228 HIS FURTHER PRECAUTIONS.

this I did, I went and removed my boat, which I had on the other
side the island, and carried it down to the east end of the whole
island. where I ran it into a little cove which I found under some
high rocks, and where I knew, by reason of the currents, the
savages durst not, at least would not, come with their boats upon
any account whatsoever.

With my boat I carried away everything that I had left there
belonging to her, though not necessary for the bare going thither—
namely, a mast and sail which I had made ior her, and a thing like
an anchor, but indeed which could not be called either anchor or
grapling—however, it was the best I could make of its kind. All
these I removed, that there might not be the least shadow of any
discovery, or any appearance of any boat or of any human. habi-
tation upon the island.

Besides this, I kept myself, as IT said, more retired than ever,
and seldom went from my cell, other than upon my constant
employment—namely, to milk my she-goats and manage my little
flock in the wood ; which, as it was quite on the other part of the
island, was quite out of danger ; for certain it is, that those savage
people who sometimes haunted this island, never came with any
thoughts of finding anything here, and consequently never wan-
dered off from the coast. And I doubt not but they might have been
several times on shore after my apprehensions of them had made
me cautious as well as before; and, indeed, I looked back with
some horror upon the thoughts of what my condition would have
been, if I had chopped upon them, and been discovered before that,
when naked and unarmed, except with one gun, and that loaded
often only with small shot. I walked everywhere peeping and
peeping about the island to see what I could get ;—what a sur-
prise should I have been in, if, when I discovered the print of a
man’s foot, | had instead of that seen fifteen or twenty savages,
and found them pursuing me, and, by the swiftness of their run-
ning, no possibility of my escaping them !

The thoughts of this sometimes sank my very soul within me,
and distressed my mind so much that I could not soon recover it,
to think what I should have done, and how I not only should not
have been able to resist them, but even should not have had pre-