that I went, thinking I could easily keep all the island 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 woods, 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 farther misfortune, that the weather proved hazy for three or four days, while I was in this valley; and not being able to see the sun, I wandered about very uncomfortably, and at last was obliged to find out the sea-side, look for my post, and come back the same way I went; and then by easy journies 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 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 a 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 every thing about me so comfortable, that I resolved I 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 Pol, who began now to be a mere domestic, and to be mighty well acquainted with me. Then I began to think of the poor kid, which I had pent in within my little circle, and resolved to go and fetch it home, and 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 30th 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 even that it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary condition than I should have been in a 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 communication 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 the life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days; and now, having changed both my sorrows and my joys, my very desires altered, my affections changed their gust, and my delights were perfectly new from what they were at 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, and 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, in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and made 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 favour 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 have ever 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 be such an hypocrite," said I, even audibly, "to pretend to be thankful for a condition, which, however thou mayst 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 at the first, yet in general it may be observed, that I was very seldom idle; having regularly divided my time, according to the several daily employments that were before me; such as, first, my duty to God, and 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 every morning when it did not rain: thirdly, the ordering, curing, preserving, and cooking what I had killed or catched for my supply; these took up great part of the day: also 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, every thing that I did, took up out of my time: for example, I was full two-and-forty days making me a board for a long shelf, which I wanted in my cave; whereas two sawyers, with their tools and 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. The tree I was three days a 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
