428 INDUSTRY VERSUS INDOLENCE,

reason was, because, according to my rule, Nature dictated that it
was to no purpose to sow more corn than they wanted; but the
difference of the cultivation, of the planting, of the fences, and
indeed of everything else, was easy to be seen at first view.

The two men had innumerable young trees planted about their
huts, that when you came to the place nothing was to be seen but a
wood ; and though they had twice had their plantations demolished,
once by their own countrymen, and once by the enemy, as shall
be shown in its place, yet they had restored all again, and every-
thing was thriving and flourishing about them. They had grapes
planted in order, and managed like a vineyard, though they had
themselves never seen anything of that kind; and by their good
ordering their vines, their grapes were as good again as any of the
others. They had also found themselves out. a retreat in the
thickest part of the woods, where, though there was not a natural
cave, as I had found, yet they made one with incessant labour of
their hands, and where, when the mischief which followed hap- .
pened, they secured their wives and children, so as they could
never be found; they having, by sticking innumerable stakes and
poles of the wood, which, as I said, grew so easily, made the wood
unpassable, except in some places, where they climbed up to get
over the outside part, and then went on by ways of their own
leaving.

As to the three reprobates, as I justly call them, though they
were much civilized by their new settlement, compared to what
they were before, and were not so quarrelsome, having not the
same opportunity, yet one of the certain companions of a profli-
gate mind never left them; and that was their idleness. It is
true, they planted corn and made fences; but Solomon’s words
were never better verified than in them: “I went by the vine-
yard of the slothful, and it was all overgrown with thorns.” For
when the Spaniards came to view their crop, they could not see it
in some places for weeds. The hedge had several gaps in it, where
the wild goats had gotten in, and eaten up the corn; perhaps,
here and there, a dead bush was crammed in, to stop them out for
the present, but it was only shutting the stable door after the
steed was stolen. Whereas, when they looked on the colony of