e in a belt,
but without a scabbard.

Things going on thus, as I have said, for some time, I seemed, excepting
these cautions, to be reduced to my former calm sedate way of living.
All these things tended to show me, more and more, how far my condition
was from being miserable, compared to some others; nay, to many other
particulars of life, which it might have pleased God to have made my
lot. It put me upon reflecting how little repining there would be among
mankind at any condition of life, if people would rather compare their
condition with those that were worse, in order to be thankful, than be
always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their
murmurings and complainings.

As in my present condition there were not really many things which I
wanted, so, indeed, I thought that the frights I had been in about these
savage wretches, and the concern I had been in for my own preservation,
had taken off the edge of my invention for my own conveniences; and I
had dropped a good design, which I had once bent my thoughts too much
upon, and that was, to try if I could not make some of my barley into
malt, and then try to brew myself some beer. This was really a whimsical
thought, and I reproved myself often for the simplicity of it; for I
presently saw there would be the want of several things necessary to the
making my beer, that it would be impossible for me to supply: as, first,
casks to preserve it in, which was a thing that, as I have observed
already, I could never compass; no, though I spent not only many days,
but weeks, nay, months, in attempting it, but to no purpose. In the next
place, I had no hops to make it keep, no yeast to make it work, no
copper or kettle to make it boil; and yet, with all these things
wanting, I verily believe, had not the frights and terrors I was in
about the savages intervened, I had undertaken it, and perhaps brought
it to pass too; for I seldom gave any thing over without accomplishing
it, when once I had it in my head to begin it. But my invention now ran
quite another way; for, night and day, I could think of nothing but how
I might destroy some of these monsters in their cruel, bloody
entertainment, and, if possible, save the victim they should bring
hither to destroy. It would take up a larger volume than this whole work
is intended to be, to set down all the contrivances I hatched, or rather
brooded upon, in my thoughts, for the destroying these creatures, or at
l