 CHAPTER VII I had now been in this unhappy island above ten months. All possibility of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from me, and I firmly believed that no human shape had ever set foot upon that place. Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my mind, I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the island, and to see what other productions I might find which I yet knew nothing of. It was on the fifteenth of July that I began to make a more particular survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I brought my rafts on shore. I found after I came about two miles up that the tide did not flow any higher, and that it was no more than a little brook of running water, very fresh and good. But this being the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it, at least not enough to run in any stream, so as it could be perceived. On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannas or meadows, plain, smooth and covered with grass, and on the rising parts of them, next to the higher grounds, where the water, as might be supposed, never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green and growing to a great and very strong stalk. There were divers other plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that might perhaps have virtues of their own, which I could not find out. I searched for the cassava root, which the Indians and all that climate make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of aloes, but did not understand them. I saw several sugar canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contended myself with these discoveries for this time, and came back musing with myself what course I might take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover, but could bring it to no conclusion. For in short, I had made so little observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little of the plants in the field, at least very little that might serve to any purpose now in my distress. The next day, the sixteenth, I went up the same way again, and after going something further than I had gone the day before, I found the brook and the savannas cease, and the country become more woody than before. In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found melons upon the ground, in great abundance, and grapes upon the trees. The vines had spread indeed over the trees, and the clusters of grapes were just now in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a surprising discovery, and I was exceeding glad of them, but I was warned by my experience to eat sparingly of them, remembering that when I was ashore in Barbary, the eating of grapes killed several of our Englishmen, who were slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes and fevers. But I found an excellent use for these grapes, and that was, to cure or dry them in the sun, and keep them as dried grapes or raisins are kept, which I thought would be, as indeed they were, wholesome and agreeable to eat when no grapes could be had. I spent all that evening there, and went not back to my habitation, which by the way was the first night, as I might say, I had lain from home. In the night I took my first contrivance, and got up into a tree, where I slept well, and the next morning proceeded upon my discovery, traveling nearly four miles, as I might judge by the length of the valley, keeping still due north, with a ridge of hills on the south and north side of me. At the end of this march I came to an opening where the country seemed to descend to the west, and a little spring of fresh water, which issued out of the side of the hill by me, ran the other way, that is, due east, and the country appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishing, being in a constant verdure, or a flourish of spring, that it looked like a planted garden. I descended a little on the side of that delicious veil, surveying it with a secret kind of pleasure, though mixed with my other reflecting thoughts, to think that this was all my own, that I was king and lord of all this country, indefensively, and had a right of possession, and if I could convey it, I might have it in inheritance as completely as any lord of a manor in England. I saw here abundance of cocoa trees, orange, and lemon, and citron trees, but all wild, and very few bearing any fruit, at least not then. However, the green limes that I gathered were not only pleasant to eat, but very wholesome, and I mixed their juice afterwards with water, which made it very wholesome, and very cool in refreshing. I found now I had business enough to gather and carry home, and I resolved to lay up a store as well of grapes, as limes, and lemons, to furnish myself for the wet season, which I knew was approaching. In order to do this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, a lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of limes and lemons in another place, and taking a few of each with me, I traveled homewards, resolving to come again, and bring a bag or sack or what I could make to carry the rest home. Accordingly, having spent three days in this journey, I came home, so I must now call my tent in my cave, but before I got thither the grapes were spoiled, the richness of the fruit and the weight of the juice having broken them and bruised them, they were good for little or nothing. As to the limes, they were good, but I could bring but a few. The next day, being the nineteenth, I went back, having made me two small bags to bring home my harvest, but I was surprised when coming to my heap of grapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them, to find them all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some here, some there, and abundance eaten and devoured. By this I concluded there were some wild creatures thereabouts, which had done this, but what they were I knew not. However, as I found there was no laying them up on heaps, and no carrying them away in a sack, but that one way they would be destroyed, and the other way they would be crushed with their own wheat. I took another course, for I gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hung upon the outbranches of the trees, that they might cure it and dry in the sun, and as for the limes and lemons, I carried as many back as I could well stand under. When I came home from this journey I contemplated with great pleasure the fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of the situation, the security from storms on that side of the water, and the wood. I concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode which was by far the worst part of the country. Upon the whole I began to consider of removing my habitation, and looking out for a place equally safe as where I was now situate, if possible, in that pleasant, fruitful part of the island. This thought ran long in my head, and I was exceeding fond of it for some time, the pleasantness of the place tempting me. But when I came to a nearer view of it, I considered that I was now by the seaside, where it was at least possible that something might happen to my advantage, and by the same ill fate that brought me hither, might bring some other unhappy wretches to the same place. And though it was scarce probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among the hills and woods in the center of the island was to anticipate my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable but impossible, and that therefore I ought not by any means to remove. However I was so enamored of this place that I spent much of my time there for the whole of the remaining part of the month of July, and though upon second thoughts I resolved not to remove, yet I built me a little kind of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance with a strong fence, being a double hedge, as high as I could reach, well staked and filled between with brushwood, and here I lay very secure, sometimes two or three nights together, always going over it with a ladder, so that I fancied now I had my country-house and my sea-coast-house, and this work took me up to the beginning of August. I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labor, when the rains came on, and made me stick close to my first habitation, for though I had made me a tent like the other with a piece of a sail, and spread it very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me from storms, nor a cave behind me to retreat into when the rains were extraordinary. About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower, and began to enjoy myself. The third of August I found the grapes I had hung up perfectly dried, and indeed were excellent good raisins of the sun, so I began to take them down from the trees, and it was very happy that I did so, for the rains which followed would have spoiled them, and I had lost the best part of my winter food, for I had above two hundred large bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, and carried the most of them home to my cave than it began to rain, and from hence, which was the fourteenth of August, it rained more or less every day till the middle of October, and sometimes so violently that I could not stir out of my cave for several days. In this season I was much surprised with the increase of my family. I had been concerned for the loss of one of my cats, who ran away from me, or as I thought, had been dead, and I heard no more tidings of her till, to my astonishment, she came home about the end of August with three kittens. This was the more strange to me because, though I had killed a wildcat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought it was quite a different kind from our European cats, but the young cats were the same kind of house-breed as the old one, and both my cats being females I thought it very strange. But from these three cats I afterwards came to be so pestered with cats, that I was forced to kill them like vermin or wild beasts, and to drive them from my house as much as possible. From the fourteenth of August to the twenty-sixth, incessant rain so that I could not stir, and was now very careful not to be much wet. In this confinement I began to be straightened for food, but venturing out twice I one day killed a goat, and the last day, which was the twenty-sixth, found a very large tortoise, which was a treat to me, and my food was regulated thus. I ate a bunch of raisins for my breakfast, a piece of the goat's flesh, or of the turtle, for my dinner, broiled, for to my great misfortune I had no vessel to boil or stew anything, and two or three of the turtle's eggs for my supper. During this confinement in my cover by the rain I worked daily two or three hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked it on towards one side till I came to the outside of the hill, and made a door or way out, which came beyond my fence or wall, and so I came in and out this way. But I was not perfectly easy at lying so open, for as I had managed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure, whereas now I thought I lay exposed, and open for anything to come in upon me, and yet I could not perceive that there was any living thing to fear, the biggest creature that I had yet seen upon the island, being a goat. September 30. I was now come to the unhappy anniversary of my landing. I cast up the notches on my post, and found I had been on shore three hundred and sixty-five days. I kept this day as a solemn fast, setting it apart for religious exercise, prostrating myself on the ground with the most serious humiliation, confessing my sins to God, acknowledging his righteous judgments upon me, and praying to him to have mercy on me through Jesus Christ, and not having tasted the least refreshment for twelve hours, even till the going down of the sun, I then ate a biscuit cake and a bunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day as I began it. I had all this time observed no Sabbath day, for as at first I had no sense of religion upon my mind, I had after some time omitted to distinguish the weeks by making a longer notch than ordinary for the Sabbath day, and so did not really know what any of the days were. But now, having cast up the days as above, I found I had been there a year, so I divided it into weeks, and set apart every seventh day for a Sabbath, though I found at the end of my account I had lost a day or two in my reckoning. A little after this my ink began to fail me, and so I contented myself to use it more sparingly, and