any violence of man or wild beasts to hurt me,
beast. as I saw on the coast of
Africa: and what if I
had been shipwrecked
there?

I have no soul to speak But God wonderfully
to, or relieve me. sent the ship in near
enough to the shore, that
I have gotten out so many
necessary things as will
either supply my wants,
or enable me to supply
myself even as long as I
live.

Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was scarce
any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something
_negative_ or something _positive_ to be thankful for in it; and let
this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of
all conditions in this world, that we may always find in it something to
comfort ourselves from, and to set, in the description of good and evil,
on the credit side of the account.

Having now brought my mind a little to relish my condition, and given
over looking out to sea, to see if I could spy a ship; I say, giving
over these things, I began to apply myself to accommodate my way of
living, and to make things as easy to me as I could.

I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under the side
of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables; but I
might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up against
it of turfs, about two foot thick on the outside; and after some time, I
think it was a year and half, I raised rafters from it, leaning to the
rock, and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees, and such things
as I could get to keep out the rain, which I found at some times of the
year very violent.

I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale, and
into the cave which I had made behind me: but I must observe too that at
first this was a confused heap of goods, which as they lay in no order,
so they took up all my place: I had no room to turn myself; so I set
myself to enlarge my cave, and work farther into the earth; for it was a
loose sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed on it:
and so when I fou