I Laid A Foundation Of Stones, Which I
Covered With Pounded Earth And Water, To Produce A Level With The
Tent.
I then placed horizontally a beam of wood, secured from slipping with
stakes driven to the heads into the
Bank upon the edge of the incline.
Upon this a row of large stones was cemented together with mud to form a
margin level with the floor, from which the abrupt inclination at once
leapt to the lower terraces and the deep gorge, continuing for upwards
of 4000 feet to the sea; this was visible beyond the inferior mountain
tops.
There was nothing pretty in the arrangement of this "rachkooba," as it
would be called in Africa; it was a simple square of upright poles,
connected with canes secured across, thatched inside with ferns, and
upon the outside with docks, fastened down with the peeled willow-like
shoots of mulberry-trees. The mulberry-trees for silkworms are always
pollarded annually, and they throw out shoots about seven or nine feet
in length every season; the wood is exceedingly tough, and the bark of
these wands when stripped is serviceable for tying plants or securing
fences in lieu of cord. For lack of silkworms the monastery
mulberry-trees had several seasons of growth, and the shoots were
serviceable for our work. The ceiling of our opera-box was cloth, with a
curtain of about three feet suspended along the front, which broke the
morning sun as it topped the high ridge of the mountain on the other
side of the gorge, about a thousand feet above us.
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