to write down only the most remarkable events of my life, without continuing a daily memorandum of other things. The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear regular to me, and I learned to divide them so as to provide for them accordingly, but I bought all my experience before I had it, and this I am going to relate was one of the most discouraging experiments that I made. I have mentioned that I had saved the few years of barley and rice which I had so surprisingly found spring up as I thought of themselves, and I believe there were about thirty stalks of rice and about twenty of barley, and now I thought at a proper time to sow it, after the rains, the sun being in its southern position, going from me. Accordingly I dug up a piece of ground as well as I could with my wooden spade, and dividing it into two parts I sowed my grain. But as I was sowing it casually occurred to my thoughts that I would not sow at all at first, because I did not know when was the proper time for it, so I sowed about two-thirds of the seed, leaving about a handful of each. It was a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one grain of what I sowed this time came to anything. For the dry months following, the earth having had no rain after the seed was sown, it had no moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at all till the wet season had come again, and then it grew as if it had been but newly sown. Finding my first seed did not grow, which I easily imagined was by the drought. I sought for a moisture piece of ground to make another trial in, and I dug up a piece of ground near my new bower, and sowed the rest of my seed in February, a little before the vernal equinox. And this, having the rainy months of March and April to water it, sprung up very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop. But having part of the seed left only, and not daring to sow all that I had, I had but a small quantity at last. My whole crop not amounting to above half a peck of each kind. But by this experiment I was made master of my business, and knew exactly when the proper season was to sow, and that I might expect two seed-times and two harvests every year. While this corn was growing I made a little discovery, which was of use to me afterwards. As soon as the rains were over, and the weather began to settle, which was about the month of November, I made a visit up the country to my bower, where, though I had not been some months, but I found all things just as I left them. The circle or double hedge that I had made was not only firm and entire, but the stakes which I had cut out of some trees that grew thereabouts were all shot out and grown with long branches, as much as a willow tree usually shoots the first year after lopping its head. I could not tell what tree to call it that these stakes were cut from. I was surprised, and yet very well pleased, to see the young trees grow, and I pruned them, and led them up to grow as much alike as I could, and it is scarce credible how beautiful a figure they grew into in three years, so that though the hedge made a circle of about twenty-five yards in diameter, yet the trees, for such I might now call them, soon covered it, and it was a complete shade sufficient to lodge under all the dry season. This made me resolve to cut some more stakes and make me a hedge like this and a semi-circle round my wall, I mean that of my first dwelling, which I did, and placing the trees or stakes in a double row at about eight yards' distance from my first fence, they grew presently, and were at first a fine cover to my habitation, and afterwards served as a defense also, as I shall observe in its order. I found now that the seasons of the year might generally be divided not into summer and winter, as in Europe, but into the rainy seasons and the dry seasons, which were generally thus. The half of February, the whole of March, and the half of April, rainy the sun being then on or near the equinox. The half of April, the whole of May, June, and July, and the half of August, dry the sun being then to the north of the line. The half of August, the whole of September, and the half of October, rainy the sun being then come back. The half of October, the whole of November, December, and January, and the half of February, dry the sun being then to the south of the line. The rainy seasons sometimes held longer or shorter as the winds happened to blow, but this was the general observation I made. After I had found by experience the ill consequences of being abroad in the rain, I took care to furnish myself with provisions beforehand that I might not be obliged to go out, and I sat with indoors as much as possible during the wet months. This time I found much employment, and very suitable also to the time, for I found great occasion for many things which I had no way to furnish myself with but by hard labour and constant application. Particularly I tried many ways to make myself a basket, but all the twigs I could get for the purpose proved so brittle they would do nothing. It proved of excellent advantage to me now that when I was a boy I used to take great delight in standing at a basket-makers in the town where my father lived to see them make their wicker wear, and being, as boys usually are, very officious to help, and a great observer of the manner in which they worked those things, and sometimes lending a hand, I had by these means full knowledge of the methods of it, and I wanted nothing but the materials. When it came into my mind that the twigs of that tree from whence I cut my steaks, that grew, might possibly be as tough as the salos, willows, and oshers in England, and I resolved to try. Accordingly the next day I went to my country-house, as I called it, and cutting some of the smaller twigs I found them to my purpose as much as I could desire, whereupon I came the next time prepared with a hatchet to cut down a quantity, which I soon found, for there was great plenty of them. These I set up to dry within my circle or hedge, and when they were fit for use I carried them to my cave, and here, during the next season, I employed myself in making, as well as I could, a great many baskets, both to carry earth, or to carry or lay up anything, as I had occasion, and though I did not finish them very handsomely, yet I made them sufficiently serviceable for my purpose. Thus, afterwards, I took care never to be without them, and as my wicker wear decayed, I made more, especially strong deep baskets to place my corn in, instead of sacks, when I should come to have any quantity of it. Having mastered this difficulty, and employed a world of time about it, I bestowed myself to see, if possible, how to supply two watts. I had no vessels to hold anything that was liquid except two runlets, which were almost full of rum, and some glass bottles, some of the common size and others which were case bottles, square, for the holding of water, spirits, etc. I had not so much as a pot to boil anything, except a great kettle which I saved out of the ship, and which was too big for such as I desired it, that is, to make broth and stew a bit of meat by itself. The second thing I fame would have had was a tobacco pipe, but it was impossible to me to make one. However, I found it contrivance for that, too, at last. I employed myself in planting my second rows of steaks or piles, and in this wicker working all the summer or dry season, when another business took me up more time than it could be imagined I could spare. CHAPTER VIII. Surveys his position. I mentioned before that I had a great mind to see the whole island, and that I had traveled up the brook, and so on to where I built my bower, and where I had an opening quite to the sea, on the other side of the island. I now resolved to travel quite a cross to the seashore on that side, so taking my gun, a hatchet, and my dog, and a larger quantity of powder and shot than usual, with two biscuit cakes and a great bunch of raisins in my pouch for my store, I began my journey. When I had passed the veil where my bower stood, as above, I came within view of the sea to the west, and it being a very clear day, I fairly described land, whether an island or a continent I could not tell, but it lay very high, extending from the west to the west-southwest at a very great distance. By my guess it could not be less than fifteen or twenty leagues off. I could not tell what part of the world this might be, otherwise than that I knew it must be part of America, and as I concluded by all my observations must be near the Spanish dominions, and perhaps was all inhabited by savages, where, if I had landed, I had been in a worse condition than I was now, and therefore I acquiesced in the dispositions of Providence, which I began now to own and to believe ordered everything for the best. I say I quieted my mind with this, and left off afflicting myself with fruitless wishes of being there. Besides, after some thought upon this affair, I considered that if this land was the Spanish coast, I should certainly, one time or other, see some vessel pass, or re-pass, one way or other. But if not, then it was the savage coast between the Spanish country and Brazil's, where I found the worst of savages, for they are cannibals or man-eaters, and fail not to murder and devour all the human bodies that fall into their hands. With these considerations I walked very leisurely forward. I found that side of the island where I now was much pleasanter than mine, the open or savanna field sweet, adorned with flowers and grass, and full of very fine woods. I saw abundance of parrots, and feign I would have caught one, if possible, to have kept it to be tame, and taught it to speak to me. I did, after some painstaking, catch a young parrot, for I knocked it down with a stick, and having recovered it I brought it home. But it was some years before I could make him speak. However, at last I taught him to call me by name very familiarly. But the accident that followed, though it be a trifle, will be very diverting in its place. I was exceedingly diverted with this journey. I found in the low-grounds hairs, as I thought them to be, and foxes, but they differed greatly from all the other kinds I had met with, nor could I satisfy myself to eat them, though I killed several. But I had no need to be venturous, for I had no want of food, and of that which was very good, too, especially these three sorts, goats, pigeons, and turtle, or tortoise, which added to my grapes. Letten Hall Market could not have furnished a table better than I, in proportion to the company. And though my case was deplorable enough, yet I had great cause for thankfulness that I was not driven to any extremities for food, but had rather plenty, even to dainties. I never traveled in this journey above two miles outright in a day, or thereabouts, but I took so many turns and returns to see what discoveries I could make, that I came weary enough to the place where I resolved to sit down all night, and then I either reposed myself in a tree, or surrounded myself with a row of stakes set up right in the ground, either from one tree to another, or so as no wild creature could come at me without waking me. As soon as I came to the seashore, I was surprised to see that I had taken up my lot on the worst side of the island, for here, indeed, the shore was covered with innumerable turtles, and where else on the other side I had found but three and a year and a half. Here was also an infinite number of fowls of many kinds, some of which I had seen and some which I had not seen before, and many of them very good meat, but such as I knew not the names of, except those called penguins. I could have shot as many as I pleased, but was very sparing of my powder in shot, and therefore had more mind to kill a she-goat, if I could, which I could better feed on. And though there were many goats here, more than on my side of the island, yet it was with much more difficulty that I could come near them, the country being flat and even, and they saw me much sooner than when I was on the hills. I confessed this side of the country was much pleasanter than mine, but yet I had not the least inclination to remove, for as I was fixed in my habitation it became natural to me, and I seemed all the while I was here to be as it were upon a journey and from home. However, I traveled along the shore of the sea towards the east, I suppose about twelve miles, and then setting up a great pole upon the shore