the happy posture of my affairs in the first years of my
habitation here, with the life of anxiety, fear, and care which I had
lived in ever since I had seen the print of a foot in the sand. Not that
I did not believe the savages had frequented the island even all the
while, and might have been several hundreds of them at times on shore
there; but I had never known it, and was incapable of any apprehensions
about it; my satisfaction was perfect, though my danger was the same, and
I was as happy in not knowing my danger as if I had never really been
exposed to it. This furnished my thoughts with many very profitable
reflections, and particularly this one: How infinitely good that
Providence is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such
narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks
in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if
discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is
kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes,
and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him.

After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to reflect
seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years in this
very island, and how I had walked about in the greatest security, and
with all possible tranquillity, even when perhaps nothing but the brow of
a hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night, had been between
me and the worst kind of destruction--viz. that of falling into the hands
of cannibals and savages, who would have seized on me with the same view
as I would on a goat or turtle; and have thought it no more crime to kill
and devour me than I did of a pigeon or a curlew. I would unjustly
slander myself if I should say I was not sincerely thankful to my great
Preserver, to whose singular protection I acknowledged, with great
humanity, all these unknown deliverances were due, and without which I
must inevitably have fallen into their merciless hands.

When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up in
considering the nature of these wretched creatures, I mean the savages,
and how it came to pass in the world that the wise Governor of all things
should give up any of His creatures to such inhumanity--nay, to something
so much below even brutality itself--as to devour its own kind: but as
this ended in some (at that time) fruitless speculations, it occurred to
me to inquire what