Swiss Family Robinson

sitting-room and kitchen, while Fritz and I, as better able for heavy work, arranged the workshops. The carpenter's bench, the turning lathe, and a large chest of tools were set in convenient places, and many tools and instruments hung on the walls.
    An adjoining chamber was kitted up as a forge, with fire-place, bellows, and anvil, complete, all which we had found in the ship, packed together, and ready to set up.
    When the great affairs were settled, we still found in all directions work to be done. Shelves, tables, benches, movable steps, cupboards, pegs, door-handles and bolts--there seemed no end to our requirements, and we often thought of the enormous amount of work necessary to maintain the comforts and conveniences of life which at home we had received as matters of course.
    But in reality, the more there was to do the better; and I never ceased contriving fresh improvements, being fully aware of the importance of constant employment as a means of strengthening and maintaining the health of mind and body. This, indeed, with a consciousness of continual progress toward a desirable end, is found to constitute the main element of happiness.
    Our rocky home was greatly improved by a wide porch which I made along the whole front of our rooms and entrances, by levelling the ground to form a terrace, and sheltering it with a verandah of bamboo, supported by pillars of the same.
    Ernest and Franz were highly successful as librarians. The books, when unpacked and arranged, proved to be a most valuable collection, capable of affording every sort of educational advantage.
    Besides a variety of books of voyages, travels, divinity, and natural history (several containing fine coloured illustrations), there were histories and scientific works, as well as standard fictions in several languages; also a good assortment of maps, charts, mathematical and astronomical instruments, and an excellent pair of globes.
    I foresaw much interesting study on discovering that we possessed the grammars and dictionaries of a great many languages, a subject for which we all had a taste. With French we were well acquainted. Fritz and Ernest had begun to learn English at school, and made further progress during a visit to England . Their mother, who had once been intimate with a Dutch family, could speak that language pretty well.
    After a great deal of discussion, we agreed to study different languages, so that in the event of meeting with people of other nations, there should be at least one of the family able to communicate with them.
    All determined to improve our knowledge of German and French. The two elder boys were to study English and Dutch with their mother.
    Ernest, already possessing considerable knowledge of Latin, wished to continue to study it, so as to be able to make use of the many works on natural history and medicine written in that language.
    Jack announced that he meant to learn Spanish `because it sounded so grand and imposing'.
    I myself was interested in the Malay language, knowing it to be so widely spoken in the islands of the Eastern Seas, and thinking it as likely as any other to be useful to us.
    Our family circle by and by represented Babel in miniature, for scraps and fragments of all these tongues kept buzzing about our ears from morning to night, each sporting his newly acquired word or sentence on every possible occasion, propounding idioms and peculiar expressions like riddles, to puzzle the rest.
    In this way, the labour of learning was very considerably lightened, and everyone came to know a few words of each language.
    Occasionally we amused ourselves by opening chests and packages hitherto untouched, and brought unexpected treasures to light--mirrors, wardrobes, a pair of console tables with polished marble tops, elegant writing tables and handsome chairs, clocks of various descriptions, a musical-box, and a chronometer were found; and by degrees our abode was fitted up like a palace, so that sometimes we wondered at ourselves, and felt as though we were strutting about in borrowed plumes.
    The children begged me to decide on a name for our salt cave dwelling, and that of Rockburg was chosen unanimously.
    The weeks of imprisonment passed so rapidly that no one found time hang heavy on his hands .
    Books occupied me so much that but little carpentering was done, yet I made a yoke for the oxen, a pair of cotton-wool carders, and a spinning-wheel for my wife.
    As the rainy season drew to a close, the