of a pipe, and blew in the smoke of the weed as fast as I could. At
first we heard a loud buzz like the noise of a storm afar off; but the
more I blew my pipe the less grew the sound, till at last the bees were
quite still.

We now cut out a piece of the trunk, three feet square, and this gave
us a full view of the nest. Our joy was great to find such a stock of
wax, for I could see the comb reached far up the tree. I took some of
the comb, in which the bees lay in swarms, and put it by on the plank.

We then put the gourd on the comb that held the swarm, and took care
that the queen bee was not left out. By these means we soon got a hive
of fine bees, and the trunk of the tree was left free for our use.

We had now to try the length of the hole. This we did with a long pole,
and found it reached as far up as the branch on which our house stood.

We now cut a square hole in that side of the trunk next the sea shore,
and made one of the doors that we had brought from the ship to fit in
the space. We then made the sides smooth all the way up, and with
planks and the staves of some old casks, built up the stairs round a
pole which we made fast in the ground. To do this we had to make a
notch in the pole and one in the side of the trunk for each stair, and
thus go up step by step till we came to the top. Each day we spent a
part of our time at what we could now call the farm, where the beasts
and fowls were kept, and did odd jobs as well, so that we should not
make too great a toil of the flight of stairs, which took us some six
weeks to put up.

One day Fritz caught a fine EA-GLE, which he tied by the leg to a