ADRIFT AT SEA, 198

The third day, in the morning, the wind having abated over-
night, the sea was calm, and I ventured. But I am a warning
piece again to all rash and ignorant pilots; for no sooner was I
come to the point, when even I was not my boat’s length from the
shore, but I found myself in a great depth of water, and a current
like the sluice of a mill! It carried my boat along with it with
such violence that all I could do could not keep her so much as
on the edge of it; but I found it hurried me further and further
out from the eddy, which was on my left hand. There was no
wind stirring to help me; and all I could do with my paddles
signified nothing. And now I began to give myself over for
lost; for as the current was on both sides the island, I knew
in a few leagues distance they must join again, and then I
was irrecoverably gone. Nor did I see any possibility of avoid-
ing it; so that I had no prospect before me but of perishing—
not by the sea, for that was calm enough, but of starving for
hunger. I had, indeed, found a tortoise on the shore as big almost
as I could lift, and had tossed it into the boat; and I had a great
jar of fresh water—that is to say, one of my earthen pots; but
what was all this to being driven into the vast ocean, where, to
be sure, there was no shore, no mainland or island for a thousand
leagues at least !

And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to
make the most miserable condition mankind could be in, worse.
Now I looked back upon my desolate solitary island as the most
pleasant place in the world, and all the happiness my heart could
wish for was to be but there again. I stretched out my hands to
it with eager wishes. “O happy desert,” said I, “I shall never see
thee more! O miserable creature,” said I, ‘whither am I going!”
Then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper, and how I
had repined at my solitary condition; and now what would I give
to be on shore there again! Thus we never see the true state of
our condition, till it is illustrated to us by its contraries; nor
know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it. It is
scarce possible to imagine the consternation I was now in, being
driven from my beloved island (for so it appeared to me now to
be) into the wide ocean, almost two leagues, and in the utmost