OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 99

 

every corner, and under every rock, to see for more of it; but I could
not find any. At last, it occurred to my thought that I had shook a
bag of chicken’s meat out in that place, and then the wonder began to
cease; and I must confess, my religious thankfulness to God’s provi-
dence began to abate too, upon discovering that all this was nothing
but what was common, though I ought to have been as thankful for so
strange and unforeseen a providence as if it had been miraculous; for
it was really the work of Providence, as to me, that should order or
appoint ten or twelve grains of corn to remain unspoiled, when the rats
had destroyed all the rest; as if it had been dropped from heaven: as
also, that I should throw it out in that particular place, where, it being
in the shade of a high rock, it sprang up immediately; whereas, if I
had thrown it anywhere else at that time, it had been burnt up and
destroyed.

I carefully saved the ears of corn, you may be sure, in their season,
which was about the end of June, and, laying up every corn, I resolved
to sow them all again, hoping in time to have some quantity sufficient
to supply me with bread; but it was not till the fourth year that I could
allow myself the least grain of this corn to eat, and even then but
sparingly, as I shall say afterwards in its order; for I lost all that I
sowed the first season, by not observing the proper time; for I sowed
it just before the dry season, so that it never came up at all, at least
not as it would have done: of which in its place.

Besides this barley, there were, as above, twenty or thirty stalks of
rice, which I preserved with the same care, and whose use was of the
same kind, or to the same purpose, namely, to make me bread, or
rather food; for I found ways to cook it up without baking, though I.
did that also after some time. But to return to my journal.

I worked excessive hard these three or four months to get my wall
done; and the 14th of April I closed it up, contriving to go into it,
not by a door, but over the wall by a ladder, that there might be no
sign in the outside of my habitation.

April 16.—I finished the ladder; so I went up with the ladder to
the top, and then pulled it up after me, and let it down on the inside.
This was-a complete enclosure to me; for within I had room enough,
and nothing could come at me from without, unless it could first mount
my wall,

The very next day after this wall was finished, I had almost had all
ny labour overthrown at once, and myself killed. The case.was,thus:
is I was busy in the inside of it, behind my tent, just in the entrance
nto my cave, I was terribly frighted with a most dreadful surprising
thing indeed; for on a sudden I found the earth come crumbling down