for a mark, I concluded I would go home again, and that the next journey I took should be on the other side of the island east from my dwelling, and so round till I came to my post again. I took another way to come back than that I went, thinking I could easily keep all the islands so much in my view that I could not miss finding my first dwelling by viewing the country, but I found myself mistaken, for being come about two or three miles I found myself descended into a very large valley, but so surrounded with hills, and those hills covered with wood, that I could not see which was my way by any direction but that of the sun, nor even then, unless I knew very well the position of the sun at that time of the day. It happened, to my further misfortune, that the weather proved hazy for three or four days while I was in the valley, and not being able to see the sun I wandered about very uncomfortably, and at last was obliged to find the seaside, look for my post, and come back the same way I went, and then by easy journeys I turned homeward, the weather being exceeding hot, and my gun, ammunition, hatchet, and other things very heavy. In this journey my dog surprised a young kid, and seized upon it, and I, running in to take hold of it, caught it, and saved it alive from the dog. I had a great mind to bring it home, if I could, for I had often been musing whether it might not be possible to get a kid or two, and so raise a breed of tame goats, which might supply me when my powder and shot should be all spent. I made a collar for this little creature, and with a string, which I made of some rope yarn, which I always carried about me. I led him along, though with some difficulty, till I came to my bower, and there I enclosed him and left him, for I was very impatient to be at home, from whence I had been absent above a month. I cannot express what a satisfaction it was to me to come into my old hutch, and lie down in my hammock-bed. This little wandering journey, without settled place of abode, had been so unpleasant to me, that my own house, as I called it to myself, was a perfect settlement to me compared to that, and it rendered everything about me so comfortable, that I resolved that would never go a great way from it again, while it should be my lot to stay on the island. I reposed myself here a week, to rest and regale myself after my long journey, during which most of the time was taken up in the weighty affair of making a cage for my Paul, who began now to be a mere domestic and to be well acquainted with me. Then I began to think of the poor kid which I had penned in within my little circle, and resolved to go and fetch at home, or give it some food. Accordingly I went and found it where I left it, for indeed it could not get out, but was almost starved for want of food. I went and cut boughs of trees, and branches of such shrubs as I could find, and threw it over, and having fed it, I tied it as I did before to lead it away. But it was so tame with being hungry that I had no need to have tied it, for it followed me like a dog, and as I continually fed it, the creature became so loving, so gentle, and so fond, that it became from that time one of my domestics also, and would never leave me afterwards. The rainy season of the autumnal equinox was now come, and I kept the thirtieth of September in the same solemn manner as before, being the anniversary of my landing on the island, having now been there two years, and no more prospect of being delivered than the first day I came there. I spent the whole day in humble and thankful acknowledgments of the many wonderful mercies which my solitary condition was attended with, and without which it might have been infinitely more miserable. I gave humble and hearty thanks that God had been pleased to discover to me that it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary condition than I should have been in the liberty of society, and in all the pleasures of the world, that he could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state, and the want of human society, by his presence, and the communications of his grace to my soul, supporting, comforting, and encouraging me to depend upon his providence here, and hope for his eternal presence hereafter. It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I had led all the past part of my days, and now I changed both my sorrows and my joys, my very desires altered, my affections changed their gusts, and my delights were perfectly new from what they were at my first coming, or indeed for the two years past. Before as I walked about, either on my hunting or for viewing the country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a sudden, my very heart would die within me, to think of the woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in, and how I was a prisoner, locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, and an uninhabited wilderness without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composure of my mind this would break out upon me like a storm, and make me wring my hands and weep like a child. Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together, and this was still worse to me, for if I could burst out into tears, or vent myself by words, it would go off, and the grief, having exhausted itself, would abate. But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts. I daily read the Word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state. One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon these words. I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Immediately it occurred that these words were to me. Why else should they be directed in such a manner, just at the moment when I was mourning over my condition, as one forsaken of God and man? Well then, said I, if God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be? Or what matters it, though the world should all forsake me? Seeing on the other hand, if I had all the world, and should lose the favor and blessing of God, there would be no comparison in the loss. From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition than it was probable I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world. And with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place. I know not what it was, but something shocked my mind at that thought, and I durst not speak the words. How canst thou become such a hypocrite? said I, even audibly, to pretend to be thankful for a condition which, however thou mayest endeavour to be contented with, thou wouldst rather pray heartily to be delivered from. So I stopped there. But though I could not say I thanked God for being there, yet I sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes by whatever afflicting providences to see the former condition of my life and to mourn for my wickedness and repent. I never opened the Bible or shut it, but my very soul within me blessed God for directing my friend in England without any order of mine to pack it up among my goods and for assisting me afterwards to save it out of the wreck of the ship. Thus, and in this disposition of mind, I began my third year, and though I have not given the reader the trouble of so particular an account of my works this year as the first, yet in general it may be observed that I was very seldom idle, but having regularly divided my time according to the several daily employments that were before me, such as, first, my duty to God, and the reading the scriptures, which I constantly set apart some time for thrice every day. Secondly, the going abroad with my gun for food, which generally took me up three hours in every morning, when it did not rain. Thirdly, the ordering, cutting, preserving, and cooking what I had killed or caught for my supply. These took up great part of the day. So it is to be considered that in the middle of the day, when the sun was in the zenith, the violence of the heat was too great to stir out, so that about four hours in the evening was all the time I could be supposed to work in, with this exception, that sometimes I changed my hours of hunting and working, and went to work in the morning and abroad with my gun in the afternoon. To this short time allowed for labour I desire may be added the exceeding laboriousness of my work, the many hours which, for want of tools, want of help, and want of skill, everything I did took up out of my time. For example, I was full two and forty days in making a board for a long shelf, which I wanted in my cave, whereas two saw-yers, with their tools and a saw-pit, would have cut six of them out of the same tree in half a day. My case was this. It was to be a large tree which was to be cut down, because my board was to be a broad one. This tree I was three days in cutting down, and two more cutting off the boughs, and reducing it to a log or piece of timber. With inexpressible hacking and hewing I reduced both the sides of it into chips, till it began to be light enough to move. Then I turned it, and made one side of it smooth and flat as a board from end to end. Then, turning that side downward, cut the other side till I brought the plank to be about three inches thick, and smooth on both sides. Any one may judge the labour of my hands in such a piece of work, but labour and patience carried me through that, and many other things. I only observed this in particular, to show the reason why so much of my time went away with so little work. That is, that what might be a little to be done with help and tools was a vast labour and required a prodigious time to do alone and by hand. But not withstanding this, with patience and labour I got through everything that my circumstances made necessary to me to do, as will appear by what follows. I was now, in the months of November and December, expecting my crop of barley and rice. The ground I had manured and dug up for them was not great, where as I observed my seed of each was not above the quantity of half a peck, for I had lost one whole crop by sowing in the dry season. But now my crop promised very well, when on a sudden I found I was in danger of losing it all again by enemies of several sorts, which was scarcely possible to keep from it, as first the goats and wild creatures which I called hares, who, tasting the sweetness of the seed, lay in it night and day, as soon as it came up, and eat it so close that it could get no time to shoot up and to stalk. This I saw no remedy for but by making an enclosure about it with a hedge, which I did with a great deal of toil, and the more because it required speed. However as my arable land was but small, suited to my crop, I got it totally well fenced in about three weeks' time, and shooting some of the creatures in the daytime, I set my dog to guard it in the night, tying him up to a stake at the gate, where he would stand in bark all night long, so in a little time the enemies forsook the place, and the corn grew very strong and well, and began to ripen apace. But as the beasts ruined me before, while my corn was in the blade, so the birds were as likely to ruin me now, when it was in the year, or going along by the place to see how it throve, I saw my little crop surrounded with fowls, of I know not how many sorts, who stood, as it were, watching till I should be gone. I immediately let fly among them, for I always have my gun with me. I had no sooner shot but there rose up a little cloud of fowls, which I had not seen at all, from among the corn itself. This touched me sensibly, for I first saw that in a few days they would devour all my hopes, that I should be starved, and never be able to raise a crop at all, and what to do I could not tell. However, I resolved not to lose my corn, if possible, though I should watch it night and day. In the first place I went among it to see what damage was already done, and found they had spoiled a good deal of it, but that as it was yet too green for them, the loss was not so great, but that the remainder was likely to be a good crop if it could be saved. I stayed by it to load my gun, and then coming away I could easily see the thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they only waited till I was gone away, and the event proved it to be so, for as I walked off, as if I was gone, I was no sooner out of their sight than they dropped down one by one into the corn again. I was so provoked that I could not have patience to stay till more came on, knowing that every grain that they ate now was, as it might be said, a peck-loaf to