Part 9 (2/2)

This was a erness of my fancy prevailed, and to work I went, and felled a cedar-tree: I questionthe temple at Jerusalem; it was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part next the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two feet, after which it lessened for a while, and then parted into branches It was not without infinite labour that I felled this tree: I enty days hacking and hewing at it at the botto the branches and li head of it, cut off, which I hacked and hewed through with my axe and hatchet, with inexpressible labour: after this it cost me a month to shape it, and dub it to a proportion, and to soht as it ought to do It cost me near three months more to clear the inside, and work it out so as to make an exact boat of it: this I did indeed without fire, by mere mallet and chissel, and by the dint of hard labour; till I had brought it to be a very handsoh to have carried six-and-twenty h to have carried h this work, I was extreer than I ever saw a canoe or periagua, that was made of one tree, in my life; many a weary stroke it had cost, you et it into the water; and had I gotten it into the water, I e, and the most unlikely to be perforet it into the water failed h they cost infinite labour too; it lay about one hundred yards from the water, and not more; but the first inconvenience was, it was up hill towards the creek Well, to take away this discourage into the surface of the earth, and so ious deal of pains: but who grudge pains, that have their deliverance in view? but when this orked through, and this difficulty ed, it was still much at one; for I could no more stir the canoe, than I could the other boat

Then I round, and resolved to cut a dock, or canal, to bring the water up to the canoe, seeing I could not bring the canoe down to the water: well, I began this work, and when I began to enter into it, and calculated how deep it was to be dug, how broad, how the stuff to be thrown out, I found, that by the nu none but my own, it one through with it; for the shore lay high, so that at the upper end it h with great reluctancy, I gave this atterieved inning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge lightly of our own strength to go through with it

In the middle of this work I finished my fourth year in this place, and kept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as much comfort, as ever before; for by a constant study, and serious application of the word of God, and by the assistance of his grace, I gained a different knowledge fros; I looked now upon the world as a thing re to do with, no expectation fro indeed to do with it, nor was ever like to have; so I thought it looked as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter; viz as a place I had lived in, but was coht say, as father Abrahaulf fixed”

In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the world here: I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life: I had nothing to covet, for I had all I was now capable of enjoying; I was lord of the wholeor emperor over the whole country which I had possession of: there were no rivals: I had no conty or cos of corn, but I had no use for it; so I let as little grow as I thought enough for h; but now and then one was as h to have built a fleet of shi+ps; I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when they had been built

But all I could h to eat, and to supply my wants, and as all the rest tomust eat it, or the vermin; if I sowed more corn than I could eat, itto rot on the ground, I could make no more use of them, than for fuel; and that I had no occasion for, but to dress s dictated to s of this world are no farther good to us, than as they are for our use: and that whatever we ive to others, we enjoy as riping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness, if he had been in my case; for I possessed infinitely more than I knehat to do with I had no roos which I had not, and they were but trifles, though indeed of great use to old as silver, about thirty-six pounds sterling; alas! there the nasty, sorry, useless stuff lay; I had no ht with ross of tobacco-pipes, or for an hand-iven it all for six-penny-worth of turnip and carrot seed out of England, or for an handful of peas and beans, and a bottle of ink: as it was, I had not the least advantage by it, or benefit frorew mouldy with the damp of the cave, in the wet season; and if I had had the drawer full of diamonds, it had been the same case; and they had been of no manner of value to ht my state of life to be much easier in itself than it was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body I frequently sat down to my meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness: I learnt to look ht side of my condition, and less upon the dark side; and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in iven theiven them: all our discontents about ant, appeared tofrom the want of thankfulness for e have

Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be so to any one that should fall into such distress as mine was; and this was, to compare my present condition hat I at first expected it should be; nay, hat it would certainly have been, if the good providence of God had not wonderfully ordered the shi+p to be cast up near to the shore, where I not only could coot out of her to the shore for my relief and comfort; without which I had wanted tools to work, weapons for defence, or gunpowder and shot for getting my food

I spent whole hours, Ito myself in the ot nothing out of the shi+p; how I could not have so ot any food, except fish and turtles; and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I must have perished first: that I should have lived, if I had not perished, like a oat or a fowl by any contrivance, I had no way to flay or open them, or part the flesh fronaith my teeth, and pull it with my claws, like a beast

