o near to the shore that
I had time to get all these things out of her; what would have been my
case, if I had been to have lived in the condition in which I at first
came on shore, without necessaries of life, or necessaries to supply
and procure them? "Particularly," said I aloud (though to myself),
"what should I have done without a gun, without ammunition, without
any tools to make anything, or to work with, without clothes, bedding,
a tent, or any manner of covering?" and that now I had all these to a
sufficient quantity, and was in a fair way to provide myself in such a
manner, as to live without my gun when my ammunition was spent; so
that I had a tolerable view of subsisting without any want as long as
I lived. For I considered from the beginning how I would provide for
the accidents that might happen, and for the time that was to come,
even not only after my ammunition should be spent, but even after my
health or strength should decay.

I confess I had not entertained any notion of my ammunition being
destroyed at one blast--I mean, my powder being blown up by lightning;
and this made the thoughts of it so surprising to me when it lightened
and thundered, as I observed just now.

ROBINSON CRUSOE BUILDS A BOAT

_By Daniel Defoe_

You may be sure my thoughts ran many times upon the prospect of land
which I had seen from the other side of the island, and I was not
without secret wishes that I were on shore there, fancying that seeing
the mainland, and in an inhabited country, I might find some way or
other to convey myself farther, and perhaps at last find some means of
escape.

But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such a
condition, and how I might fall into the hands of savages, and perhaps
such as I might have reason to think far worse than the lions and
tigers of Africa; that if I once came into their power, I should run a
hazard more than a thousand to one of being killed, and perhaps of
being eaten; for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coasts
were cannibals, or man-eaters, and I knew by the latitude that I could
not be far off from that shore. That suppose they were not cannibals,
yet that they might kill me, as many Europeans who had fallen into
their hands had been served, even when they had been ten or twenty
together, much more I, that was but one, and could make little or no
defense,--all these things, I say, w