In the interval of time while this was doing,I went out once,at least,every day with my gun,as well to divert myself,as to see if I could kill anything fit for food,and as near as I could to acquaint myself with what the island produced.The first time I went out,I presently discovered that there were goats in the island,which was a great satisfaction to me;but then it was attended with this misfortune to me,viz.,that they were so shy,so subtle,and so swift of foot,that it was the difficultest thing in the world to come at them.But I was not discouraged at this,not doubting but I might now and then shoot one,as it soon happened;for after I had found their haunts a little,I laid wait in this manner for them.I observed if they saw me in the valleys,though they were upon the rocks,they would run away as in a terrible fright;but if they were feeding in the valleys,and I was upon the rocks,they took no notice of me,from whence I concluded that,by the position of their optics,their sight was so directed downward,that they did not readily see objects that were above them.So afterward I took this method;I always climbed the rocks first to get above them,and then had frequently a fair mark.The first shot I made among these creatures I killed a she goat,which had a little kid by her,which she gave suck to,which grieved me heartily;but when the old one fell,the kid stood stock still by her till I came and took her up;and not only so,but when I carried the old one with me upon my shoulders,the kid followed me quite to my enclosure;upon which I laid down the dam,and took the kid in my arms,and carried it over my pale,in hopes to have bred it up tame;but it would not eat,so I was forced to kill it,and eat it myself.These two supplied me with flesh a great while,for I eat sparingly,and saved my provisions,my bread especially,as much as possibly I could.
Having now fixed my habitation,I found it absolutely necessary to provide a place to make a fire in,and fuel to burn;and what I did for that,as also how I enlarged my cave,and what conveniences I made,I shall give a full account of in its place.But I must first give some little account of myself,and of my thoughts about living,which it may well be supposed were not a few.
I had a dismal prospect of my condition;for as I was not cast away upon that island without being driven,as is said,by a violent storm,quite out of the course of our intended voyage,and a great way,viz.,some hundreds of leagues out of the ordinary course of the trade of mankind,I had great reason to consider it as a determination of Heaven,that in this desolate place,and in this desolate manner,I should end my life.The tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these reflections,and sometimes I would expostulate with myself,why Providence should thus completely ruin its creatures,and render them so absolutely miserable,so without help abandoned,so entirely depressed,that it could hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life.
But something always returned swift upon me to check these thoughts,and to reprove me;and particularly one day,walking with my gun in my hand by the seaside,I was very pensive upon the subject of my present condition,when Reason,as it were,expostulated with me t'other way,thus:‘Well,you are in a desolate condition it is true,but pray remember,where are the rest of you?Did not you come eleven of you into the boat?Where are the ten?Why were not they saved,and you lost?Why were you singled out?Is it better to be here,or there?’And then I pointed to the sea.All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them,and with what worse attends them.
Then it occurred to me again,how well I was furnished for my subsistence,and what would have been my case if it had not happened,which was an hundred thousand to one,that the ship floated from the place where she first struck and was driven so near to the shore that I had time to get all these things out of her;what would have been my case,if I had been to have lived in the condition in which I at first came on shore,without necessaries of life,or necessaries to supply and procure them?‘Particularly,’said I aloud (though to myself),‘what should I have done without a gun,without ammunition,without any tools to make anything or to work with,without clothes,bedding,a tent,or any manner of covering?’and that now I had all these to a sufficient quantity,and was in a fair way to provide myself in such a manner,as to live without my gun when my ammunition was spent;so that I had a tolerable view of subsisting without any want as long as I lived.For I considered from the beginning how I would provide for the accidents that might happen,and for the time that was to come,even not only after my ammunition should be spent,but even after my health or strength should decay.
I confess I had not entertained any notion of my ammunition being destroyed at one blast-I mean,my powder being blown up by lightning;and this made the thoughts of it so surprising to me when it lightened and thundered,as I observed just now.
And now being to enter into a melancholy relation of a scene of silent life,such,perhaps,as was never heard of in the world before,I shall take it from its beginning,and continue it in its order.It was,by my account,the 30th of September when,in the manner as above said,I first set foot upon this horrid island,when the sun being to us in its autumnal equinox,was almost just over my head,for I reckoned myself,by observation,to be in the latitude of 9degrees 22minutes north of the line.