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168 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

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‘made any one have thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or

that I had been lately most terribly frighted; and so indeed I had.

However, as I went down thus two or three days, and having seen
nothing, I began to be a little bolder, and to think there was really
nothing in it but my own imagination ; but I could not persuade myself
fully of this, till I should go down to the shore again and see this prin‘
of a foot, and measure it by my own, and seeif there was any similitud:
or fitness, that I might be assured it was my own foot. But when 1
cume to the place first, it appeared evidently to me, that when I laid
up my boat, I could not possibly be on shore anywhere thereabouts.
Secondly, when I came to measure the mark with my own foot, I found
my foot not so large by a great deal. Both these things filled my head
with new imaginations, and gave me the vapours again to the highest:
degree ; so that I shook with cold like one in an ague, and I went home
again, filled with the belief that some man or men had been on shore
there; or, in short, that the island was inhabited, and I might be
surprised before I was aware ; and what course to take for my security
I_ knew not.

Oh, what ridiculous resolutions men take when possessed with fear!
It deprives them of the use of those means which reason offers for their
relief. The first thing I proposed to myself was, to throw down my
enclosures, and turn all my tame cattle wild into the woods, that the
enemy might not find them, and then frequent the island in prospect
of the same, or the like booty; then to the simple thing of digging up
my two corn fields, that they might not find such a grain there, and
still be prompted to frequent the island; then to demolish my bower
and tent, that they might not see any vestiges of my habitation, and
be prompted to look farther, in order to find out the persons in-
habiting.

These were the subjects of the first night’s cogitation, after I was
come home again, while the apprehensions which had so overrun my
mind were fresh upon me, and my head was full of vapours, as above.
Thus, fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger
itself when apparent to the eyes; and we find the burden of anxiety
greater by much than the evil which we are anxious about: but, which
was worse than all this, I had not that relief in this trouble, from the
resignation I used to practise, that I hoped to have. I looked, I
thought, like Saul, who complained, not only that the Philistines were
upon him, but that God had forsaken him; for I did not now take due
ways to compose my mind, by crying to God in my distress, and resting
upon hig providence, as I had done before, for my defence and deliver-

Xia, if I had done, I had at least been more cheerfully -