OHAPTEK XL 



MY HOME ON THE HILLTOP. 



" My next Work was to view the Country and seek a proper 

 Place for my Habitation and where to stow my Goods, to secure 

 them from whatever might happen ; there was a Hill not above a 

 Mile from me which rose up very steep and high, and which 

 seem'd to overtop some other Hills which lay as in a Ridge from 

 it northward." — Crusoe. 



I HAD been three months on this island before 1 

 owned a home. The camp on the beach, though it 

 was a dehghtful makeshift, was never regarded by 

 me in any sense as a home, for it was built of too 

 fragile materials, serving merely as a retreat for the 

 night and from the heat of the sun. In making the 

 discovery of the palm -crowned hill in the forest, I had 

 found the site of what I really wanted to establish : a 

 home that would serve me as a permanent place of 

 residence. Soon after I opened a path through the 

 woods, which shortened the distance between that 

 place and the camp to less than a mile, and at once 

 began cutting the timber for a house. 



It was a fatiguing labor, of course, and I will not 

 detail the days of toil and the many schemes I in- 

 vented to overcome the difficulties in the way. Suf- 

 fice it that by the end of February I had all the ma- 



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