hook a bag of
chicken's meat out in that place, and then the wonder began to cease;
and I must confess, my religious thankfulness to God's providence began
to abate too upon discovering that all this was nothing but what was
common; though I ought to have been as thankful for so strange and
unforeseen a providence as if it had been miraculous; for it was really
the work of Providence as to me, that should order or appoint ten or
twelve grains of corn to remain unspoiled, when the rats had destroyed
all the rest, as if it had been dropped from heaven: as also, that I
should throw it out in that particular place, where, it being in the
shade of a high rock, it sprang up immediately; whereas if I had thrown
it any were else at that time, it had been burnt up and destroyed.

I carefully saved the ears of corn, you may be sure, in their season,
which was about the end of June, and laying up every corn, I resolved to
sow them all again, hoping in time to have some quantity sufficient to
supply me with bread; but it was not till the fourth year that I could
allow myself the least grain of this corn to eat, and even then but
sparingly, as I shall say afterwards in its order; for I lost all that I
sowed the first season, by not observing the proper time; for I sowed it
just before the dry season, so that it never came up at all, at least
not as it would have done: of which in its place.

Besides this barley there were, as above, twenty or thirty stalks of
rice, which I preserved with the same care, and whose use was of the
same kind or to the same purpose, viz. to make me bread, or rather food;
for I found ways to cook it up without baking, though I did that also
after some time. But to return to my journal.

I worked excessive hard these three or four months to get my wall done;
and the 14th of April I closed it up, contriving to go into it, not by a
door, but over the wall by a ladder, that there might be no sign in the
outside of my habitation.

April 16. I finished the ladder; so I went up with the ladder to the
top, and then pulled it up after me, and let it down on the inside: this
was a complete enclosure to me; for within I had room enough, and
nothing could come at me from without, unless it could first mount
my wall.

The very next day after this wall was finished, I had almost had all my
labour overthrown at once, and myself killed; the case was thus: As I
was busy in the inside of it behind my tent, just in the