A TERRIBLE FAILURE. 179

said, was blown up upon the shore a great way in the storm when
we were first cast away. She lay almost where she did at first,
but not quite; and was turned by the force of the waves and the
winds almost bottom upward against a high ridge of beachy rough
sand, but no water about her as before.

If I had had hands to have refitted her, and to have launched
her into the water, the boat would have done well enough, and I
might have gone back into the Brazils with her easily enough;
but I might have foreseen that I could no more turn her and set
her upright upon her bottom than I could remove the island.
However, I went to the woods and cut levers and rollers, and
brought them to the boat, resolved to try what I could do, sug-
gesting to myself that if I could but turn her down, I might easily
repair the damage she received, and she would be avery good boat,
and I might go to sea in her very easily.

I spared no pains indeed in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent,
I think, three or four weeks about it. At last, finding it impossible
to heave it up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the
sand to undermine it, and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of
wood to thrust and guide it right in the fall.

But when I had done this I was unable to stir it up again or to
get under it, mucli less to move it forward towards the water, so
I was forced to give it over; and yet, though I gave over the
hopes of the boat, my desire to venture over for the main increased
rather than decreased as the means for it seemed impossible.

This at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible
to make myself a canoe, or periagua, such as the natives of those
climates make, even without tools, or, as I might say, without
hands—namely, of the trunk of a great tree. This I not only
thought possible but easy, and pleased myself extremely with the
thoughts of making it, and with my having much more convenience
for it than any of the negroes or Indians; but not at all considering
the particular inconveniences which I lay under more than the
Indians did—namely, want of hands to move it, when it was made,
into the water, a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than
all the consequences of want of tools could be to them. For what
was it to me, that when I had chosen a vast tree in the woods, I