I had soon told my story, and began to look about me. The log-house was made of unsquared trunks of pine⁠—roof, walls, and floor. The latter stood in several places as much as a foot or a foot and a half above the surface of the sand. There was a porch at the door, and under this porch the little spring welled up into an artificial basin of a rather odd kind⁠—no other than a great ship’s kettle of iron, with the bottom knocked out, and sunk “to her bearings,” as the captain said, among the sand.

Little had been left beside the framework of the house, but in one corner there was a stone slab laid down by way of hearth, and an old rusty iron basket to contain the fire.