The cottages are, therefore, put together with a dark-brown, soft sort of stone, which is hewn out in great blocks from the cliffs above the settlement and afterwards shaped with great accuracy and care with the axe.

Many of these masses of stone are upwards of a ton in weight; but, still, they are cut so as to lock into one another in a double row to form the main wall, which is some eighteen inches thick, with smaller pieces of stone, selected with equal care as to their fitting, placed in between.

There is no lime on the island, so that the blocks are put together on the cyclopean plan, without cement.

They are also raised into their places in the same primitive fashion, strong spars being used for inclined planes, up which these monoliths are pushed by manual labour in a similar way to that described in the old hieroglyphics of the Nineveh marbles.

With all these precautions as to strength, however, the sou'-westers blow with such fierceness into the little bay where the colony is situated, that many of these massive buildings, Green said, were constantly blown down, the huge blocks being tumbled about like pieces of cork! The roofs were thatched with the long grass that Fritz had seen growing in the gardens and with which he had later on a closer and more painful acquaintance, the tussock fibres being fastened inside to light poles that were attached to rafters placed horizontally, while the ridges outside were covered with bands of green turf, firmly fixed on.
As for the colony, which numbered some eighty souls in all, it consisted of fifteen families, who possessed from five to six hundred head of cattle and about an equal supply of sheep, with lots of pigs and poultry, each family having its own stock in the same way that each cultivated its own garden; but, there was a common grazing ground, where also large quantities of potatoes were raised--the trade of the island being principally with the American whalers, who take supplies of fresh meat and vegetables, for which they barter manufactured goods, household stuffs, and "notions." During their visit, Fritz and Eric were hospitably entertained by the old man Green at his cottage, which had three large rooms and was the best in the place; and the roast pig which furnished the main dish of the banquet was all the more toothsome, by reason of the long time the brothers had been at sea and so deprived of fresh meat and those good things of the land, to which they had grown somewhat accustomed during their stay at the comfortable shanty on Narraganset Bay under Mrs Brown's auspices.
Indirectly, too, Fritz found out a great deal about Inaccessible Island; and, the more he heard, the more firmly rooted became his determination to settle there.