UT SIM PARATUS. 299

But much less would it be sufficient if his countrymen, who were,
as he said, fourteen still alive, should come over. And least of all
would it be sufficient to victual our vessel, if we should build one,
for a voyage to any of the Christian colonies of America. So he
told me he thought it would be more advisable to let him and the
two others dig and cultivate some more land, as much as I could
spare sced to sow; and that we should wait another harvest, that
_ we might have a supply of corn for his countrymen when they
should come; for want might be a temptation to them to disagree,
or not to think themselves delivered otherwise than out of one
difficulty intoanother. “You know,” says he, “the children of Israel,
though they rejoiced at first for their being delivered out of Egypt,
yet rebelled even against God himself that delivered them, when
they came to want bread in the wilderness.”

His caution was so seasonable, and his advice so good, that I
could not but be very well pleased with his proposal, as well as I
was satisfied with his fidelity. So we fell to digging, all four of us,
as well as the wooden tools we were furnished with permitted ;
and in about a month’s time, by the end of which it was seed-time,
we had gotten as much land cured and trimmed up as we sowed
twenty-two bushels of barley on and sixteen jars of rice—which
was, in short, all the seed we had to spare: nor, indeed, did we leave
ourselves barley sufficient for our own food for the six months that
we had to expect our crop; that is to say reckoning from the time
we set our seed aside for sowing, for it is not to be supposed it is
six months in the ground in that country.

Having now society enough, and our number being sufficient to
put us out of fear of the savages if they had come, unless their
number had been very great, we went freely all over the island
wherever we found occasion; and as here we had our escape or
deliverance upon our thoughts, it was impossible, at least
for me, to have the means of it out of mine. To this purpose
I marked out several trees which I thought fit for our work, and I
set Friday and his father to cutting them down; and then I caused
the Spaniard, to whom I imparted my thought on that affair, to
oversee and direct their work. I showed them with what inde-
fatigable pains I had hewed a large tree into single planks, and I