The mother and Ernest arrived next day, and she rejoiced to find all well, making light of trodden fields and trampled sugar-canes, since her sons were sound in life and limb. A systematic scheme of defense was now elaborated, and the erection of the barricade occupied us for at least a month, as it was to be a firm and durable building, proof against all invasion. As our little tent was unsuited to a long residence of this sort, I adopted Fritz's idea of a Kamschatchan dwelling, and, to his great delight, forthwith carried it out. Instead of planting four posts, on which to place a platform, we chose four trees of equal size, which, in a very suitable place, grew exactly in a square, twelve or fourteen feet apart. Between these, at about twenty feet from the ground, we laid a flooring of beams and bamboo, smoothly and strongly planked. From this rose, on all four sides, walls of cane; the frame of the roof was covered so effectually by large pieces of bark that no rain could penetrate. The staircase to this tree-cottage was simply a board plank with bars nailed across it for steps. The flooring projected like a balcony in front of the entrance door, and underneath, on the ground, we fitted up sheds for cattle and fowls. Various ornaments in Chinese or Japanese style were added to the roof and eaves, and a most convenient, cool, and picturesque cottage, overhung and adorned by the graceful foliage of the trees, was the result of our ingenuity. I was pleased to find that the various birds taken by the boys during this excursion seemed likely to thrive; they were the first inmates of the new sheds, and even the black swans and cranes soon became tame and sociable. Constantly roaming through the woods, the children often made new discoveries. Fritz brought one day, after an excursion to the opposite side of the stream beyond the Gap, a cluster of bananas, and also of cacao beans, from which chocolate is made. The banana, although valuable and nourishing food for the natives of the tropical countries where it grows, is not generally liked by Europeans, and probably this variety was even inferior to many others, for we found the fruit much like rotten pears, and almost uneatable. The cacao seeds tasted exceedingly bitter, and it seemed wonderful that by preparation they should produce anything so delicious as chocolate. My wife, who now fancied no manufacture beyond my skill, begged for plants, seeds, or cuttings to propagate in her nursery garden, already fancying herself in the enjoyment of chocolate for breakfast, and I promised to make a cacao plantation near home. "Let me have bananas also," said she, "for we may acquire a taste for that celebrated fruit, and, at all events, I am sure I can make it into an excellent preserve."