The river, some seventy yards wide, ran
round three sides of the camp thirty feet below its level.
The work which the engineers had accomplished was little less than
marvelous. Eighty miles of road had been cut and cleared, every
stream, however insignificant, had been bridged, and attempts made
to corduroy every swamp. This would have been no great feat through
a soft wood forest with the aid of good workmen. Here, however,
the trees were for the most part of extremely hard wood, teak and
mahogany forming the majority. The natives had no idea of using an
axe. Their only notion of felling a tree was to squat down beside
it and give it little hacking chops with a large knife or a sabre.
With such means and such men as these the mere work of cutting and
making the roads and bridging the streams was enormous. But not only
was this done but the stations were all stockaded, and huts erected
for the reception of four hundred and fifty men and officers, and
immense quantities of stores, at each post. Major Home, commanding
the engineers, was the life and soul of the work, and to him more
than any other man was the expedition indebted for its success. He
was nobly seconded by Buckle, Bell, Mann, Cotton, Skinner, Bates and
Jeykyll, officers of his own corps, and by Hearle of the marines,
and Hare of the 22d, attached to them.
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