There was only one storey, of course, and the whole was divided into two rooms--one as a kind of sitting-room and the other as a bedroom.

The former I fitted out with home-made tables and chairs (I had become pretty expert from my experience with the girls); and each day fresh eucalyptus leaves were strewed about, partly for cleanliness, and partly because the odour kept away the mosquitoes.

I also built another house about two days' tramp up the mountains, and to this we usually resorted in the very hot weather.
Now here I have a curious confession to make.

As the months glided into years, and I reviewed the whole of my strange life since the days when I went pearling with Jensen, the thought began gradually to steal into my mind, "Why not wait until civilisation COMES TO YOU--as it must do in time?
Why weary yourself any more with incessant struggles to get back to the world--especially when you are so comfortable here ?" Gradually, then, I settled down and was made absolute chief over a tribe of perhaps five hundred souls.

Besides this, my fame spread abroad into the surrounding country, and at every new moon I held a sort of informal reception, which was attended by deputations of tribesmen for hundreds of miles around.