me in the consequence, but coming up to the hedge I fired again and killed three of them. This was what I wished for, so I took them up and served them as we served notorious thieves in England, hang them in chains for a terror to others. It is impossible to imagine that this should have had such an effect as it had, for the fowls would not only come at the corn, but in short they forsook all that part of the island, and I could never see a bird near the place as long as my scarecrows hung there. This I was very glad of, you may be sure, and about the latter end of December, which was our second harvest of the year, I reaped my corn. I was sadly put to it for a scythe or sickle to cut it down, and all I could do was to make one, as well as I could, out of one of the broadswords or cutlasses which I saved among the arms out of the ship. However, as my first crop was but small, I had no great difficulty to cut it down. In short I reaped it in my way, for I cut nothing off but the ears, and carried it away in a great basket which I had made, and so rubbed it out with my hands, and at the end of all my harvesting I found that out of my half-peck of seed I had near two bushels of rice, and about two bushels and a half of barley. That is to say, by my guess, for I had no measure at the time. However this was a great encouragement to me, and I foresaw that in time it would please God to supply me with bread. And yet here I was perplexed again, for I neither knew how to grind or make meal of my corn, or indeed how to clean it and part it, nor, if made into meal, how to make bread of it, and if how to make it, yet I knew not how to bake it. These things being added to my desire of having a good quantity for store and to secure a constant supply, I resolved not to taste any of this crop but to preserve it all for seed against the next season, and in the meantime to employ all my study and hours of working to accomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread. It might be truly said that now I worked for my bread. I believe few people have thought much upon the strange multitude of little things necessary in their providing, producing, curing, dressing, making and finishing this one article of bread. I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to my daily discouragement, and was made more sensible of it every hour, even after I had got the first handful of seed-corn, which, as I have said, came up unexpectedly, and indeed to a surprise. First I had no plow to turn up the earth, no spade or shovel to dig it. Well, this I conquered by making me a wooden spade, as I observed before, but this did my work but in a wooden manner, and though it cost me a great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out soon but made my work the harder, and made it to be performed much worse. However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out with patience and bear with the badness of the performance. When the corn was sown I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself and drag a great heavy bow of a tree over it to scratch it, as it may be called, rather than rake or harrow it. When it was growing, and grown, I have observed already how many things I wanted to fence it, secure it, mow or reap it, cure and carry it home, thrash, part it from the chaff, and save it. Then I wanted a mill to grind it, sieves to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into bread, and an oven to bake it. But all these things I did without, as shall be observed, and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and advantage to me, too. All this, as I said, made everything laborious and tedious to me, but that there was no help for. Neither was my time so much lost to me, because, as I had divided it, a certain part of it was every day appointed to these works, and as I had resolved to use none of the corn for bread till I had a greater quantity by me, I had the next six months to apply myself wholly, by labor and invention, to furnish myself with utensils proper for the performing all the operations necessary for making the corn, when I had it, fit for my use. CHAPTER IX A BOAT But first I was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough to sew above an acre of ground. Before I did this I had a week's work at least to make me a spade, which, when it was done, was but a sorry one indeed, and very heavy, and required double labor to work with it. However, I got through that, and sewed my seed in two large flat pieces of ground, as near my houses I could find them to my mind, and fenced them in with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all cut off that wood which I had set before, and knew it would grow, so that in a year's time I knew I should have a quick or living hedge that would want but little repair. This work did not take me up less than three months, because a great part of that time was the wet season when I could not go abroad. Within doors, that is, when it rained and I could not go out, I found employment in the following occupations, always observing that all the while I was at work I diverted myself with talking to my parrot and teaching him to speak, and I quickly taught him to know his own name, and at last to speak it out pretty loud, Paul, which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own. This however was not my work, but an assistance to my work, for now, as I said, I had a great employment upon my hands, as follows. I had long studied to make, by some means or other, some earthen vessels, which indeed I wanted sorely, but knew not where to come at them. However, considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but if I could find out any clay, I might make some pots that might, being dried in the sun, be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anything that was dry and required to be kept so. And as this was necessary in the preparing of corn, meal, etc., which was the thing I was doing, I resolved to make some as large as I could, and fit only to stand like jars, to hold what should be put into them. It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward ways I took to raise this paste, what odd, misshapen, ugly things I made, how many of them fell in and how many fell out, the clay not being stiff enough to bear its own weight, how many cracked by the overviolet heat of the sun being set out too hastily, and how many fell in pieces with only removing as well before as after they were dried. And in a word, how, after having labored hard to find the clay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I could not make above too large earthen, ugly things, I cannot call them jars, in about two months' labor. However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them very gently up, and set them down again in two great wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break, and as between the pot and the basket there was a little room to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw, and these two pots being to stand always dry, I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal when the corn was bruised. Though I miscarried so much of my design for large pots, yet I made several smaller things with better success, such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any things my hand turned to, and the heat of the sun baked them quite hard. But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen pot to hold what was liquid, and bear the fire which none of these could do. It happened after some time, making a pretty large fire for cooking my meat. When I went to put it out after I had done with it, I found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone, and read as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it, and said to myself, that certainly they might be made to burn whole if they would burn broken. This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn some pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in, or of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with. But I placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one upon another, and placed my firewood all round it, with a great heap of embers under them. I plied the fire with fresh fuel around the outside and upon the top, till I saw the pots in the inside red hot quite through, and observed that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt or run, for the sandwich was mixed with a clay, melted by the violence of the heat, and would have run into glass if I had gone on. So I slacked my fire gradually till the pots began to abate of the red color, and watching them all night, that I might not let the fire abate too fast. In the morning I had three very good, I will not say handsome, pins, and two other earthen pots, as hard-burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly glazed with the running of the sand. After this experiment I need not say that I wanted no sort of earthen wear for my use, but I must need say, as to the shapes of them, they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when I had no way of making them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would make pies that never learned to raise paste. No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire, and I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one on the fire again with some water in it, to boil me some meat, which it did admirably well, and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth, though I wanted oatmeal, and several other ingredients requisite to make it as good as I would have had it been. My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn in, for as to the mill there was no thought of arriving at that perfection of art with one pair of hands. To supply this walt I was at a great loss, for of all the trades in the world I was as perfectly unqualified for a stone cutter as for any whatever. Neither had I any tools to go about it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stone big enough to cut hollow, and make fit for a mortar, and could find none at all except what was in the solid rock, and which I had no way to dig or cut out. Nor, indeed, were the rocks in the island of hardness sufficient, but were all of a sandy crumbling stone, which neither would bear the weight of a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without filling it with sand. So, after a great deal of time lost in searching for a stone, I gave it over and resolved to look for a great block of hard wood, which I found, indeed, much easier, and getting one as big as I had strength to stir, I rounded it and formed it on the outside with my axe and hatchet, and then, with the help of fire and infinite labour, made a hollow place in it, as the Indians in Brazil make their canoes. After this I made a great heavy pestle or beater of the wood called the iron wood, and this I prepared and laid by against I have my next crop of corn, which I proposed to myself to grind, or rather pound into meal, to make bread. My next difficulty was to make a sieve or a surse, to dress my meal, and depart it from the bran and the husk, without which I did not see it possible I could have any bread. This was a most difficult thing even to think on, for to be sure I had nothing like the necessary thing to make it. I mean fine-thing canvas or stuff to surse the meal through, and here I was at a full stop for many months, nor did I really know what to do. Linnon I had none left but what was mere rags, I had goats' hair, but neither knew how to weave it or spin it, and had I known how, here were no tools to work it with. All the remedy that I found for this was, that at last I did remember I had, among the seamen's clothes which were saved out of the ship, some neck-cloths of calico or muslin, and with some pieces of these I made three small sieves proper enough for the work, and thus I made shift for some years, how I did afterwards I shall show in its place. The baking part was the next thing to be considered, and how I should make bread when I came to have corn, for first I had no yeast. As to that part there was no supplying the wot, so I did not concern myself much about it. But for an oven I was indeed in great pain. At length I found out an experiment for that also, which was this. I made some earthen vessels very broad but not deep, that is to say about two feet diameter and not above nine inches deep. Always I burned in the fire as I had done the other and laid them by, and when I wanted to bake I made