Upon the whole,here was an undoubted testimony,that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable,but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it;and let this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world,that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from,and to set in the deion of good and evil on the credit side of the account.
Having now brought my mind a little to relish my condition,and given over looking out to sea,to see if I could spy a ship;I say,giving over these things,I began to apply myself to accommodate my way of living,and to make things as easy to me as I could.
I have already described my habitation,which was a tent under the side of a rock,surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables;but I might now rather call it a wall,for I raised a kind of wall up against it of turfs,about two feet thick on the outside,and after some time -I think it was a year and a half-I raised rafters from it leading to the rock,and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees and such things as I could get to keep out the rain,which I found at some times of the year very violent.
I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale,and into the cave which I had made behind me.But I must observe,too,that at first this was a confused heap of goods,which as they lay in no order,so they took up all my place;I had no room to turn myself.So I set myself to enlarge my cave and works farther into the earth;for it was a loose sandy rock,which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed on it.And so,when I found I was pretty safe as to beasts of prey,I worked sideways to the right hand into the rock;and then,turning to the right again,worked quite out,and made me a door to come out on the outside of my pale or fortification.This gave me not only egress and regress,as it were a back way to my tent and to my storehouse,but gave me room to stow my goods.
And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I found I most wanted,as particularly a chair and a table;for without these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world.I could not write or eat,or do several things with so much pleasure without a table.
So I went to work;and here I must needs observe,that as reason is the substance and original of the mathematics,so by stating and squaring everything by reason,and by making the most rational judgment of things,every man may be in time master of every mechanic art.I had never handled a tool in my life;and yet in time,by labour,application,and contrivance,I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it,especially if I had had tools.However,I made abundance of things even without tools,and some with no more tools than an adze and a hatchet,which,perhaps,were never made that way before,and that with infinite labour.For example,if I wanted a board,I had no other way but to cut down a tree,set it on an edge before me,and hew it flat on either side with my axe,till I had brought it to be thin as a plank,and then dub it smooth with my adze.It is true,by this method I could make but one board out of a whole tree;but this I had no remedy for but patience,any more than I had for the prodigious deal of time and labour which it took me up to make a plank or board.But my time or labour was little worth,and so it was as well employed one way as another.
However,I made me a table and a chair,as I observed above,in the first place,and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that I brought on my raft from the ship.But when I had wrought out some boards，as above,I made large shelves of the breadth of a foot and a half one over another,all along one side of my cave,to lay all my tools,nails,and iron work;and,in a word,to separate everything at large in their places,that I might come easily at them.I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock to hang my guns and all things that would hang up;so that had my cave been to be seen,it looked like a general magazine of all necessary things;and I had everything so ready at my hand,that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order,and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great.
And now it was when I began to keep a journal of every day's employment;for,indeed,at first,I was in too much hurry,and not only hurry as to labour,but in too much discomposure of mind;and my journal would have been full of many dull things.For example,I must have said thus:Sept.the 30th.-After I got to shore,and had escaped drowning,instead of being thankful to God for my deliverance,having first vomited with the great quantity of salt water which was gotten into my stomach,and recovering myself a little,I ran about the shore,wringing my hands,and beating my head and face,exclaiming at my misery,and crying out,I was undone,undone，till,tired and faint,I was forced to lie down on the ground to repose;but durst not sleep,for fear of being devoured.
Some days after this,and after I had been on board the ship,and got all that I could out of her,yet I could not forbear getting up to the top of a little mountain,and looking out to sea,in hopes of seeing a ship;then fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail,please myself with the hopes of it,and then,after looking steadily till I was almost blind,lose it quite,and sit down and weep like a child,and thus increase my misery by my folly.
But having gotten over these things in some measure,and having settled my household stuff and habitation,made me a table and a chair,and all as handsome about me as I could,I began to keep my journal,of which I shall here give you the copy (though in it will be told all these particulars over again)as long as it lasted;for,having no more ink,I was forced to leave it off.