A NEW WAY OF CATCHING GOATS. 199

in a basket; and the like by a turtle,—I could cut it up, take out
the eggs, and a piece or two of the flesh, which was enough for
me, and bring them home in a basket, and leave the rest behind
me. Also large deep baskets were my receivers for my corn,
which I always rubbed out as soon as it was dry, and cured, and
kept it in great baskets.

I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably, and
this was a want which it was impossible for me to supply, and I
began seriously to consider what I must do when I should have
no more powder; that is to say, how I should do to kill any goat.
T had, as is observed in the third year of my being here, kept a
young kid, and bred her up tame, and I was in hope of getting a
he-goat, but I could not by any means bring it to pass, till my kid
grew an old goat; and I could never find in my heart to kill her,
till she died at last of mere age.

But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I
have said, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some
art to trap and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch
some of them alive, and particularly I wanted a she-goat great with
young.

To this purpose I made snares to hamper them, and I do
believe they were more than once taken in them; but my tackle
was not good, for I had no wire, and I always found them broken,
and my bait devoured.

At length I resolved to try a pit-fall. So. I dug several large
pits in the earth, in places where I had observed the goats used to
feed; and over these pits I placed hurdles of my own making too,
with a great weight upon them. And several times I put ears of
barley, and dry rice, without setting the trap; and I could easily
perceive that the goats had gone in and eaten up the corn, for I
could see the mark of their feet. At length I set three traps in
one night; and going the next morning, I found them all stand-
ing, and yet the bait eaten and gone. This was very discouraging.
However, I altered my trap; and, not to trouble you with parti-
culars, going one morning to see my trap, I found in one of them
a large old he-goat; and in one of the other, three kids—a male
and two females.