These reflections oodness of Providence to me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardshi+ps and misfortunes: and this part also I cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are apt in their misery to say, Is any affliction like mine? Let them consider, how much worse the cases of soht have been, if Providence had thought fit

I had another reflection which assistedmy present condition hat I had deserved, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the knowledge and fear of God: I had been well instructed by father andto ious awe of God into my mind, a sense ofrequired oflife, which of all the lives is the h his terrors are always before the life, and into seafaring coion which I had entertained, was laughed out of ers, and the views of death, which grew habitual toabsence fro but as like ood, or tended towards it

So void was I of every thing that was good, or of the least sense of what I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliverance I enjoyed, such as ueseplanted so well in Brasil, land, and the like, I never once had the words, Thank God, so reatest distress had I so ht as to pray to him; nor so much as to say, Lord, have mercy upon me! no, not to mention the name of God, unless it was to swear by, and blaspheme it

I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months, as I have already observed, on the account of my wicked and hardened life past; and when I looked about me, and considered what particular providences had attendedinto this place, and how God had dealt bountifully with me; had not only punished me less than my iniquity deserved, but had so plentifully provided for reat hopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercies in store for me

With these reflections I worked nation to the will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but even to a sincere thankfulness of ht not to co I had not the due punishment of my sins; that I enjoyed so many mercies, which I had no reason to have expected in that place, that I ought never ive daily thanks, for that daily bread, which nothing but a cloud of wonders could have brought: that I ought to consider I had been fed even by aElijah by ravens; nay, by a long series of miracles; and that I could hardly have named a place in the uninhabited part of the world, where I could have been cast e: a place, where as I had no society, which was my affliction on one hand, so I found no ravenous beasts, no furious wolves or tigers, to threaten ht have fed on to es to murder and devour me

In a word, as my life was a life of sorrow one way, so it was a life ofto make it a life of cooodness to me, and care over me in this condition, be my daily consolation; and after I s, I went away, and was no s which I brought on shore for one, or very much wasted, and near spent

My ink, as I observed, had been gone for some time, all but a very little, which I eked out ater a little and a little, till it was so pale it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper: as long as it lasted, I made use of it to minute down the days of thehappened toup tie concurrence of days, in the various providences which befel me, and which, if I had been superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I reat deal of curiosity

First, I had observed, that the same day that I broke away froo to sea, the same day afterwards I was taken by the Sallee man of war, and made a slave

The same day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of the shi+p in Yarmouth Roads, that same day of the year afterwards I made my escape from Sallee in the boat

The same day of the year I was born on, viz the 20th of September, the same day I had my life so miraculously saved twenty-six years after, when I was cast on shore in this island; so that an on a day

The next thing towasted, was that of ht out of the shi+p This I had husbanded to the last degree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a day, for above a year: and yet I was quite without bread for a year before I got any corn of reat reason I had to be thankful that I had any at all, the getting it being, as has been already observed, next to htily: as to linen, I had none a good while, except some chequered shi+rts which I found in the chests of the other seamen, and which I carefully preserved, because many times I could bear no other clothes on but a shi+rt; and it was a very great help toall the men's clothes of the shi+p almost three dozen of shi+rts There were also several thick watch-coats of the seamen, which were left behind, but they were too hot to wear; and though it is true, that the weather was so violent hot, that there was no need of clothes, yet I could not go quite naked; no, though I had been inclined to it, which I was not; nor could I abide the thought of it, though I was all alone

One reason why I could not go quite naked, was, I could not bear the heat of the sun so hen quite naked as with some clothes on; nay, the very heat frequently blistered my skin; whereas, with a shi+rt on, the air itselfunder the shi+rt, ofold cooler than without it: no o out in the heat of the sun without a cap or a hat; the heat of the sun beating with such violence as it does in that place, would giveso directly on my head, without a cap or hat on, so that I could not bear it; whereas, if I put on o away

Upon these views I began to consider about putting the few rags I had, which I called clothes, into some order; I had worn out all the waistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not reat watch-coats which I had by me, and with such other , or rather indeed a-botching; for I made most piteous work of it However, I made shi+ft to reat while; as for breeches or drawers, I made but very sorry shi+ft indeed, till afterwards