“MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYS.” 22)

after this for any other use than as an enclosure for my goats; for
the aversion which nature gave me to these hellish wretches was
such that I was fearful of seeing them as of seeing the devil him-
self. Nor did I so much as go to look after my boat in all this
time, but began rather to think of making me another ; for I could
not think of ever making any more attempts to bring the other
boat round the island to me, lest I should meet with some of these
creatures at sea, in which, if I had happened to have fallen into
their hands, I knew what would have been my lot.

Time, however, and the satisfaction I had that I was in no
danger of being discovered by these people, began to wear off my
uneasiness about them ; and I began to live just in the same com-
posed manner as before—only with this difference, that I used more
caution, and kept my eyes more about me than I did before, lest I
should happen to be seen by any of them: and, particularly, I
was more cautious of firing my gun, lest any of them being on the
island should happen to hear of it. And it was therefore a very
good providence to me that I had furnished myself with a tame
breed of goats, that I needed not hunt any more about the woods
or shoot at them; and if I did catch any of them after this, it was
by traps and snares, as I had done before: so that for two years
after this I believe I never fired my gun once off, though I never
went out without it. And, which was more, as I had saved three
pistols out of the ship, I always carried them out with me—or at
least two of them—sticking them in my goat-skin belt; also I fur-
bished up one of the great cutlasses that I had out of the ship, and
made me a belt to put it on also: so that I was now a most formi-
dable fellow to look at when I went abroad, if you add to the
former description of myself the particular of two pistols, and a
great broadsword hanging at my side in a belt, but without a
scabbard.

Things going on thus, as I have said, for some time, I seemed,
excepting these cautions, to be reduced to my former calm, sedate
way of living. All these things tended to showing me more and
more how far my condition was from being miserable, compared to
some others; nay, to many other particulars of life which it might
have pleased God to have made my lot. It put me upon reflect-