My powder beginning to fail, made me examine after what manner I should kill the goats or birds, to live on, after it was all gone. Upon which, I contrived, many ways to ensnare the goats, and see if I could catch them alive, particularly a she-goat with young.

At last I had my desire; for making pitfalls and traps, baited with barley and rice, I found one morning in one of them, an old hegoat, and in the other, three kids, one male, the other two, females.

So boisterous was the old one, that I could not bring him away. But I forgot the old proverb, That hunger will tame a lion: For, had I kept him three or four days without provisions, and then given him some water, with a little corn, he would have been as tame as a young kid. The other creatures I bound with strings together; but I had great difficulty before I could bring them to my habitation. It was some time before they would feed; but throwing them sweet corn, it so much tempted them, that they began to be tamer. hence I concluded, that if I designed to furnish myself with goat's flesh, when my ammunition was spent, the tamely breeding them up, like a flock of sheep, about my settlement, was the only method I could take. I concluded also I must separate the wild from the tame, or else they would always run wild as they grew up; and the best way for this, was to have some enclosed piece of ground, well fenced, either with a hedge or pale, to keep

From

them so effectually, that those within might not break out, nor those without break in.Such an undertaking was very great for one pair of hands; but as there was an absolute necessity for doing it, my first care was to find a convenient piece of ground, where there was likely to be herbage for them to eat, water to drink, and cover to keep them from the sun.

Here again, I gave another instance of my ignorance and inexperience, pitching upon a piece of meadow-land so large, that had I enclosed it, the hedge or pale must have been at least two miles about. This thought came into my head, after I had carried it on, I beheve, about fifty yards; I therefore altered my scheme, and resolved to enclose a piece of ground, about 150 yards in length, and 100 in breadth, large enough for as many as would maintain me, till such time as my flock increased, and then I could add more ground. I now vigorously prosecuted my work, and it took me about three months in hedging the first piece; in which time, I tethered the three kids in the best part of it; feeding them as near me as possible, to make them familiar; and, indeed, I very often would carry some ears of barley, or a handful of rice, and feed them out of my hand, by which they grew so tame, that when my enclosure was finished, and I had let them loose, they would run after me for a handful of corn. This indeed answered my end; and in a year and a half's sine, I had a flock of about twelve goats,

kids and all; and in two years after, they amounted to forty-three, besides what I had killed for my sustenance.

After which, I inclosed five several pieces of ground to feed them in, with pens to drive them into, that I might take them as I had occasion.

In this project I likewise found additional blessings; for I not only had plenty of goat's flesh, but milk too, which in the beginning, I did not so much as think of. And, indeed, though I had never milked a cow, much less a goat, or seen butter or cheese made, yet after some essays and miscarriages, I made me both, and never afterwards wanted.

How mercifully can the Almighty comfort his creatures, even in the midst of their greatest calamities? How can he sweeten the bitterest evils, and give us reason to magnify him in dungeons and prisons; what a bounteous table was here spread in a wilderness for me, where I expected nothing at first, but to perish for hunger.

Certainly any one would have smiled to see me at dinner. There sat my royal majesty, an absolute prince and ruler of my kingdom, attended by my dutiful subjects, whom, if I pleased, I could either punish or reward, give them liberty or take it away. When I dined, I seemed a king, eating alone, none daring to presume to do so till I had done. Poll, as if he had been my principal court favourite, was the only person permitted to talk with me. My old but faithful dog, now grown exceedingly crazy, continually sat on my right hand; while my

two cats sat on each side of the table, expecting a bit from my hand, as a principal mark of my royal favour. These were not the cats I had brought from the ship; they had been dead long before, and interred near my habitation by mine own hand. But a couple of their young I had made tame; the rest ran wild into the woods, and in time grew so impudent, as to return and plunder me of my stores, till such time as I shot a great many, and the rest left me without troubling me any more. In this plentiful manner did I live, wanting for nothing but conversation.One thing indeed concerned me, the want of my boat; I knew not which way to get her round the island. One time I resolved to go along the shore by land to her; but had any one at home met such a figure, it would either have affrighted them or made them burst into laughter; nay, I could not but smile myself at my habit, which I think in this place it will be very proper to describe.

The cap I wore upon my head, was great, high, and shapeless, made of a goat's skin, with a flap or pent-house hanging down behind, not only to keep the sun from me, but to shoot the rain off from running into my neck, nothing being more pernicious than the rain falling upon the flesh in these climates. I had a short jacket of goat's skin, whose hair hung down such a length on each side, that it reached down to the calves of my legs. As for shoes and stockings, I had none, but made a resemblance of something, I knew not what to call them; they were made like buskins, and laced on the side

like spatterdashes, barbarously shaped, like the rest of my habit. I had a broad belt of goat's skin dried, girt round me with a couple of thongs, instead of buckles; on each of which, to supply the deficiency of sword and dagger, hung my hatchet and saw. I had another belt not so broad, yet fastened in the same manner, which hung over my shoulder, and at the end of it, under my left arm, hung two pouches made o goat's skin, to hold my powder and shot. My, basket, I carried on my back, and my gun on my shoulder; and over my head, a great clumsy ugly goat's skin umbrella, which, however, next to my gun, was the most necessary thing about me. As for my face, the colour was not so swarthy as the Mulattoes, or as might have been expected from one who took so little care of it, in a climate within nine, or ten degrees of the Line. At one time, my beard grew so long that it hung down above a quarter of a yard; but as I had both razors and scissars in store, I cut it all off, and suffered none to grow, except a large pair of whiskers, the like of which I had seen worn by some Turks at Salee, not long enough indeed to hang a hat upon, but of such a monstrous size, as completely to alter my appearance.

But all this was of no consequence here, there being none to observe my behaviour or habit. And so, without fear and without controul, I proceeded on my journey, the prosecution of which took me up five or six days. I travelled along the sea shore, directly to the place where