east frightening them so as to prevent their coming hither any more:
but all this was abortive; nothing could be possible to take effect,
unless I was to be there to do it myself: and what could one man do
among them, when perhaps there might be twenty or thirty of them
together, with their darts, or their bows and arrows, with which they
could shoot as true to a mark as I could with my gun?

Sometimes I thought of digging a hole under the place where they made
their fire, and putting in five or six pounds of gunpowder, which, when
they kindled their fire, would consequently take fire, and blow up all
that was near it: but as, in the first place, I should be unwilling to
waste so much powder upon them, my store being now within the quantity
of one barrel, so neither could I be sure of its going off at any
certain time, when it might surprise them; and, at best, that it would
do little more than just blow the fire about their ears, and fright
them, but not sufficient to make them forsake the place: so I laid it
aside; and then proposed that I would place myself in ambush in some
convenient place, with my three guns all double-loaded, and, in the
middle of their bloody ceremony, let fly at them, when I should be sure
to kill or wound perhaps two or three at every shot; and then falling in
upon them with my three pistols, and my sword, I made no doubt but that
if there were twenty I should kill them all. This fancy pleased my
thoughts for some weeks; and I was so full of it, that I often dreamed
of it, and sometimes that I was just going to let fly at them in my
sleep. I went so far with it in my imagination, that I employed myself
several days to find out proper places to put myself in ambuscade, as I
said, to watch for them; and I went frequently to the place itself,
which was now grown more familiar to me: but while my mind was thus
filled with thoughts of revenge, and a bloody putting twenty or thirty
of them to the sword, as I may call it, the horror I had at the place,
and at the signals of the barbarous wretches devouring one another,
abetted my malice. Well, at length, I found a place in the side of the
hill, where I was satisfied I might securely wait till I saw any of
their boats coming: and might then, even before they would be ready to
come on shore, convey myself, unseen, into some thickets of trees, in
one of which there was a hollow large enough to conceal me entirely and
there I might sit and observe all the