To continue in our nest we found impossible, and we were obliged to retreat to the trunk, where we carried such of our domestic furniture as might have been injured by the damp. Our dwelling was indeed crowded: the animals and provisions below, and our beds and household goods around us, hemmed us in on every side; by degrees, by dint of patience and better packing, we obtained sufficient room to work and lie down in; by degrees, too, we became accustomed to the continual noise of the animals and the smell of the stables.
The smoke from the fire, which we were occasionally obliged to light, was not agreeable; but in time even that seemed to become more bearable.
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, my wife, 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 waterproof suit, clad in which we might brave the severest rain.
In spite of our endeavours 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 their mother. The combs I made with nails, which I placed head downwards 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 my wife 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.