roof of branches concerning which I have spoken; but it was only
to shelter us until better could be built.



BUILDING A HOUSE OF LOGS


While the others were hunting here and there for the gold which it
had been said could be picked up in Virginia as one gathers acorns
in the old world, Captain Smith set about making a house of logs
such as would protect him from the storms of winter as well as from
the summer sun.

This he did by laying four logs on the ground in the form of a
square, and so cutting notches in the ends of each that when it was
placed on the top of another, and at right angles with it, the hewn
portions would interlock, one with the other, holding all firmly
in place. On top of these, other huge tree trunks were laid with
the same notching of the ends. It was a vast amount of labor, thus
to roll up the heavy logs in the form of a square until a pen or
box had been made as high as a man's head, and then over that was
built a roof of logs fastened together with wooden pins, or pegs,
for iron nails were all too scarce and costly to be used for such
purpose.

When the house had been built thus far, the roof was formed of no
more than four or five logs on which a thatching of grass was to
be laid later, and the ends, in what might be called the "peak of
the roof," were open to the weather. Then it was that roughly hewn