As our little tent was unsuited to a long residence of this sort, I
adopted Fritz's idea of a Kamschatkan 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 broad 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.
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