ruins, "that we can remove
all these immense stones without proper tools; but, perhaps, with a
little courage, we may cross over them, the rivulet being widened cannot
be very deep. At all events, it cannot be worse than the coral reefs."

"Let us try; but I fear it will be impossible, at least for _him_," said
I, pointing to Jack.

"_Him_, indeed, papa, and why not?" said the bold fellow; "_he_ is
perhaps as strong, and more active, than some of _them_; ask Fritz what
he thinks of his workman. Shall I go the first to show you the way?"

And he was advancing boldly, but I checked him, and said, that before we
undertook to scale these masses of rock, absolutely bare, where we had
nothing to support us, or to hold by, it would be as well to examine if,
by descending lower, we could not find a less dangerous road. We
descended to the narrow pass, and found our drawbridge, plantation, all
our fortification that my boys were so proud of, and where, at Fritz's
request, I had even planted a small cannon, all, all destroyed; the
cannon swallowed up with the rest. My boys deplored their
disappointment; but I showed them how useless such a defence must ever
be. Nature had provided us with a better fortification than we could
construct, as we just now bitterly experienced.

We had descended several yards lower with incredible difficulty, plunged
in a wet, heavy soil, and obliged to step across immense stones, when
Fritz, who went first, cried out, joyfully--

"The roof, papa! the roof of our _chalet_! it is quite whole; it will be
a bridge for us if we can only get to it."

"What roof? What chalet?" said I, in astonishment.

"The roof of our little hermitage," said he, "which we had covered so
well with stones, like the Swiss _chalets_."

I then recollected that I had made this little hut, after the fashion of
the Swiss chalet, of bark, with a roof nearly flat and covered with
stones, to secure it against the winds. It was this circumstance, and
its situation, that had saved it in the storm. I had placed it opposite
the cascade, that we might see the fall in all its beauty, and,
consequently, a little on one side of the passage filled up by the fall
of the rocks. Some fragments reached the roof of the hut, and we
certainly could not have entered it; but the chalet was supported by
this means, and the roof was still standing and perfectly secure. We
contrived to slide along the rock which sustained it; Jack was the first