a great fire upon my hearth which I had paved with some square tiles of my own baking and burning also, but I should not call them square. When the firewood was burned pretty much into embers or live coals I drew them forward onto this hearth so as to cover it all over, and there I let them lie till the hearth was very hot. When sweeping away all the embers I set down my loaf or loaves and whelming down the earthen pot upon them drew the embers all around the outside of the pot to keep in and add to the heat, and thus as well as in the best oven in the world I baked my barley loaves and became in little time a good pastry-cook into the bargain, for I made myself several cakes and puddings of the rice, but I made no pies, neither had I anything to put into them supposing I had, except the flesh either of fowls or goats. It need not be wondered at if these things took me up most part of the third year of my abode here, for it is to be observed that in the intervals of these things I had my new harvest and husbandry to manage, for I reaped my corn in its season and carried it home as well as I could, and laid it up in the ear in my large baskets till I had time to rub it out, for I had no floor to thrash it on or instrument to thrash it with. And now indeed, my stock of corn increasing, I really wanted to build my barns bigger. I wanted a place to lay it up in, for the increase of the corn now yielded me so much that I had of the barley about twenty bushels and of the rice as much or more, in so much that now I resolved to begin to use it freely, for my bread had been quite gone a great while, also I resolved to see what quantity would be sufficient for me a whole year, and to sow but once a year. Upon the whole I found that the forty bushels of barley and rice were much more than I could consume in a year, so I resolved to sow just the same quantity every year that I sowed the last, in hopes that such a quantity would fully provide me with bread, etc. All the while these things were doing, you may be sure my thoughts ran many times upon the prospect of land which I had seen from the other side of the island, and I was not without secret wishes that I were on shore there, fancying that, seeing the mainland, and an inhabited country, I might find some way or other to convey myself further and perhaps at last find some means of escape. But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such an undertaking, and how I might fall into the hands of savages, and perhaps such as I might have reason to think far worse than the lions and tigers of Africa, that if I once came in their power I should run a hazard of more than a thousand to one of being killed, and perhaps of being eaten, for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coast were cannibals or man-eaters, and I knew by the latitude that I could not be far from that shore. Even supposing they were not cannibals, yet they might kill me as many Europeans who had fallen into their hands have been served, even when they had been ten or twenty together, much more I, that was but one, and could make little or no defence. All these things, I say, which I ought to have considered well, and did come into my thoughts afterwards, yet gave me no apprehensions at first, and my head ran mightily upon the thought of getting over to the shore. Now I wish for my boy Zuri, and the long boat with shoulder of mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of Africa, but this was in vain. Then I thought I would go and look at our ship's boat, which, as I have said, was blown up upon the shore a great way in the storm when we were first cast away. She lay almost where she did at first, but not quite, and was turned by the force of the waves and the winds almost bottom upward against a high ridge of beachy, rough sand, but no water about her. If I had had hands to have refitted her, and to have launched her into the water, the boat would have done well enough, and I might have gone back into the Brazils with her easily enough. But I might have foreseen that I could no more turn her and set her upright upon her bottom, than I could remove the island. However, I went to the woods, and cut levers and rollers, and brought them to the boat resolving to try what I could do, suggesting to myself that if I could but turn her down, I might repair the damage she had received, and she would be a very good boat, and I might go to sea on her very easily. I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent, I think, three or four weeks about it, at last finding it impossible to heave it up with my little strength, I felt a digging away the sand, to undermine it, and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of wood to thrust and guide it right in the fall. But when I had done this I was unable to stir it up again, or to get under it, much less to move it forward towards the water, so I was forced to give it over, and yet, though I gave over the hopes of the boat, my desire to venture over for the main increased, rather than decreased, as the means for it seemed impossible. This at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible to make myself a canoe, or periagua, such as the natives of those climates make, even without tools, or as I might say, without hands, of the trunk of a great tree. This I not only thought possible, but easy, and pleased myself extremely with the thoughts of making it, and with my having much more convenience for it than any of the negroes or Indians, but not at all considering the particular inconveniences which I lay under more than the Indians did, that is, want of hands to move it when it was made into the water, a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than all the consequences of want of tools could be to them. For what was it to me, if when I had chosen a vast tree in the woods, and with much trouble cut it down, if I had been able with my tools to hew and dub the outside into the proper shape of a boat, and burn or cut out the inside to make it hollow, so as to make a boat of it, if after all this I must leave it just there where I found it, and not be able to launch it into the water. One would have thought I could not have had the least reflection upon my mind of my circumstances while I was making this boat, but I should have immediately thought how I should get it into the sea, but my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it that I never once considered how I should get it off the land, and it was really, in its own nature, more easy for me to guide it over forty-five miles of sea than about forty-five fathoms of land where it lay, to set it afloat in the water. I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever a man did who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design, without determining whether I was ever able to undertake it. Not but that the difficulty of launching my boat came often into my head, but I put a stop to my inquiries into it by this foolish answer which I gave myself. Let me first make it. I warrant I will find some way or other to get it along when it is done. This was a most preposterous method, for the eagerness of my fancy prevailed, and to work I went. I fell the cedar tree, and I question much whether Solomon ever had such a one for the building of the Temple of Jerusalem. It was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part next to the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two feet, after which it lessened for a while and then parted into branches. It was not without infinite labour that I felled this tree. I was twenty days hacking and hewing at it at the bottom. I was fourteen more getting the branches and limbs, and the vast spreading head cut off, which I hacked and hewed through with ax and hatchet, and inexpressible labour. After this it cost me a month to shape it and dub it to a proportion and to something like the bottom of a boat, that it might swim upright as it ought to do. It cost me near three months more to clear the inside, and work it out so as to make an exact boat of it. This I did indeed without fire, by mere mallet and chisel, and by the dent of hard labour, till I have brought it to be a very handsome peri-agua, and big enough to have carried six and twenty men, and consequently big enough to have carried me and all my cargo. When I had gone through this work I was extremely delighted with it. The boat was really much bigger than ever I saw a canoe, or peri-agua, that was made of one tree, in my life. Many a weary stroke it had cost, you may be sure, and had I gotten it into the water I make no question but I should have begun the maddest voyage and the most unlikely to be performed that ever was undertaken. But all my devices to get it into the water failed me, though they cost me infinite labour too. It lay about one hundred yards from the water, and not more. But the first inconvenience was, it was uphill towards the creek. Well, to take away this discouragement I resolved to dig into the surface of the earth, and so make a teclivity. This I began, and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains. But who grudges pains who have their deliverance in view? But when this was worked through, and this difficulty managed, it was still much the same, for I could no more stir the canoe than I could the other boat. Then I measured the distance of ground, and resolved to cut a dock, or canal, to bring the water up to the canoe, seeing I could not bring the canoe down to the water. Well I began this work, and when I began to enter upon it, and calculate how deep it was to be dug, how broad, how the stuff was to be thrown out. I found that, by the number of hands I had, being none but my own, it must have been ten or twelve years before I could have gone through with it, for the shore lay so high, that at the upper end it must have been at least twenty feet deep. So at length, though with great reluctancy, I gave this attempt over also. This grieved me heartily, and now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it. In the middle of this work I finished my fourth year in this place, and kept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as much comfort as ever before, for by a constant study and serious application to the Word of God, and by the assistance of His grace I gained a different knowledge from what I had before. I entertained different notions of things. I looked now upon the world as a thing remote, which I had nothing to do with, no expectations from, and indeed no desires about. In a word I had nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely to have, so I thought it looked, as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter, that is, as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it, and well might I say, as Father Abraham do Diabese, between me and thee is a great gulf fixed. In the first place I was removed from all the wickedness of the world here. I had neither the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, nor the pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all that I was now capable of enjoying. I was lord of the whole manner. Or if I pleased I might call myself king or emperor over the whole country which I had possession of. There were no rivals. I had no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command with me. I might have raised ship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it. So I let as little grow as I thought enough for my occasion. I had tortoise or turtle enough, but now and then one was as much as I could put to any use. I had timber enough to have built a fleet of ships, and I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when it had been built. But all I could make use of was all that was valuable. I had enough to eat and supply my wants, and what was all the rest to me. If I killed more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or vermin. If I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled. The trees that I cut down were lying to rot on the ground. I could make no more use of them but for fuel, and that I had no occasion for but to dress my food. In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good to us than they are for our use, and that whatever we may heap up to give others we enjoy just as much as we can use and no more. The most covetous griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness if he had been in my case, for I possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire, except it was of things which I had not, and they were but trifles, though indeed of great use to me. I had, as I hinted before, a parcel of money, as well gold as silver, about thirty-six pounds sterling. Alas! There the sorry useless stuff lay! I had no more manner of business for it, and often thought with myself that I would have given a handful of it for a gross of tobacco pipes, or for a hand mill to grind my corn. Nay! I would have given it all for a six-penny worth of turnip and carrot seed out of England, or for a handful of peas and beans and a bottle of ink. As it was, I had not the least advantage by it or benefit from it, but there it lay in a drawer, and grew moldy with a damp of the cave in the wet seasons, and if I had had the drawer full of diamonds, it had been the same case. They had been of no manner of value to me, because of no use. I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself than it was at first, and much easier to my mind as well as to my body. I frequently sat down to meet with thankfulness, and admired the hand of God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted, and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts that I cannot express them, in which I take notice of here to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have. Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be so to any one that should fall into such distress as mine was. And this was, to compare my present condition with what I at first expected it would be, nay, with what it would certainly have been, if the good providence of God had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up nearer to the shore, where I not only could come at her, but could bring what I got out of her to the shore for my relief and comfort, without which I had wanted for tools to work, weapons for defence, and gunpowder in shot for getting my food. I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to myself in the most lively colours, how I must have acted if I had got nothing out of the ship, how I could not have so much as got any food, except fish and turtles, and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I must have perished first, that I should have lived if I had not perished like a mere savage, that if I had killed a goat or a fowl by any contrivance, I had no way to flay or open it, or part the flesh from the skin and the bowels, or to cut it up, but must knot with my teeth and pull it with my claws like a beast. These reflections may be very sensible of the goodness of Providence to me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardships and misfortunes, and this part also I cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are apt, in their misery, to say, is any affliction like mine? Let them consider how much worse the cases of some people are, and their case might have been if Providence had thought fit. I had another reflection, which assisted me also to comfort my mind with hopes, and this was comparing my present situation with what I had deserved, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence. I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the knowledge and fear of God. I had been well instructed by father and mother, neither had they been wanting to me and their early endeavours to infuse a religious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty, and what the nature and end of my being required of me. But, alas, falling early into the seafaring life, which of all lives is the most destitute of the fear of God, though his terrors are always before them, I say, falling early into the seafaring life and into seafaring company, all that little sense of religion which I had entertained was laughed out of me by my messmates, by a hardened despising of dangers and the views of death which grew habitual to me by my long absence from all manner of opportunities to converse with anything but what was like myself, or to hear anything that was good or tended towards it. Sufoid was I of everything that was good, or the least sense of what I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed, such as my escape from Salih, my being taken up by the Portuguese master of the ship, my being planted so well in the Brazils, my receiving the cargo from England and the like, I never had once the words, Thank God, so much is on my mind, or in my mouth, nor in the greatest distress had I so much as a thought to pray to him, or so much as to say, Lord have mercy upon me. No, nor to mention the name of God, unless it was to swear by and blaspheme it. I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months, as I have already observed, on account of my wicked and hardened life past, and when I looked about me and considered what particular provenances had attended me since my coming into this place, and how God had dealt bountifully with me, had not only punished me less than my iniquity had deserved, but had so plentifully provided for me, this gave me great hopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercy in store for me. With these reflections I worked my mind up not only to a resignation to the will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but even to a sincere thankfulness for my condition, and that I, who was yet a living man, ought not to complain, seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins, that I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason to have expected in that place, that I ought never more to repine at my condition, but to rejoice, and to give daily thanks for that daily bread which nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought, that I ought to consider I had been fed even by a miracle, even as great as that of feeding Elijah by ravens, nay, by a long series of miracles, and that I could hardly have named a place in the uninhabitable part of the world where I could have been cast more to my advantage, a place where, as I had no society, which was my affliction on one hand, so I found no ravenous beasts, no furious wolves or tigers to threaten my life, no venomous creatures or poisons which I might feed on to my hurt, no savages to murder and devour me. In a word, as my life was a life of sorrow one way, so it was a life of mercy another, and I wanted nothing to make it a life of comfort, but to be able to make my sense of God's goodness to me, and care over me in this condition, be my daily consolation. And after I did make a just improvement on these things, I went away and was no more sad. I had now been here so long that many things which I had brought on shore for my help were either quite gone, or very much wasted, and near spent. My ink, as I observed, had been gone some time, all but a very little, which I eked out with water, a little and a little, till it was so pale it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long as it lasted I made use of it to minot down the days of the month on which any remarkable thing happened to me. And first, by casting up times past, I remembered that there was a strange concurrence of days in the various provenances which befell me, and which, if I had been superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I might have had reason to have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity. First I had observed that the same day that I broke away from my father and friends and ran away to Hull in order to go to sea, the same day afterwards I was taken by the Sally man of war and made a slave. The same day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of that ship in Yarmouth Roads, that same day, year afterwards, I made my escape from Sally in a boat. The same day of the year I was born on, that is the thirtieth of September, that same day I had my life so miraculously saved twenty-six years after, when I was cast on shore in this island, so that my wicked life and my solitary life began both on a day. The next thing to my ink being wasted was that of my bread. I mean the biscuit which I brought out of the ship. This I had husbanded to the last degree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a day for above a year, and yet I was quite without bread for nearer a year before I got any corn of my own, and great reason I had to be thankful that I had any at all, the getting of it being, as has been already observed, next to miraculous. My clothes too began to decay. As to linen I had had none a good while except some checkered shirts which I found in the chests of the other seamen and which I carefully preserved, because many times I could bear no other clothes on but a shirt, and it was a very great help to me that I had, among all the men's clothes of the ship, almost three dozen of shirts. There were also, indeed, several thick watchcoats of the seamen's which were left, but they were too hot to wear. And though it is true that the weather was so violently hot that there was no need of clothes, yet I could not go quite naked. No, though I had been inclined to it, which I was not, nor could I abide the thought of it, though I was alone. The reason why I could not go naked was, I could not bear the heat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on. Nay, the very heat frequently blistered my skin, whereas, with a shirt on, the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt was two-fold cooler than without it. No more could I ever bring myself to go out in the heat of the sun without a cap or a hat. The heat of the sun, meeting with such violence as it does in that place, would give me the headache presently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap or hat on, so that I could not bear it, whereas, if I put on my hat, it would presently go away. Upon these views I began to consider about putting the few rags I had, which I called clothes, into some order. I had worn out all the waistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not make jackets out of the great watch-coats which I had by me, and with such other materials as I had, so I set to work, tailoring, or rather, indeed, botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift to make two or three new waistcoats, which I hope would serve me a great while, as for breeches or drawers I may but a very sorry shift indeed till afterwards. I have mentioned that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I killed. I mean four-footed ones, and I had them hung up, stretched out with sticks in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and hard that they were fit for little, but others were very useful. The first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the hair on the outside, to shoot off the rain, and this I performed so well, that after I made me a suit of clothes wholly of these skins, that is to say, a waistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both loose, for they were rather wanting to keep me cool than to keep me warm. I must not omit to acknowledge that they were wretchedly made, for if I was a bad carpenter I was a worse tailor. However, they were such as I made very good shift with, and when I was out, if it happened to rain, the hair of my waistcoat and cap being outermost, I was kept very dry. After this I spent a great deal of time in pains to make an umbrella. I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to make one. I had seen them made in the Brazils, where they are very useful in the great heats there, and I felt the heats every jot has great here, and greater too, being nearer the equinox. Besides, as I was obliged to be much abroad, it was a most useful thing to me, as well for the rains as the heats. I took a world of pains with it, and was a great while before I could make anything likely to hold. Nay, after I had thought I had hit the way, I spoiled two or three before I made one to my mind. But at last I made one that answered indifferently well. The main difficulty I found was to make it let down. I could make it spread, but if it did not let down too, and draw in, it was not portable for me anyway but just over my head, which would not do. However, at last, as I said, I made one to answer, and covered it with skins, the hair upwards, so that it cast off the rain like a penthouse, and kept off the sun so effectually that I could walk out in the hottest of the weather with greater advantage than I could before in the coolest, and when I had no need of it could close it and carry it under my arm. Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed by residing myself to the will of God, and throwing myself wholly upon the disposal of His providence. This made my life better than sociable, for when I began to regret the want of conversation I would ask myself whether thus conversing mutually with my own thoughts, and, as I hope I may say, with even God Himself, by ejaculations was not better than the utmost enjoyment of human society in the world. CHAPTER X TAMES GOATS I cannot say that after this, for five years any extraordinary thing happened to me, but I lived on in the same course, in the same posture in place as before. The chief things I was employed in, besides my yearly labour of planting my barley and rice, and curing my raisins, of both of which I always kept up just enough to have a sufficient stock of one year's provisions beforehand, I say, besides this yearly labour, and my daily pursuit of going out with my gun, I had one labour, to make a canoe, which at last I finished. So that, by digging a canal to it of six feet wide and four feet deep, I brought it into the creek, almost half a mile. As for the first, which was so vastly big, for I made it without considering beforehand, as I ought to have done, how I should be able to launch it. So, never being able to bring it into the water, or bring the water to it, I was obliged to let it lie where it was, as a member random to teach me to be wiser the next time. Indeed, the next time, though I could not get a tree proper for it, and was in a place where I could not get the water to it at any less distance than, as I have said, near half a mile, yet as I saw it was practicable at last, I never gave it over, and though I was near two years about it, yet I never grudged my labour in hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last. However, though my little peri-agua was finished, yet the size of it was not at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I made the first. I mean, a venturing over to the terra firma, where it was above forty miles broad. Accordingly the smallness of my boat assisted to put an end to that design, and now I thought no more of it. As I had a boat, my next design was to make a cruise round the island, for as I had been on the other side in one place, crossing, as I already described it, over the land, so the discoveries I made in that little journey made me very eager to see other parts of the coast, and now I had a boat, I thought of nothing but sailing round the island. For this purpose, that I might do everything with discretion and consideration, I fitted up a little mast in my boat, and made a sail, too, out of some of the pieces of the ship sails which lay in store, and of which I had a great stock by me. Having fitted my mast in sail, and tried the boat, I found she would sail very well. Then I made little lockers or boxes at each end of my boat, to put provisions, necessaries, ammunition, etc. into, to be kept dry, either from rain or the spray of the sea, and a little long hollow place I cut in the inside of the boat, where I could lay my gun, making a flap to hang down over it to keep it dry. I fixed my umbrella also in the step at the stern, like a mast, to stand over my head, and keep the heat of the sun off me, like an awning, and thus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but never went far out nor far from the little creek. At last, being eager to view the circumference of my little kingdom, I resolved upon my cruise, and accordingly I victualed my ship for the voyage, putting in two dozen of loaves, cakes, I should call them, of barley bread, an earthen pot full of parched rice, a food I ate a good deal of, and a little bottle of rum, half a goat, and powder and shot for killing more, and two large watchcoats, of those which, as I mentioned before, I had saved out of the seamen's chests, these I took one to lie upon and the other to cover me in the night. It was the sixth of November, in the sixth year of my reign, or my captivity, which you please, that I set out on this voyage, and I found it much longer than I expected, for though the island itself was not very large, yet when I came to the east side of it I found a great ledge of rocks lay out about two leaks into the sea, some above water, some under it, and beyond that a shoal of sand, lying dry half a leak more, so that I was obliged to go a great way out to sea to double the point. When I first discovered them I was going to give over my enterprise and come back again, not knowing how far it might oblige me to go out to sea, and above all doubting how I should get back again. So I came to an anchor, for I had made a kind of an anchor with a piece of a broken grappling which I got out of the ship. Having secured my boat I took my gun and went on shore, climbing up a hill which seemed to overlook that point where I saw the full extent of it, and resolved to venture. In my viewing the sea from that hill where I stood I perceived a strong, and indeed a most furious current, which ran to the east, and even came close to the point, and I took the more notice of it because I saw there might be some danger that when I came into it I might be carried out to sea by the strength of it, and not be able to make the island again. And indeed, had I not got first upon this hill I believe it would have been so, for there was the same current on the other side the island, only that it set off at a further distance, and I saw that there was a strong eddy under the shore, so I had nothing to do but to get out of the first current and I should presently be in an eddy. I lay here, however, two days, because the wind blowing pretty fresh at east-southeast, and that being just contrary to the current, made a great breach of the sea upon the point, so that it was not safe for me to keep too close to the shore for the breach, nor to go too far off because of the stream. The third day in the morning, the wind having abated overnight, the sea was calm and I ventured, but I am a warning to all rash and ignorant pilots, for no sooner was I come to the point when I was not even my boat's length from the shore, but I found myself in a great depth of water, and a current like the sluice of a mill. It carried my boat along with it with such violence that all I could do could not keep her so much as on the edge of it, but I found it hurried me farther and farther out from the eddy, which was on my left hand. There was no wind stirring to help me, and all I could do with my paddles signified nothing, and now I began to give myself over for lost, for as the current was on both sides of the island, I knew in a few leagues' distance they must join again, and then I was irrecoverably gone, nor did I see any possibility of avoiding it, so that I had no prospect before me but of perishing, not by the sea, for that was calm enough, but of starving from hunger. I had indeed found a tortoise on the shore, as big almost as I could lift, and had tossed it into the boat, and I had a great jar of fresh water, that is to say, one of my earthen pots, but what was all this to being driven into the vast ocean, where, to be sure, there was no shore, no mainland or island, for a thousand leagues at least? And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make even the most miserable condition of mankind worse. Now I looked back upon my desolate, solitary island as the most pleasant place in the world, and all the happiness of my heart could wish for was to be but there again. I stretched out my hands to it, with eager wishes. Oh, happy desert! said I. I shall never see thee more. Oh, miserable creature! Whither am I going? Then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper, and that I had repined it my solitary condition, and now what would I give to be on shore there again? Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy but by the want of it. It is scarcely possible to imagine the consternation I was now in, being driven from my beloved island, for so it appeared to me now to be, into the wide ocean, almost two leagues, and in the utmost despair of ever recovering it again. However, I worked hard till, indeed my strength was almost exhausted, and kept my boat as much to the northward, that is, towards the side of the current which the eddy lay on, as possibly I could. When about noon, as the sun passed the meridian, I thought I felt a little breeze of wind in my face, springing up from south-southeast. This cheered my heart a little, and especially when, in about half an hour more, it blew a pretty gentle gale. By this time I had got at a frightful distance from the island, and had the least cloudy or hazy weather intervene. I had been undone another way, too, for I had no compass on board, and should never have known how to have steered toward the island, if I had but once lost sight of it. But the weather continuing clear, I applied myself to get up my mast again, and spread my sail, standing away to the north as much as possible, to get out of the current. Just as I had set my mast in sail, and the boat began to stretch away, I saw even by the clearness of the water some alteration of the current was near, for where the current was so strong the water was foul, but perceiving the water clear I found the current abate, and presently I found to the east, at about half a mile, a breach of the sea upon some rocks. These rocks I found caused the current to part again, and as the main stress of it ran away more southerly, leaving the rocks to the northeast, so the other returned by the repulse of the rocks, and made a strong eddy, which ran back again to the northwest with a very sharp stream. They who know what it is to have a reprieve brought to them upon the latter, or to be rescued from thieves just going to murder them, or who have been in such extremities, may guess what my present surprise of joy was, and how gladly I put my boat into the stream of this eddy, and the wind also freshening, how gladly I spread my sail to it, running cheerfully before the wind, and with a strong tide or eddy underfoot. This eddy carried me about a league on my way back again, directly towards the island, but about two leagues more to the northward than the current which carried me away at first, so that when I came near the island I found myself open to the northern shore of it, that is to say, the other end of the island, opposite to that which I went out from. When I had made something more than a league of way by the help of this current or eddy, I found it was spent, and served me no further. However, I found that being between two great currents, that is, that on the south side which had hurried me away, and that on the north which lay about a league on the other side, I say, between these two, in the wake of the island, I found the water at least still, and running no way, and having still a breeze of wind fair for me, I kept on steering directly for the island, though not making such fresh way as I did before. About four o'clock in the evening, being then within a league of the island, I found the point of the rocks which occasioned this disaster stretching out, as is described before, to the southward, and casting off the current more southerly had, of course, made another eddy to the north, and this I found very strong, but not directly setting the way my course lay, which was due west, but almost full north. However, having a fresh gale, I stretched across this eddy, slanting north west, and in about an hour came within about a mile of the shore, where, it being smooth water, I soon got to land. When I was unsure, I fell on my knees and gave God thanks for my deliverance, resolving to lay aside all thoughts of my deliverance by my boat, and refreshing myself with such things as I had, I brought my boat close to the shore, in a little cove that I had spied under some trees, and laid me down to sleep, being quite spent with the labour and fatigue of the voyage. I was now at a great loss which way to get home with my boat. I had run so much hazard, and knew too much of the case, to think of attempting it by the way I went out, and what might be at the other side, I mean the west side, I knew not, nor had I any mind to run any more ventures, so I resolved on the next morning to make my way westward along the shore, and to see if there was no creek where I might lay up my frigate in safety, so as to have her again if I wanted her. In about three miles or thereabouts, coasting the shore, I came to a very good inlet or bay, about a mile over, which narrowed till it came to a very