The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

The Malabar eagle, and sago manufactory.

My wife the next morning began the conversation. She told me the children had been good and diligent, that all of them had ascended Cape Disappointment together, that they had gathered wood and made some torches for the night; and, what I could scarcely think possible, they had ventured to fell an immense palm tree, to the top of which Ernest had again climbed for amusement; and afterwards they undertook the laborious and perilous work of bringing it down, which they also happily executed. This monarch of the forests lay prostrate on the ground, and covered a space of at least seventy feet in length. To effect their purpose, Ernest had got up the tree a second time, with a long rope which he fastened tight to the top of it. As soon as he had come down again, he and Fritz worked with the axe and saw, to cut it through. When it was nearly divided, they cautiously managed its fall with the rope, and in this manner they succeeded. But during their excursion and labours, a somewhat unfortunate visit took place. A numerous group of monkeys had found their way to the hut: every drop of the palm-wine we had preserved in our gourd-shells, these intrusive gentry contrived to swallow; they had upset and thrown about all the potatoes, stolen the coconuts, and disturbed, nay even almost wholly demolished, the order of the branches and other contrivances we had recourse to for our hut; so that my children on their return were employed a full hour in repairing the damage effected by those mischievous creatures. Fritz was in high spirits with the luck he had met with and secured; he brought me on his wrist a young bird of prey, of the most beauteous plumage; he had taken it from a nest in one of the rocks near the hill at Cape Disappointment. Very young as the bird was, it had already all its feathers, though they had not yet received their full colouring; but it was evidently not a European eagle, and I supposed it to be the beautiful eagle of Malabar.18 I viewed it with the admiration it was entitled to: -- meeting with one of these birds is thought a lucky omen; and as this species of eagle is neither large nor expensive in its food, I was desirous to train it like a falcon to pursue smaller birds. Fritz had already covered its eyes and fastened the foot with packthread; I advised him to hold it often, and for a length of time, on his hand, and to tame it with hunger as falconers do.