lab of black slate standing up perpendicularly from the ground.
The wall of rock, which was of a hard volcanic material that was
evidently not porous, was made to serve for the back of the building, a
niche or groove being excavated along it, about ten feet from the
bottom, for the insertion of the ridge poles. This was a task of some
difficulty, owing to the toughness of the stone; but it was a necessary
one in order to prevent the moisture from above trickling down into the
interior between the roof and the face of the cliff. The lower ends of
the ridge poles, which sloped down from the top at an angle of some
fifteen degrees, were then firmly fastened to the posts placed in the
holes dug for them and lashed together with stout seizings of rope and
sennet, so strongly that it would almost have taken a hurricane to have
blown them away.

The next proceeding was to fix, at equal distances apart across the
rough framework of the roof, a series of slender scantlings cut from the
deck planks by splitting them with an axe, which Ben was forced to make
use of on account of his having no saw, that and other similar useful
instruments having been left in his tool-chest, which had been placed in
the long-boat when the first preparations were made for abandoning the
_Nancy Bell_.

The scantlings were secured to the ridge poles diagonally, not only for
greater security but on account of the shortness of some of the pieces
of timber they had and the necessity there was for their economising it;
and, over the scantlings were laid in due order, the one overlapping the
other to prevent any crevices in between, the shingles which the
ingenious carpenter had improvised out of the staves of the empty
casks--although, as the space to be covered amounted to some seven
hundred superficial feet or thereabouts, every one of the casks had to
be broken up save the six containing their beef and pork and the salted-
down flesh of the sea-elephant, Ben even then hardly having enough
shingles for his purpose.

However, casks or no casks, the roof of their house was a consideration
that stood at the moment before all others; and, being now properly
shingled, it was rendered additionally watertight by spreading over it
the old tarpaulin and sail that had already temporarily done duty above
their tent, and then giving them a good coating of pitch. A supply of
this article had been fortunately thrown on to the raft along with the
other odds and