ne to beg assistance from.
Some comfort would it be to resound my woes where I am understood, and
beg assistance where I might hope for relief.
GOOD
But yet I am preserved, while my companions are perished in the raging
ocean.
Yet set apart to be spared from death. And he, who has so preserved me,
can deliver me from this condition.
However, I have food to eat, and even a happy prospect of subsistence
while life endures.
At present I enjoy what is absolutely needful; and the climate is so
hot, that had I never so many, I would hardly wear them.
Yet if it does, I see no danger of any hurt to me, as in Africa; And
what if I had been cast away, upon that coast.
Is there not God to converse to, and is not he able to relieve thee?
Already has he afforded thee sustenance, and put it in thy power to
provide for thyself till he sends thee a deliverance.
And now easing my mind a little by these reflections, I began to render
my life as easy as possible.
I must here add, to the description I have given of my habitation, that
having raised a turf wall against the outside of it, I thatched it so
close as might keep it from the inclemency of the weather; I also
improved it within, enlarged my cave, and made a passage and door in the
rock, which came out beyond the pale of my fortification. I next
proceeded to make a chair and a table, and so began to study such
mechanical arts as seemed to me practicable. When I wanted a plank or
board I hewed down a tree with my hatchet, making it as thin with my ax
as possible, and then smooth enough with an adz to answer my designs:
yet though I could make no more this way than one board out of a tree,
in length of time I got boards enough to shelter all my stores, every
thing being regularly placed, and my guns securely hanging against the
side of the rock. This made it a very pleasant sight to me, as being the
result of vast labour and diligence; which leaving for a while, and me
to the enjoyment of it, I shall give the reader an account of my Journal
from the day of my landing, till the fixing and settling of my
habitation, as heretofore shown.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
_September 30, 1659_. I unhappy Robinson Crusoe, having suffered
shipwreck, was driven on this desolate island, which I named the
_Desolate Island of Despair_, my companions being swallowed up in the
tempestous ocean. The next day I spent in consideration of my unhappy
circum
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