, and otherwise so arranged as completely to conceal
and shelter every side, as well as the ceilings of both rooms. Portions
were fitted with such address as to fall before the windows, to which they
formed very warm if not very ornamental curtains. Stephen, however,
induced Roswell to order outside shutters to be made and hung; maintaining
that one such shutter would soon count as a dozen cords of wood.

Much of the wood, too, was brought over from the wreck; and that which had
been carelessly abandoned on the rocks was all collected and piled
carefully and conveniently near the outer door of the hut; which door, by
the way, looked inward, or towards the rocks in the rear of the building,
where it opened on a sort of yard, that Roswell hoped to be able to keep
clear of ice and snow throughout the winter. He might as well have
expected to melt the glaciers of Grindewald by lighting a fire on the
meadows at their base!

Stephen had another project to protect the house, and to give facilities
for moving outside, when the winter should be at the hardest. In his
experience at Orange Harbour, he had found that great inconvenience was
sustained in consequence of the snow's melting around the building he
inhabited, which came from the warmth of the fire within. To avoid this, a
very serious evil, he had spare sails of heavy canvass laid across the
roof of the warehouse, a building of no great height, and secured them to
the rocks below by means of anchors, kedges, and various other devices; in
some instances, by lashings to projections in the cliffs. Spare spars,
leaning from the roof, supported this tent-like covering, and props
beneath sustained the spars. This arrangement was made on only two sides
of the building, one end, and the side which looked to the north;
materials failing before the whole place was surrounded. The necessity for
admitting light, too, admonished the sealers of the inexpediency of thus
shrouding all their windows. The bottom of this tent was only ten feet
from the side of the house, which gave it greater security than if it had
been more horizontal, while it made a species of verandah in which
exercise could be taken with greater freedom than in the rooms. Everything
was done to strengthen the building in all its parts that the ingenuity of
seamen could suggest; and particularly to prevent the tent-verandah from
caving in.

Stephen intimated that their situation possessed one great advantage, as
wel