January 2-Accordingly,the next day,I went out with my dog,and set him upon the goats;but I was mistaken,for they all faced about upon the dog;and he knew his danger too well,for he would not come near them.
January 3-I began my fence or wall;which,being still jealous of my being attacked by somebody,I resolved to make very thick and strong.
N.B.-This wall being described before,I purposely omit what was said in the journal.It is sufficient to observe that I was no less time than from the 3rd of January to the 14th of 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 till 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 admitted 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 all 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 were 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,or 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 a 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 beeswax 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 had 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 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 perfect 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 know 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 was so 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,which proved to be stalks of rice,and which I knew,because I had seen it grow in Africa,when I was ashore there.