400 



HISTORY OF THE SEA, 



The reason of his being left here was a difference with his cap- 

 tain, which, together with the fact that the ship was leaky, made 

 him willing to stay behind ; but when at last he was inclined to go 

 with the ship the captain would not receive him. He took with 

 him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock and some powder 

 and bullets, some tobacco, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, with other 

 books, and his mathematical instruments. He diverted himself 

 and provided for his sustenance as well as he could, but had much 

 ado to bear up against melancholy for the first eight months, 

 and was sore distressed at being left alone in so desolate a place. 

 He built himself two huts of pimento-trees, thatched with long 

 grass and lined with goat-skins, — killing goats as he needed 

 them with his gun, as long as his p(fwder lasted. When that 

 was all spent, he procured fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento 

 wood together. He slept in his large hut and cooked his 

 victuals in the smaller, and employed himself in reading, pray- 

 ing, and singing psalms, — so that, he said he was a better 

 Christian during his solitude than he had ever been before, or 

 than, he was afraid, he should ever be again. 



"At first he never ate but when constrained by hunger, — 

 partly from grief, and partly for want of bread and salt. 

 Neither did he go to bed till he could watch no longer, — the 

 pimento wood serving him both for fire and candle, as it burned 

 very clear and refreshed him by its fragrant smell. His fish 

 he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did his 

 goats' flesh, of which he made good broth; for they are not as 

 rank as our goats. Having kept an account, he said he had 

 killed five hundred goats while on the island, besides having 

 caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let them 

 go. When his powder failed, he ran them down by speed of 

 foot ; for his mode of living, with continual exercise of walking 

 and running, cleared him of all gross humors, so that he could 

 run with wonderful swiftness through the woods and up the hills 

 and rocks. 



