hich I ought to have considered
well of, and did cast up in my thoughts afterwards, yet took up none
of my apprehensions at first, but my head ran mightily upon the
thought of getting over to the shore.

Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long-boat with the
shoulder-of-mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on
the coast of Africa; but this was in vain. Then I thought I would go
and look at our ship's boat, which, as I have said, was blown up upon
the shore a great way, in the storm, when we were first cast away. She
lay almost where she did at first, but not quite; and was turned, by
the force of the waves and the winds, almost bottom upwards, against a
high ridge of beachy rough sand, but no water about her, as before.

If I had had hands to have refitted her, and to have launched her into
the water, the boat would have done well enough, and I might have gone
back into the Brazils with her easily enough; but I might have
foreseen that I could no more turn her, and set her upright upon her
bottom, than I could remove the island. However, I went to the woods,
and cut levers and rollers, and brought them to the boat, resolved to
try what I could do; suggesting to myself that if I could but turn her
down, I might easily repair the damage she had received, and she would
be a very good boat, and I might go to sea in her very easily.

I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent,
I think, three or four weeks about it. At last, finding it impossible
to heave it up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the
sand, to undermine it, and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of
wood to thrust and guide it right in the fall. But when I had done
this, I was unable to stir it up again, or to get under it, much less
to move it forward towards the water; so I was forced to give it over.
And yet, though I gave over the hopes of the boat, my desire to
venture over for the main increased, rather than decreased, as the
means for it seemed impossible.

This at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible to
make myself a canoe, or _periagua_, such as the natives of those
climates make, even without tools, or, as I might say, without hands,
viz., of the trunk of a great tree. This I not only thought possible,
but easy, and pleased myself extremely with the thoughts of making it,
and with my having much more convenience for it than any of the
negroes or Indians; but not at