ed with the
lightning, as I was with a thought which darted into my mind as swift as
the lightning itself; O my powder! my very heart sunk within me, when I
thought, that at one blast all my powder might be destroyed; on which,
not my defence only, but the providing me food, as I thought, entirely
depended; I was nothing near so anxious about my own danger; though, had
the powder took fire, I had never 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 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 any thing 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 me; but then it was attended with this misfortune to me,
viz. that they were so shy, so subtle, and so swift of foot, that it
was the most difficult thing in the world to come at them. But I was not
discouraged at this, not doubting but I might now and then shoot one, as
it soon happened; for after I had found their haunts a little, I laid
wait in this manner for them: I observed, if they saw me in the vallies,
though they were upon the rocks, they would run away as in a terrible
fright; but if they were feeding in the vallies, and I was upon the
rocks, they took no notice of me; from whence I concluded, that by the
position of their optics, their sight was so directed downward, that
they did not readily see objects that were above them; so afterward I
took this method; I always climbed the rocks first,