behind his tent he had a cave in which he thought it wise to stow his
gunpowder, about one hundred and forty pounds in all, packed in small
parcels; for, he thought, if a big thunderstorm were to come, a flash
of lightning might explode it all, and blow him to bits, if he kept
the whole of it in his tent.

Robinson was now very comfortable, and as he had saved from the wreck
two cats and a dog, he did not feel quite so lonely. He had got, also,
ink and pens and paper, so that he could keep a diary; and he set up a
large wooden cross, on which he cut with his knife the date of his
landing on the island--September 30, 1659; and every day he cut a
notch on the post, with a longer one each Sunday, so that he might
always know how the months and years passed.

As for food, he found that there were many goats on the island, and
numbers of pigeons, and he had no difficulty in shooting as many as he
needed.

But now he saw that his tent and cave were too small for all the
things he had stowed in them, so he began to make the cave bigger,
bringing out all the rock and soil that he cut down, and making with
it a kind of terrace round the inside of his stockade. And as he was
sure that there were no wild beasts on the island to harm him, he went
on tunneling to the right hand till he broke through the rock outside
his fence.

Then he began to hang things up against the side of the cave, and he
even made shelves, and a door for the outside entrance. This was a
very difficult job, and took him a long time; for, to make a board, he
was forced to cut down a whole tree, and chop away with his axe till
one side was flat, and then cut at the other side till the board was
thin enough, when he smoothed it with his adze. But in this way, out
of each tree he would only get one plank. He made for himself also a
table and a chair, and finally got his castle, as he called it, in
very good order.

With all his care, however, there was one thing that he forgot, and
that was, when he had made the cave so much bigger, to prop it, so as
to keep the roof from falling in. And so one day he got a terrible
fright, and was nearly killed, by a huge bit of the soft rock which
fell and buried many of his things. It took weeks of hard work
afterwards to clear away the fallen rubbish, and to cut beams strong
enough to prop the roof.

Every day, all this time, he used to climb up the hill and look around
over the lonely waters, hoping, always hoping, t