kid followed me quite to my
enclosure; upon which I laid down the dam, and took the kid in my
arms, and carried it over my pale, in hopes to have bred it up tame;
but it would not eat, so I was forced to kill it, and eat it myself.
These two supplied me with flesh a great while, for I eat sparingly,
and saved my provisions, my bread especially, as much as possibly I
could.

Having now fixed my habitation, I found it absolutely necessary to
provide a place to make a fire in, and fuel to burn; and what I did
for that, as also how I enlarged my cave, and what conveniences I
made, I shall give a full account of in its place. But I must first
give some little account of myself, and of my thoughts about living,
which it may well be supposed were not a few.

I had a dismal prospect of my condition; for as I was not cast away
upon that island without being driven, as is said, by a violent storm,
quite out of the course of our intended voyage, and a great way, viz.,
some hundreds of leagues, out of the ordinary course of the trade of
mankind, I had great reason to consider it as a determination of
Heaven that in this desolate place, and in this desolate manner, I
should end my life. The tears would run plentifully down my face when
I made these reflections, and sometimes I would expostulate with
myself, why Providence should thus completely ruin its creatures, and
render them so absolutely miserable, so without help abandoned, so
entirely depressed, that it could hardly be rational to be thankful
for such a life.

But something always returned swift upon me to check these thoughts,
and to reprove me; and particularly one day, walking with my gun in my
hand by the seaside, I was very pensive upon the subject of my present
condition, when Reason, as it were, expostulated with me t' other way,
thus: "Well, you are in a desolate condition, it is true, but pray
remember, where are the rest of you? Did not you come eleven of you
into the boat? Where are the ten? Why were not they saved, and you
lost? Why were you singled out? Is it better to be here, or there?"
And then I pointed to the sea. All evils are to be considered with the
good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.

Then it occurred to me again, how well I was furnished for my
subsistence, and what would have been my case if it had not happened,
which was an hundred thousand to one, that the ship floated from the
place where she first struck and was driven s