The fowls, which cost us little for food, would be always ready, she said, either to supply us with eggs or chickens, when the rainy season came on--the winter of this climate.
This reminded me that the approach of that dreary season permitted me no longer to defer a very necessary work for the protection of our animals.

This was to construct, under the roots of the trees, covered houses for them.

We began by making a kind of roof above the vaulted roots of our tree.

We used bamboo canes for this purpose; the longer and stouter were used for the supports, like columns, the slighter ones bound together closely formed the roof.

The intervals we filled up with moss and clay, and spread over the whole a coating of tar.