April, working, finishing, and perfecting this wall, though it was no more than about twenty-four yards in length, being a half circle from one place in the rock to another place about eight yards from it, the door of the cave being in the centre behind it.
All this time I worked very hard, the rains hindering me many days, nay sometimes weeks together; but I thought I should never be perfectly secure until this wall was finished: and it is scarce credible what inexpressible labour everything was done with, especially the bringing piles out of the woods, and driving them into the ground; for I made them much bigger than I need to have done.
When this wall was finished, and the outside double-fenced with a turf wall raised up close to it, I persuaded myself, that if any people were to come on shore there, they would not perceive anything like a habitation; and it was very well I did so, as may be observed hereafter, upon a very remarkable occasion.
During this time I made my rounds in the woods for game every day, when the rain permitted me, and made frequent discoveries in these walks, of something or other to my advantage; particularly, I found a kind of wild pigeons, who built, not as wood pigeons, in a tree, but rather as house pigeons, in the holes of the rocks; and taking some young ones, I endeavoured to breed them up tame, and did so; but when they grew older they flew away, which, perhaps, was at first for want of feeding them; for I had nothing to give them. However, I frequently found their nests and got their young ones, which was very good meat.
And now, in the managing my household affairs, I found myself wanting in many things, which I thought at first it was impossible for me to make, as indeed, as to some of them, it was – for instance, I could never make a cask to be hooped. I had a small runlet or two, as I observed before, but I could never arrive to the capacity of making one by them, though I spent many weeks about it; I could neither put in the heads, nor joint the staves so true to one another as to make them hold water, so I gave that also over.
In the next place, I was at great loss for candle, so that as soon as ever it was dark, which was generally by seven o’clock, I was obliged to go to bed. I remembered the lump of bees’ wax with which I made candles in my African adventure, but I had none of that now. The only remedy I had was that, when I killed a goat I saved the tallow, and, with a little dish made of clay, which I baked in the sun, to which I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a lamp; and this gave me a light, though not a clear, steady light like a candle. In the middle of all my labours, it happened that, rummaging my things, I found a little bag, which, as I hinted before, had been filled with corn for the feeding of poultry, not for this voyage, but before, as I suppose, when the ship came from Lisbon. What little remainder of corn had been in the bag was all devoured with the rats, and I saw nothing in the bag but husks and dust; and being willing to have the bag for some other use – I think it was to put powder in, when I divided it for fear of the lightning, or some such use – I shook the husks of corn out of it, on one side of my fortification, under the rock.
It was a little before the great rains, just now mentioned, that I threw this stuff away, taking no notice of anything, and not so much as remembering that I had thrown anything there; when about a month after, or thereabout, I saw some few stalks of something green shooting out of the ground, which I fancied might be some plant I had not seen; but I was surprised and perfectly astonished, when, after a little longer time, I saw about ten or twelve ears come out, which were perfectly green barley, of the same kind as our European – nay, as our English barley.
It is impossible to express the astonishment and confusion of my thoughts on this occasion. I had hitherto acted upon no religious foundation at all. Indeed, I had very few notions of religion in my head, or had entertained any sense of anything that had befallen me, otherwise than as a chance, or, as we lightly say, what pleases God; without so much as inquiring into the end of Providence in these things, or his order in governing events in the world. But after I saw barley grow there, in a climate which I knew was not proper for corn, and especially, that I knew not how it came there, it startled me strangely, and I began to suggest, that God had miraculously caused this grain to grow, without any help of seed sown; and that it so was directed, purely for my sustenance on that wild miserable place.
This touched my heart a little, and brought tears out of my eyes, and I began to bless myself that such a prodigy of nature should happen upon my account; and this was the more strange to me, because I saw near it still, all along by the side of the rock, some other straggling stalks of rice, and which I knew, because I had seen it grow in Africa, when I was ashore there.
I not only thought these the pure productions of Providence for my support, but, not doubting but that there was more in the place, I went all over that part of the island where I had been before, peeping in every corner, and under every rock, to see for more of it, but I could not find any. At last, it occurred to my thought, that I had shook a bag of chickens’ meat out in that place, and then the wonder began to cease; and I must confess, my religious thankfulness to God’s providence began to abate too, upon discovering that all this was nothing but what was common, though I ought to have been as thankful for so strange and unforeseen a providence, as if it had been miraculous; for it was really the work of Providence, as to me, that should order or appoint ten or twelve grains of corn to remain unspoiled, when the rats had destroyed all the rest, as if it had been dropped from heaven – as also, that I should throw it out on that particular place, where, it being in the shade of a high rock, it sprang up immediately; whereas, if I had thrown it anywhere else at that time, it had been burnt up and destroyed.
I carefully saved the ears of corn, you may be sure, in their season, which was about the end of June, and laying up every corn, I resolved to sow them all again, hoping in time to have some quantity sufficient to supply me with bread; but it was not till the fourth year that I could allow myself the least grain of this corn to eat, and even then but sparingly, as I shall say afterwards in its order – for I lost all that I sowed the first season, by not observing the proper time – for I sowed it just before the dry season, so that it never came up at all, at least not as it would have done – of which in its place.
Besides this barley, there were, as above, twenty or thirty stalks of rice, which I preserved with the same care, and whose use was of the same kind, or to the same purpose, namely, to make me bread, or rather food; for I found ways to cook it up without baking, though I did that also after some time. But to return to my journal.
I worked excessively hard these three or four months to get my wall done; and the 14th of April I closed it up, contriving to go into it, not by a door, but over the wall by a ladder, that there might be no sign in the outside of my habitation.
April 16. – I finished the ladder; so I went up with the ladder to the top, and then pulled it up after me, and let it down in the inside. This was a complete enclosure to me; for within I had room enough, and nothing could come at me from without, unless it could first mount my wall.
The very next day after this wall was finished, I had almost had all my labour overthrown at once, and myself killed. The case was thus: As I was busy in the inside of it, behind my tent, just in the entrance into my cave, I was terribly frighted with a most dreadful surprising thing indeed; for on a sudden I found the earth come crumbling down from the roof of my cave, and from the edge of the hill, over my head, and two of the posts I had set up in the cave cracked in a frightful manner. I was heartily scared, but thought nothing of what was really the cause, only thinking that the top of my cave was falling in, as some of it had done before; and for fear I should be buried in it, I ran forward to my ladder, and not thinking myself safe there neither, I got over my wall for fear of the pieces of the hill, which I expected might roll down upon me. I was no sooner stept down upon the firm ground, but I plainly saw it was a terrible earthquake, for the ground I stood on shook three times at about eight minutes’ distance, with three such shocks as would have overturned the strongest building that could be supposed to have stood on the earth; and a great piece of the top of a rock, which stood about half a mile from me, next the sea, fell down with such a terrible noise as I never heard in all
