■REPARATIONS FOR RaIN. 159 



^appuy a liglit, pleasant breeze was blowing down 

 tlie lake, and bolding a bush, with the butt end on the 

 bottom of the boat, so that the breeze would strike it, 

 was my part of the labor. In the afternoon a haze 

 gathered in the air ; a veil, of thinnest gauze, seemed 

 to be drawn over the heavens ; a halo surrounded the 

 sun ; the tree-frog sang louder than ever ; the duck- 

 lings sported more joyously, and all the signs spoken 

 of by my guide, became more strikingly manifest. 

 We landed, between four and five o'clock, on the third 

 island, and set about constructing a shanty, which. 

 would afford shelter from the rain, which it was now 

 certain would visit us. We selected a site by the 

 trunk of a large tree that had fallen. Having pro- 

 cured two forked saplings, of some three inches in 

 diameter, we fastened them securely in the ground, 

 about ten feet from the log, and eight feet from each 

 other. Across these, in the crotches, we laid a pole, 

 some five feet from the ground, and then placed an- 

 other, from each crotch to the log, for rafters ; across 

 these again, at a distance of two feet from each otlier, 

 we laid other poles. My guide peeled bark from the 

 birch trees around us, with which we made a roof, as 

 impervious to the rain, as one of tiles. The ends we 



