164 CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



It was with a certain sort of grim satisfaction that 

 I recalled how Crusoe had taken to a tree, the very first 

 night he was on shore after his shipwreck. But his 

 was a voluntary treeing, while mine was compulsory ; 

 for he says : . . . " All the Remedy that o£fer'd to my 

 thoughts at that Time was to get up into a thick bushy 

 Tree, like a Firr, but thorny, which grew near me, and 

 where I resolv'd to sit all Night, and consider next 

 Day what death I should dye ; for as yet I saw no 

 prospect of Life." 



He wouldn't have done it if I could have been 

 there to tell him about the ants, the centipedes, the 

 pestiferous insects generally, that inhabit such a tree 

 in the tropics, and do their best to make miserable any 

 one invading their domain ! 



Experience was his teacher as well as mine, how- 

 ever, and I can vouch for the truth of his words when . 

 he says : " I learnt also this in particular : that being 

 abroad in the rainy Season was the most pernicious 

 Thing for my Health that could be." It certainly was 

 for mine, as the next chapter will show. 



