little into the form of a shovel or spade;
the handle exactly shaped like ours in England, only that the board part
having no iron shod upon it at bottom, it would not last me so long;
however, it served well enough for the uses which I had occasion to put
it to; but never was a shovel, I believe, made after that fashion, or so
long in making.

I was still deficient, for I wanted a basket or a wheelbarrow. A basket
I could not make by any means, having no such things as twigs that would
bend to make wicker-ware--at least, none yet found out; and as to a
wheelbarrow, I fancied I could make all but the wheel; but that I had no
notion of; neither did I know how to go about it; besides, I had no
possible way to make the iron gudgeons for the spindle or axis of the
wheel to run in; so I gave it over, and so, for carrying away the earth
which I dug out of the cave, I made me a thing like a hod which the
labourers carry mortar in when they serve the bricklayers. This was not
so difficult to me as the making the shovel: and yet this and the shovel,
and the attempt which I made in vain to make a wheelbarrow, took me up no
less than four days--I mean always excepting my morning walk with my gun,
which I seldom failed, and very seldom failed also bringing home
something fit to eat.

_Nov._ 23.--My other work having now stood still, because of my making
these tools, when they were finished I went on, and working every day, as
my strength and time allowed, I spent eighteen days entirely in widening
and deepening my cave, that it might hold my goods commodiously.

_Note_.--During all this time I worked to make this room or cave spacious
enough to accommodate me as a warehouse or magazine, a kitchen, a
dining-room, and a cellar. As for my lodging, I kept to the tent; except
that sometimes, in the wet season of the year, it rained so hard that I
could not keep myself dry, which caused me afterwards to cover all my
place within my pale with long poles, in the form of rafters, leaning
against the rock, and load them with flags and large leaves of trees,
like a thatch.

_December_ 10.--I began now to think my cave or vault finished, when on a
sudden (it seems I had made it too large) a great quantity of earth fell
down from the top on one side; so much that, in short, it frighted me,
and not without reason, too, for if I had been under it, I had never
wanted a gravedigger. I had now a great deal of work to do over again,
for I had