156 A MOURNFUL ANNIVERSARY.

26th, found a very large tortoise, which was a treat to me; and
my food was regulated thus:—I ate a bunch of raisins for my
breakfast, a piece of the goat’s flesh or of the turtle for my dinner
broiled—for to my great misfortune I had no vessel to boil or
stew anything—and two or three of the turtle’s eggs for my supper.

During this confinement in my cover by the rain I worked daily
two or three hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked
it on towards one side till I came to the outside of the hill, and
made a door or way out, which came beyond my fence or wall, and
so I came in and out this way. But I was not perfectly easy at
lying so open; for as I had managed myself before, I was in a
perfect enclosure, whereas now I thought I lay exposed and open
for anything to come in upon me. And yet I could not perceive
that there was any living thing to fear, the biggest creature that
I had yet seen upon the island being a goat.

September the 30th. I was now come to the unhappy anni-
versary of my landing. I cast up the notches on my post, and
found I had been on shore 365 days. I kept this day as a solemn
fast, setting it apart to religious exercise, prostrating myself on
the ground with the most serious humiliation, confessing my sins
to God, acknowledging his righteous judgments upon me, and
praying to him to have mercy on me through Jesus Christ. And
having not tasted the least refreshment for twelve hours, even till
the going down of the sun, I then ate a biscuit cake and a bunch
of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day as I began it.

T had all this time observed no Sabbath-day; for as at first I
had no sense of religion upon my mind, I had after sometime
omitted to distinguish the weeks by making a longer notch than
ordinary for the Sabbath-day, and so did not really know what any
of the days were. But now having cast up the days as above, I
found I had been there a year, so I divided it into weeks, and set
apart every seventh day for a Sabbath; though I found at the end
of my account I had lost a day or two in my reckoning.

A little after this my ink began to fail me, and so I contented
myself to use it more sparingly, and to write down only the most
remarkable events of my life, without continuing a daily memo-
randum of other things.