A SURVEY OF THE ISLAND. 151

time, as a man that was gathering up his strength after a fit of
sickness ; for it was hardly to be imagined how low I was, and to
what weakness I was reduced. The application which I made use
of was perfectly new, and perhaps what had never cured an ague
before, neither can I recommend it to any one to practise, by this
experiment ; and though it did carry off the fit, yet it rather con-
tributed to weakening me, for I had frequent convulsions in my
nerves and limbs for some time.

I learned from it also this in particular, that being abroad in the
rainy season was the most pernicious thing to my health that could
be, especially in those rains which came attended with storms
and hurricanes of wind; for as the rain which came in the dry
season was always most accompanied with such storms, so I found
that rain was much more dangerous than the rain which fell in
September and October.

T had been now in this unhappy island above ten months; all
possibility of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely
taken from me, and I firmly believed that no human shape had ever
set foot upon that place. Having now secured my habitation, as I
thought, fully to my mind, I had a great desire to make a more
perfect discovery of the island, and to see what other productions I
might find which I yet knew nothing of.

It was the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular
survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I
hinted, I brought my rafts on shore. I found, after I came about
two miles up, that the tide did not flow any higher, and that it
was no more than a little brook of running water, and very fresh
and good; but this being the dry season, there was hardly any
water in some parts of it, at least not enough to run in any stream,
so as it could be perceived. On the bank of this brook I found
many pleasant savannas, or meadows, plain, smooth, and covered
with grass; and on the rising parts of them, next to the higher
grounds, where the water, as it might be supposed, never over-
flowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and growing to a
great and very strong stalk. There were divers other plants which
I had no notion of, or understanding about, and might perhaps
have virtues of their own, which I could not find out.