CRUSOE AS CABINET-MAKER. 121

say, giving over these things, I began to apply myself to accommo-
date my way of living, and to make things as easy to meas I could.

I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under
the side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and
cables; but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of
wall up against it of turfs, about two feet thick on the outside; and
after some time, I think it was a year and a half, I raised rafters
from it leaning to the rock, and thatched or covered it with
boughs of trees, and such things as I could get to keep out the
rain, which I found at some times of the year very violent.

J have already observed how I brought all my goods into this
pale, and into the cave which I had made behind me; but I must.
observe, too, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, which,
as they lay in no order, so they took up all my place. I had no
room to turn myself, so I set myself to enlarge my cave and works
further into the earth; for it was a loose sandy rock, which yielded
easily to the labour I bestowed on it: and so, when I found I
was pretty safe as to beasts of prey, I worked sideways to the
right hand into the rock; and then, turning to the right again,
worked quite out, and made me a door to come out, on the outside
of my pale or fortification.

This gave me not only egress and regress, as it were, a back-way
to my tent and to my storehouse, but gave me room to stow my
goods.

And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things
as I found I most wanted, as particularly a chair and a table; for
without these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in
the world—I could not write or eat, or do several things with so
much pleasure without a table.

So I went to work; and here I must needs observe, that as
reason is the substance and original of mathematics, so by stating
and squaring everything by reason, and by making the most
rational judgment of things, every man may be in time master of
every mechanic art. I had never handled a tool in my life, and
yet in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found at last
that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had
had tools; however, I made abundance of things, even without