To make more space, we turned such animals as we had captured, and who therefore might be imagined to know how to shift for themselves, outside during the daytime, bringing them under the arched roots only at night. To perform this duty Fritz and I used to sally forth every evening, and as regularly every evening did we return soaked to the skin. To obviate this, the mother, who feared these continual wettings might injure our health, contrived waterproofs; she brushed on several layers of caoutchouc over stout shirts, to which she attached hoods; she then fixed to these duck trousers, and thus prepared for each of us a complete water-proof suit, clad in which we might brave the severest rain. In spite of our endeavors to keep ourselves busy, the time dragged heavily. Our mornings were occupied in tending the animals; the boys amused themselves with their pets, and assisted me in the manufacture of carding-combs and a spindle for the mother. The combs I made with nails, which I placed head downward on a sheet of tin about an inch wide; holding the nails in their proper positions I poured solder round their heads to fix them to the tin, which I then folded down on either side of them to keep them perfectly firm. In the evening, when our room was illuminated with wax candles, I wrote a journal of all the events which had occurred since our arrival in this foreign land; and, while the mother was busy with her needle and Ernest making sketches of birds, beasts and flowers with which he had met during the past months, Fritz and Jack taught little Franz to read. Week after week rolled by. Week after week saw us still close prisoners. Incessant rain battered down above us; constant gloom hung over the desolate scene. VI ROCK HOUSE The winds at length were lulled, the sun shot his brilliant rays through the riven clouds, the rain ceased to fall--spring had come. No prisoners set at liberty could have felt more joy than we did as we stepped forth from our winter abode, refreshed our eyes with the pleasant verdure around us, and our ears with the merry songs of a thousand happy birds, and drank in the pure, balmy air of spring. Our plantations were thriving vigorously. The seed we had sown was shooting through the moist earth. All nature was refreshed. Our nest was our first care; filled with leaves and broken and torn by the wind, it looked dilapidated. We worked hard, and in a few days it was again habitable. My wife now begged that I would start her with the flax, and as early as possible I built a drying-oven, and then prepared the flax for her use; I also, after some trouble, manufactured a beetle-reel and spinning wheel, and she and Franz were soon hard at work, the little boy reeling off the thread his mother spun.