an to work my way into the rock, and bringing
all the earth and stones that I dug down out through my tent, I laid them
up within my fence, in the nature of a terrace, so that it raised the
ground within about a foot and a half; and thus I made me a cave, just
behind my tent, which served me like a cellar to my house.

It cost me much labour and many days before all these things were brought
to perfection; and therefore I must go back to some other things which
took up some of my thoughts. At the same time it happened, after I had
laid my scheme for the setting up my tent, and making the cave, that a
storm of rain falling from a thick, dark cloud, a sudden flash of
lightning happened, and after that a great clap of thunder, as is
naturally the effect of it. I was not so much surprised with the
lightning as I was with the thought which darted into my mind as swift as
the lightning itself--Oh, my powder! My very heart sank within me when I
thought that, at one blast, all my powder might be destroyed; on which,
not my defence only, but the providing my food, as I thought, entirely
depended. I was nothing near so anxious about my own danger, though, had
the powder took fire, I should never have known who had hurt me.

Such impression did this make upon me, that after the storm was over I
laid aside all my works, my building and fortifying, and applied myself
to make bags and boxes, to separate the powder, and to keep it a little
and a little in a parcel, in the hope that, whatever might come, it might
not all take fire at once; and to keep it so apart that it should not be
possible to make one part fire another. I finished this work in about a
fortnight; and I think my powder, which in all was about two hundred and
forty pounds weight, was divided in not less than a hundred parcels. As
to the barrel that had been wet, I did not apprehend any danger from
that; so I placed it in my new cave, which, in my fancy, I called my
kitchen; and the rest I hid up and down in holes among the rocks, so that
no wet might come to it, marking very carefully where I laid it.

In the interval of time while this was doing, I went out once at least
every day with my gun, as well to divert myself as to see if I could kill
anything fit for food; and, as near as I could, to acquaint myself with
what the island produced. The first time I went out, I presently
discovered that there were goats in the island, which was a great
satisfaction to