170 SCARING THE THIEVES.

the ear; for going along by the place to see how it throve, I saw
my little crop surrounded with fowls of I know not how many
sorts, which stood as it were watching till I should be gone. I
immediately let fly among them, for I always had my gun with
me. I had nosooner shot but there rose up a little cloud of fowls—
which I had not seen at all—from among the corn itself.

This touched me sensibly, for I foresaw that in a few days they
would devour all my hopes; that I should be starved, and never be
able to raise a crop at all: and what to do I could not tell. How-
ever, I resolved not to lose my corn, if possible, though I should
watch it night and day. In the first place, I went among it to see
what damage was already done; and found they had spoiled a good
deal of it, but that, as it was yet too green for them, the loss was
not so great but that the remainder was like to be a good crop if
it could be saved.

I stayed by it to load my gun; and then coming away I could
easily see the thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they
only waited till I was gone away. And the event proved it to be
so; for as I walked off as if I was gone, I was no sooner out of
their sight but they dropped down one by one into the corn again.
I was so provoked that I could not have patience to stay till more
came on, knowing that every grain that they ate now was, as it
might be said, a peck loaf to me in the consequence ; but coming
up to the hedge I fired again, and killed three of them. This was
what I wished for: so I took them up, and served them as we
serve notorious thieves in England—namely, hanged them in
chains for a terror to others. It is impossible to imagine almost
that this should have such an effect as it had ; for the fowls would
not only not come at the corn, but, in short, they forsook all that
part of the island, and I could never see a bird near the place as
long as my scarecrows hung there.

This I was very glad of, you may be sure; and about the latter
end of December, which was our second harvest of the year, I
reaped my crop. I was sadly put to it for a scythe or a sickle to
cut it down; and all I could do was to make one as well as I
could out of one of the broad swords or cutlasses which I saved
among the arms out of the ship. However, as my first crop was