DRAWN FROM NATURE. 208

down to the point of the island where, as I have said, in my last
ramble, I went up the hill to see how the shore lay and how the
current set, that I might see what I had to do. This inclination
increased upon me every day, and at length I resolved to travel
thither by land, following the edge of the shore. Ididso. But
had any one in England been to meet such a man as I was, it must
either have frighted them, or raised a great deal of laughter. And
as I frequently stood still to look at myself, I could not but smile
at the notion of my travelling through Yorkshire with such an
equipage and in such a dress. Be pleased to take a sketch of my
figure as follows.

I had a great high shapeless cap, made of a goat’s skin, with a
flap hanging down behind, as well to keep the sun from me as to
shoot the rain off from running into my neck—nothing being so
hurtful in these climates as the rain upon the flesh under the
clothes.

I had a short jacket of goat-skin, the skirts coming down to
about the middle of my thighs; and a pair of open-kneed breeches
of the same—the breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat,
whose hair hung down such a length on either side, that like pata-
loons it reached to the middle of my legs; stockings and shoes I
had none, but had made me a pair of somethings, I scarce know
what to call them, like buskins, to flap over my legs and lace on
either side like spatterdashes, but of a most barbarous shape—as
indeed were all the rest of my clothes.

I had on a broad belt of goat-skin dried, which I drew together
with two thongs of the same, instead of buckles, and in a kind of
frog on either side of this. Instead of a sword and a dagger hung
a little saw and a hatchet, one on one side, one on the other. I
had another belt not so broad, and fastened in the same manner,
which hung over my shoulder; and at the end of it, under my left
arm, hung two pouches, both made of goat-skin too—in one of
which hung my powder, in the other my shot. At my back I
carried my basket; on my shoulder my gun; and over my head a
great clumsy, ugly goat-skin umbrella— but which, after all, was the
most necessary thing I had about me, next to my gun. As for my
face, the colour of it was really not so Mulatto-like as one might