pointed to the sea. All evils are to be considered with the good that is
in them, and with what worse attended them.

Then it occurred to me again, how well I was furnished for my
subsistence, and what would have been my ease if it had not happened,
which was an hundred thousand to one, that the ship floated from the
place where she first struck, and was driven so near the shore that I
had time to get all these things out of her. What would have been my
case, if I had been to have lived in the condition in which I at first
came on shore, without necessaries of life, or necessaries to supply and
procure them? "particularly," said I, loud (though to myself), "what
should I have done without a gun, without ammunition, without any tools
to make any thing, or to work with; without clothes, bedding, a tent, or
any manner of covering?" and that now I had all these to a sufficient
quantity, and was in a fair way to provide myself in such a manner, as
to live without my gun when my ammunition was spent; so that I had a
tolerable view of subsisting, without any want, as long as I lived; for
I considered from the beginning how I should provide for the accidents
that might happen, and for the time that was to come, even not only
after my ammunition should be spent, but even after my health or
strength should decay.

I confess I had not entertained any notion of my ammunition being
destroyed at one blast, I mean my powder being blown up by lightning;
and this made the thoughts of it so surprising to me when it lightned
and thundered, as I observed just now.

And now, being about to enter into a melancholy relation of a scene of
silent life, such perhaps as was never heard of in the world before, I
shall take it from its beginning, and continue it in its order. It was,
by my account, the 30th of September, when, in the manner as above said,
I first set foot upon this horrid island, when the sun being, to us, in
its autumnal equinox, was almost just over my head, for I reckoned
myself, by observation, to be in the latitude of 9 degrees 22 minutes
north of the line.

After I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my
thoughts, that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books, and
pen and ink, and should even forget the sabbath days from the working
days; but to prevent this, I cut it with my knife upon a large post, in
capital letters, and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the
shore where I first l