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Rh, and they therefore contented themselves with the shelter of their boat propped up as before described. The weather proving now less inclement, and their minds being somewhat more reconciled to their forlorn situation, they set about collecting all the materials they had saved, and then commenced erecting for themselves a more commodious dwelling-place. The sides were formed of stones and the wood saved from the wreck, for there was not a shrub or tree growing in the whole island; the top they covered with sea-elephants' skins, and at the end of a few weeks they were comparatively well lodged. They made their beds of the long grass, called tussick, with which the island abounded; and the skins of the seals they chanced to kill served for blankets and counterpanes. While constructing their hut, they found traces of some other person who had visited the islands, and who had built a hut and other conveniences. The sea-elephants, however, had trodden almost everything into the ground; and as they had no tools with which to dig, they could not search for anything they might have left. Providence, however, at length threw the means in the way of effecting their wishes; for one of the company, while searching for eggs at a considerable distance from the building, found a pick-axe, and brought it home in high glee. To men situated as they were, and cherishing a sort of superstition, it was not to be wondered at that they should deem this almost a miracle; but they set to in good earnest to make use of it, by digging up the place where traces of the hut remained; and their labour proved not to be in vain, for they got out of the earth & quantity of pieces of iron, nails, and other things, all