cooing, scolding, clucking, ended by agreeing and multiplying at a rate sufficient for the future wants of the colony.