94 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

 

my axe, I cut a piece, and brought it home too with difficulty enough,
for it was exceeding heavy.

The excessive hardness of the wood, and “having no other way, made
me a long while upon this machine; for I worked it effectually by little
and little into the form of a shovel or spade, the handle exactly shaped
like ours in England, only that the broad part having no iron shod
upon it at bottom, it would not last me so long; however, it served
well enough for the uses which I had occasion to put it to; but never
was a shovel, I believe, made after that fashion, or so long a-making.

I was still deficient, for I wanted a basket or a wheel-barrow; a
basket I could not make by any means, having no such things as twigs,
that would bend to make wicker-ware, at least not yet found out; and
as to a wheel-barrow, I fancied I could make all but the wheel, but that
I had no notion of, neither did I know how to go about it; besides, I
had no possible way to make the iron gudgeons for the spindle, or axis,
of the wheel, to run in, so I gave it over; and so, for carrying away
the earth which I dug out of the cave,.I made me a thing like a hod,
which the labourers carry mortar in, when they serve the bricklayers.

This was not so difficult to me as the making the shovel; and yet
this, and the shovel, and the attempt which I made in vain to make a
wheelbarrow, took me up no less than four days, I mean always except-
ing my morning walk with my gun, which I seldom failed; and very
seldom failed also bringing home something to eat.

Nov. 23.—My other work having now stood still, because of my
making these tools, when they were finished I went on, and working
every day, as my strength and time allowed, I spent eighteen days
entirely in widening and deepening my cave, that it might hold my
goods commodiously.

Note—During all this time I worked to make this room, or cave,
spacious enough to accommodate me as a warehouse, or magazine, a
kitchen, a dining-room, and a cellar: as for my lodging, I kept to the
tent, except that sometimes in the wet season of the year, it rained
so hard, that I could not keep myself dry, which caused me afterwards
to cover all my place within my pale with long poles in the form of
rafters, leaning against the rock, and load them with flags and large
leaves of trees like a thatch.

December 10.—I began now to think my cave, or vault, finished,
when on a sudden (it seems I had made it too large) a great quantity
of earth fell down from the top and one side, so much, that, in short,
it frighted me, and not without reason too; for if I had been under it,
I had never wanted a grave-digger. Upon this disaster I had a great .
deal of work to d- oyer again; for I had the loose earth to carry out,