But the mood of inaction and reflection cannot last, even
with the lover of Nature. It was time to be up and doing.
Much lay before me to be done before the setting of the
sun should bring with it, as I fully expected it would,
darkness. Before night fell I must build a house, make
myself a suit of clothes, lay in a store of nuts, and in
short prepare myself for the oncoming of winter, which,
in the bush, may come on at any time in the summer.
I rose briskly from the ground to my hands and knees and
set myself to the building of my house. The method that
I intended to follow here was merely that which Nature
has long since taught to the beaver and which, moreover,
is known and practised by the gauchos of the pampas, by
the googoos of Rhodesia and by many other tribes. I had
but to select a suitable growth of trees and gnaw them
down with my teeth, taking care so to gnaw them that each
should fall into the place appointed for it in the
building. The sides, once erected in this fashion, another
row of trees, properly situated, is gnawed down to fall
crosswise as the roof.
I set myself briskly to work and in half an hour had
already the satisfaction of seeing my habitation rising
into shape.
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