When we were parting, he told me that he had left me a few `notions,' besides our own traps." "He has too, brother.

Just look here at this barrel of beef; you didn't pay him for that, eh ?" "No," said Fritz; "I only bought some pork and ship's biscuits, besides flour and a few groceries." "Then he has thought of much that we forgot," remarked Eric with considerable satisfaction.

"I don't think our groceries included preserved peaches and tinned oysters, Fritz; yet, here they are!" "You don't say so--the kind old fellow!" exclaimed Fritz; and then he, too, set to work examining the stores as eagerly as his brother.
Before leaving Providence, the two had purchased a couple of spades and shovels, an American axe, a pick, a rake, a wheelbarrow, and a hoe for agricultural purposes--the skipper having told them that the soil would be fertile enough in the summer at Inaccessible Island for them to plant most sorts of kitchen produce, which they would find of great help in eking out the salted provisions they took from the ship, besides being better for their health; while, to give emphasis to his advice, he presented them with a plentiful stock of potatoes to put into the ground, besides garden seed.
For cooking, the brothers were provided with a large kettle and frying pan, a couple of saucepans, several knives and forks, some crockery, and, in addition, a large iron cauldron for melting down seal blubber; for hunting purposes, to complete the list of their gear, they had two harpoons, a supply of fishing hooks and a grapnel, two Remington rifles--besides Fritz's needle-gun which he had used in the first part of the Franco-German war, before he became an officer and was entitled to carry a sword--a supply of cartridges, five pounds of loose powder, lead for making bullets, and a mould.
Among their weapons, also, was an old muzzle-loading fowling piece for which shot had been taken, Fritz thinking that it might come in handy for shooting birds--although, as he subsequently found out, all of the feathered tribe they saw were penguins, and these did not require any expenditure of powder and shot on their behalf, being easily knocked down with a stick.
Nor did they forget to bring with them three or four strong sheath knives, for skinning the seals and any other use for which they were applicable; and, to add to their stock of cutlery implements, the skipper had presented Fritz with a serviceable bowie knife, whose broad double-dagger-like blade was powerful enough to cut down a tree on an emergency or make mince-meat of an enemy! Fritz had likewise purchased in Rhode Island a good stock of winter clothing for himself and Eric, a couple of thick blanket rugs, and two empty bed-tick covers--to be afterwards filled with the down they should procure from the sea birds.

He bought, too, a strong lamp, with a supply of paraffin oil, and several dozen boxes of matches; so that he and Eric should not have to adopt the tinder and flint business, or be obliged to rub two pieces of dry stick together, in the primitive fashion of the Australian aborigines, when they wanted a light.
So much for their equipment.
For their internal use, Fritz had selected from the ship's stores a barrel of salt pork, two hundred-weight of rice, one hundred pounds of hard biscuit, two hundred-weight of flour, twenty pounds of tea and thirty of coffee, and a barrel of sugar; besides which, in the way of condiments and luxuries, their stores included three pounds of table salt, some pepper, a gallon of vinegar, a jar of pickles, a bottle of brandy and some Epsom salts in the view of possible medical contingencies.

The skipper also advised their taking a barrel of coarse salt to cure their sealskins with, as well as empty casks to contain what oil they managed to boil down.
These were their own stores; but, imagine the surprise of Fritz and his brother, when they found that Captain Brown had added to their stock the welcome present of a barrel of salt beef and a couple of hams, a good- sized cheese, and some boxes of sardines, besides the preserved fruits and pickled oysters which Eric had already discovered.
Nor did the skipper's kindness stop here.