Page:The Swiss Family Robinson - 1851.djvu/166

Rh and I had a pair of water-proof boots, without seam, and fitting as well as if I had employed an English shoemaker. My boys were wild with joy, and all begged for a pair ; but I wished first to try their durability, compared with those of buffalo leather. I began to make a pair of boots for Fritz, using the skin drawn from the legs of the buffalo we had killed; but I had much more difficulty than with the caoutchouc. I used the gum to cover the seams, so that the water might not penetrate. They were certainly not elegant as a work of art, and the boys laughed at their brothers awkward movements in them; but their own productions, though useful vessels, were not models of perfection.

We then worked at our fountain, a great source of pleasure to my wife and to allof us. We raised, in the upper part of the river, a sort of dam, made with stakes and stones, from whence the water flowed into our channels of the sago-palm, laid down a gentle declivity nearly to our tent, and there it was received into the shell of the turtle, which we had raised on some stones of a convenient height, the hole which the harpoon had made serving to carry off the waste water through a cane that was fitted to it. On two crossed sticks were placed the gourds that served us for pails, and thus we had always the murmuring of the water near us, and a plentiful supply of it, always pure and clean, which the river, troubled by our water-fowl and the refuse of decayed leaves, could not always give us. The only inconvenience of these open channels was, that the water reached us warm and unrefreshing; but this I hoped to remedy in time, by using bamboo pipes buried in