little rivulet or brook, where I found a very convenient harbour for my boat, and where she lay as if she had been in the little dock made on purpose for her. Here I put in, and having stowed my boat very safe, I went on shore to look about me and see where I was. I soon found I had but a little past by the place where I had been before, when I travelled on foot to that shore, so taking nothing out of my boat but my gun and umbrella, for it was exceedingly hot, I began my march. The way was comfortable enough after such a voyage as I had been upon, and I reached my old bower in the evening, where I found everything standing as I left it, for I always kept it in good order, being, as I said before, my country-house. I got over the fence, and laid me down in the shade to rest my limbs, for I was very weary, and fell asleep. But, judge you, if you can, that read my story, what a surprise I must be in when I was awaked out of my sleep by a voice calling me by my name several times. Robin! Robin! Robin Crusoe! Poor Robin Crusoe! Where are you, Robin Crusoe? Where are you? Where have you been? I was so dead asleep at first, being fatigued with rowing, for part of the day, and with walking the latter part, that I did not wake thoroughly, but dozing thought I dreamed that somebody spoke to me. But as the voice continued to repeat, Robin Crusoe! Robin Crusoe! At last I began to wake more perfectly, and was at first dreadfully frightened, and started up in the utmost consternation. But no sooner were my eyes open but I saw my pole sitting on the top of the hedge, and immediately knew that it was he that spoke to me. For just in such bemoaning language I had used to talk to him and teach him, and he had learned it so perfectly that he would sit upon my finger, and lay his bill close to my face and cry, Poor Robin Crusoe! Where are you? Where have you been? How came you here?—and such things as I had taught him. However, even though I knew it was the parrot, and that indeed it could be nobody else, it was a good while before I could compose myself. First I was amazed how the creature got thither, and then how he should just keep about the place and nowhere else. But as I was well satisfied it could be nobody but honest pole. I got over it, and holding out my hand and calling him by his name, Paul. The sociable creature came to me, and sat upon my thumb as he used to do, and continued talking to me. Poor Robin Crusoe! And how did I come here? And where had I been? Just as if he had been overjoyed to see me again, and so I carried him home along with me. I had now had enough of rambling to see for some time, and had enough to do for many days to sit still and reflect upon the danger I had been in. I would have been very glad to have had my boat again on my side of the island, but I knew not how it was practicable to get it about. As to the east side of the island, which I had gone round, I knew well enough there was no venturing that way. My very heart would shrink, and my very blood-run chill but to think of it. And as to the other side of the island, I did not know how it might be there, but supposing the current ram with the same force against the shore at the east as it passed by it on the other, I might run the same risk of being driven down the stream and carried by the island as I had been before of being carried away from it. So with these thoughts I contended myself to be without any boat, though it had been the product of so many months' labor to make it, and of so many more to get it into the sea. In this government of my temper I remained near a year and lived a very sedate, retired life, as you may well suppose, and my thoughts being very much composed as to my condition, and fully comforted in resigning myself to the dispositions of Providence, I thought I lived really very happily in all things except that of society. I improved myself in this time and all the mechanic exercises which my necessities put me upon applying myself to, and I believe I should, upon occasion, have made a very good carpenter, especially considering how few tools I had. Besides this I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my earthenware and contrived well enough to make them with a wheel, which I found infinitely easier and better, because I made things round and shaped, which before were filthy things indeed to look on. But I think I was never more vain of my own performance or more joyful for anything I found out, than for my being able to make a tobacco-pipe, and though it was a very ugly, clumsy thing when it was done, and only burned red like other earthenware, yet it was hard and firm, and would draw the smoke, I was exceedingly comforted with it, for I had been always used to smoke, and there were pipes in the ship, but I forgot them at first, not thinking there was tobacco in the island, and afterwards, when I searched the ship again, I could not come at any pipes. In my wickerware also I improved much, and made abundance of necessary baskets, as well as my invention showed me, though not very handsome, yet they were such as were very handy and convenient for laying things up in, or fetching things home. For example, if I killed a goat abroad, I could hang it up in a tree, flay it, dress it, and cut it in pieces, and bring it home in a basket, and the like by a turtle, I could cut it up, take out the eggs, and a piece or two of the flesh, which was enough for me, and bring them home in a basket and leave the rest behind me. Also, large deep baskets were the receivers of my corn, which I always rubbed out as soon as it was dry and cured, and kept it in great baskets. I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably. This was a want which was impossible for me to supply, and I began seriously to consider what I must do when I should have no more powder, that is to say, how I should kill any goats. I had, as as observed in the third year of my being here, kept a young kid, and bred her up tame, and I was in hopes of getting a he-goat, but I could not by any means bring it to pass, till my kid grew an old goat, and as I could never find in my heart to kill her, she died at last of mere age. And being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and as I have said, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to trap and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of them alive, and particularly I wanted a she-goat great with young. For this purpose I made snares to hamper them, and I do believe they were more than once taken in them, but my tackle was not good, for I had no wire, and I always found them broken and my bait devoured. At length I resolved to try a pitfall, so I dug several large pits in the earth, in places where I had observed the goats used to feed, and over those pits I placed hurdles of my own making, too, with a great weight upon them, and several times I put ears of barley and dry rice without setting the trap, and I could easily perceive that the goats had gone in and eaten up the corn, for I could see the marks of their feet. At length I set three traps in one night, and going the next morning I found them all standing, and yet the bait eaten and gone. This was very discouraging. However I altered my traps, and not to trouble you with particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of them a large old he-goat, and in one of the others three kids, a male and two females. As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him. He was so fierce I durst not go into the pit to him, that is to say, to bring him away alive, which was what I wanted. I could have killed him, but that was not my business, nor would it answer my end. So I even let him out, and he ran away as if he had been frightened out of his wits. But I did not then know what I afterwards learned, that hunger will tame a lion. If I had let him stay three or four days without food, and then have carried him some water to drink, and then a little corn, he would have bit his tame as one of the kids, for they are mighty sagacious tractable creatures where they are well used. However, for the present I let him go, knowing no better at that time. Then I went to the three kids, and taking them one by one, I tied them with strings together, and with some difficulty brought them all home. It was a good while before they would feed, but throwing them some sweet corn, it tempted them, and they began to be tame. And now I found that if I expected to supply myself with goats flesh when I had no powder or shot left, breeding some up-tame was my only way, when, perhaps, I might have them about my house like a flock of sheep. But then it occurred to me that I must keep the tame from the wild, or else they would always run wild when they grew up, and the only way for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground, well fenced either with hedge or pale, to keep them in so effectually that those within might not break out, or those without break in. This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands, yet, as I saw there was an absolute necessity for doing it, my first work was to find out a proper piece of ground where there was likely to be herbage for them to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep them from the sun. Those who understand such enclosures will think I had very little contrivance when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these, being a plain open piece of meadow-land, or savanna, as our people call it in the western colonies, which had two or three little drills of fresh water in it, and at one end it was very woody. I say they will smile at my forecast, when I shall tell them I began by enclosing this piece of ground in such a manner that my hedge or pale must have been at least two miles about. Nor was the madness of it so great as to the compass, for if it was ten miles about I was like to have time enough to do it in, but I did not consider that my goats would be as wild in so much compass as if they had had the whole island, and I should have so much room to chase them in that I should never catch them. My hedge was begun and carried on, I believe, about fifty yards when this thought occurred to me, so I presently stopped short, and for the beginning I resolved to enclose a piece of about one hundred and fifty yards in length, and one hundred yards in breadth, which, as it would maintain as many as I should have in any reasonable time, so as my stock increased I could add more ground to my enclosure. This was acting with some prudence, and I went to work with courage. I was about three months hedging in the first piece, until I had done it, I tethered the three kids in the best part of it, and used them to feed as near me as possible, to make them familiar, and very often I would go and carry them some ears of barley, or a handful of rice, and feed them out of my hand, so that after my enclosure was finished and I let them loose, they would follow me up and down, bleeding after me for a handful of corn. This answered my end, and in about a year and a half I had a flock of about twelve goats, kids, and all, and in two years more I had three and forty, beside several that I took and killed for my food. After that I enclose five several pieces of ground to feed them in, with little pins to drive them to take them as I wanted, and gates out of one piece of ground into another. But this was not all, for now I not only had goats flesh to feed on when I pleased, but milk too, a thing which, indeed in the beginning I did not so much as think of, and which, when it came into my thoughts, was really an agreeable surprise, for now I set up my dairy and had sometimes a gallon or two of milk in a day. It is nature who gives supplies of food to every creature, dictates even naturally how to make use of it, so I, that it never milked a cow, much less a goat, or seen butter or cheese made only when I was a boy. After a great many assays and miscarriages, made both butter and cheese at last, also salt, though I found it partly made to my hand by the heat of the sun upon some of the rocks of the sea, and never wanted it afterwards. How mercifully can our Creator treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they are seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction? How can He sweeten the bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise Him for dungeons and prisons? What a table was here spread for me in the wilderness, where I saw nothing at first but to perish for hunger.