ovide for
my return to my father's house. Therefore, I resolved to submit
patiently to my misfortune.

It was my daily practice to ramble from one part of the island to
another, though I had a more special home near the water-side. Here I
built a hut to defend me against the heat of the sun by day, and the
heavy dews by night. Taking some of the best branches which I could
find fallen from the trees, I contrived to fix them against a low
hanging bough, by fastening them together with split palmeto leaves;
next I covered the whole with some of the largest and most suitable
leaves that I could get. Many of these huts were constructed by me,
generally near the beach, with the open part, fronting the sea, to
have the better look-out, and the advantage of the sea-breeze, which
both the heat and the vermin required.

But the insects were so troublesome, that I thought of endeavoring to
get over to some of the adjacent keys, in hopes of enjoying rest.
However, I was, as already said, a very indifferent swimmer; I had no
canoe, nor any means of making one. At length, having got a piece of
bamboo, which is hollow like a reed, and light as cork, I ventured,
after frequent trials with it under my breast and arms, to put off for
a small key about a gun-shot distant, which I reached in safety.

My new place of refuge was only about three or four hundred feet in
circuit, lying very low, and clear of woods and brush; from exposure
to the wind, it was quite free of vermin, and I seemed to have got
into a new world, where I lived infinitely more at ease. Hither I
retired, therefore, when the heat of the day rendered the insect tribe
most obnoxious; yet I was obliged to be much on Roatan, to procure
food and water, and at night on account of my hut.

When swimming back and forward between the two islands, I used to bind
my frock and trowsers about my head, and, if I could have carried over
wood and leaves, whereof to make a hut, with equal facility, I should
have passed more of my time on the smaller one.

Yet these excursions were not unattended with danger. Once, I
remember, when, passing from the larger island, the bamboo, before I
was aware, slipped from under me; and the tide, or current, set down
so strong, that it was with great difficulty I could reach the shore.
At another time, when swimming over to the small island, a
shovel-nosed shark, which, as well as alligators, abound in those
seas, struck me in the thigh, just as