A SHOCK OF EARTHQUAKE, : 183

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 observ-
ing 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 was, 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 bak-
ing, 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 all
my labour overthrown at once, and myself killed. The case was
thus: As I was busy in the inside of it, behind my tent, just in the
entrance into my cave, I was terribly frightened with a most dreadful
surprising thing indeed; for all on a sudden I found the earth come
crumbling down from the roof of my cave and from the edge of the
hill over my head, and two of the posts I had set up in the cave
cracked in a frightful manner. I was heartily scared, but thought
nothing of what was really the cause—only thinking that the top
of my cave was falling in, as some of it had done before ; and for
fear I should be buried in it, I ran forward to my ladder, and not
thinking myself safe there neither, I got over my wall for fear of
the pieces of the bill which I expected might roll down upon me.
I was no sooner stepped down upon the firm ground, but I plainly
saw it was a terrible earthquake, for the ground I stood on shook