eight o'clock
Arthur and I employed ourselves in dragging the logs up to them , and in cutting the lianas or sepos , which my father and Marian unwound and prepared for use as cordage . The task was a far more difficult one than it would have been had we possessed axes . Our knives served only to cut off the smaller boughs , and slightly to trim the logs or cut the lianas . We worked away with so much energy , that by eight o'clock , as far as we could judge from the sun , we had put a raft together capable of carrying six persons . Pretty well tired by our exertions , and with good appetites , we sat down on the huge trunk to breakfast . The heat of the sun was already great ; but , shaded by the overhanging branches , the spot we occupied felt delightfully cool , while the bunches of fruit the Indians had procured were most refreshing . At this meal we finished the last of the dried fish and meat we had brought with us , and we had henceforward to depend on the birds or animals we might trap or shoot in the forest , or the fish we might obtain from the water .