We could hear the bursting of rocks in chasms where the water would not stay.
We found some sheltering ledges and waited.
CHAPTER VI.
WINTER.
We had it all to repeat after we had endured the catastrophe.
We thought that the star, having reached the end of its elongated orbit, turned with exceeding suddenness upon its course, so changing the temperature of north and south as to produce the excessive storm.
I will not tell you of our discouraged hearts, but will go on to that winter which was approaching from this time.
True that we were disheartened, but that we should desist from our labor was impossible. We must prepare for a frigid zone.
This time we selected a high tableland, broken through with narrow clefts where the sea penetrated the land. Some of these clefts we roofed over.
We built with reference to enormous weights of snow. We made coverings and corridors; we put windows and pipes and tubes all so that we could breathe and so that we could close them in case of necessity.
We sunk wells, collected oil and firewood.