462 A CITY IN A WOOD.

Fast Indies, or reason for taking so long a voyage—I say, consider-
ing all this, both of them came to me and desired I would give
them leave to remain on the island, and be entered among my
family, as they called it.

I agreed to it readily, and they had a little plat of ground
allotted to them, where they had three tents or houses set up,
surrounded with a basket-work, palisadoed like Atkins’s, adjoining
to his plantation. Their tents were contrived so that they had
each of them a room apart to lodge in, and a middle tent like a
great storehouse to lay all their goods in, and to eat and drink in.
And now the other two Englishmen removed their habitation to
the same place, and so the island was divided into three colonies,
and no more, namely, the Spaniards, with old Friday and the
first servants, at my old habitation under the hill, which was, in a
word, the capital city; and where they had so enlarged and ex-
tended their works, as well under as on the outside of the hill,
that they lived, though perfectly concealed, yet full at large.
Never was there such a little city in a wood, and so hid, I believe,
in any part of the world; for I verily believe a thousand men
might have ranged the island a month, and if they had not known
there was such a thing, and looked on purpose for it, they would
not have found it; for the trees stood so thick and so close, and
grew so fast matted into one another, that nothing but cutting
them down first could discover the place—except the only two
narrow entrances, where they went in and out, could be found,
which was not very easy. One of them was just down at the
water-edge of the creek, and it was afterwards above two hundred
yards to the place; and the other was up the ladder at twice, as I
have already formerly described it; and they had a large wood,
thick planted also, on the top of the hill, which contained above
an acre, which grew apace and covered the place from all discovery
there, with only one narrow place between two trees, not easy to
be discovered, to enter on that side.

The other colony was that of Will Atkins, where there were
four families of Englishmen, I mean those I had left there, with
their wives and children; three savages that were slaves; the
widow and children of the Englishman that was killed ; the young