boat, and I might
venture to sea in her.

I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent, I
think, three or four weeks about it: at last, finding it impossible to
heave her up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the sand,
to undermine her, and so as to make her fall down, setting pieces of
wood to thrust and guide her right in the fall.

But when I had done this, I was unable to stir her up again, or to get
under her, much less to move her forward towards the water; so I was
forced to give it over: and yet, though I gave over the hopes of the
boat, my desire to venture over the main increased, rather than
diminished, as the means for it seemed impossible.

At length, I began to think whether it was not possible to make myself a
canoe, or periagua, such as the natives of those climates make, even
without tools, or, as I might say, without hands, of the trunk of a
great tree. This I not only thought possible, but easy, and pleased
myself extremely with the idea of making it, and with my having much
more convenience for it than any of the Negroes or Indians; but not at
all considering the particular inconveniences which I lay under more
than the Indians did, viz. the want of hands to move it into the water
when it was made, a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than all
the consequences of want of tools could be to them: for what could it
avail me, if, after I had chosen my tree, and with much trouble cut it
down, and might be able with my tools to hew and dub the outside into
the proper shape of a boat, and burn or cut out the inside to make it
hollow, so as to make a boat of it; if, after all this, I must leave it
just where I found it, and was not able to launch it into the water?

One would imagine, if I had had the least reflection upon my mind of my
circumstances while I was making this boat, I should have immediately
thought how I was to get it into the sea: but my thoughts were so intent
upon my voyage in it, that I never once considered how I should get it
off the land; and it was really, in its own nature, more easy for me to
guide it over forty-five miles of sea, than the forty-five fathoms of
land, where it lay, to set it afloat in the water.

I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man did,
who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design,
without determining whether I was able to undertake it; not but that the
difficulty of la