dark, which was generally by seven o'clock, I was obliged to
go to bed. I remembered the lump of beeswax with which I made candles in
my African adventure; but I had none of that now; the only remedy I had
was, that when I had killed a goat I saved the tallow, and with a little
dish made of clay, which I baked in the sun, to which I added a wick of
some oakum, I made me a lamp; and this gave me light, though not a clear,
steady light, like a candle. In the middle of all my labours it happened
that, rummaging my things, I found a little bag which, as I hinted
before, had been filled with corn for the feeding of poultry--not for
this voyage, but before, as I suppose, when the ship came from Lisbon.
The little remainder of corn that had been in the bag was all devoured by
the rats, and I saw nothing in the bag but husks and dust; and being
willing to have the bag for some other use (I think it was to put powder
in, when I divided it for fear of the lightning, or some such use), I
shook the husks of corn out of it on one side of my fortification, under
the rock.

It was a little before the great rains just now mentioned that I threw
this stuff away, taking no notice, and not so much as remembering that I
had thrown anything there, when, about a month after, or thereabouts, I
saw some few stalks of something green shooting out of the ground, which
I fancied might be some plant I had not seen; but I was surprised, and
perfectly astonished, when, after a little longer time, I saw about ten
or twelve ears come out, which were perfect green barley, of the same
kind as our European--nay, as our English barley.

It is impossible to express the astonishment and confusion of my thoughts
on this occasion. I had hitherto acted upon no religious foundation at
all; indeed, I had very few notions of religion in my head, nor had
entertained any sense of anything that had befallen me otherwise than as
chance, or, as we lightly say, what pleases God, without so much as
inquiring into the end of Providence in these things, or His order in
governing events for the world. But after I saw barley grow there, in a
climate which I knew was not proper for corn, and especially that I knew
not how it came there, it startled me strangely, and I began to suggest
that God had miraculously caused His grain to grow without any help of
seed sown, and that it was so directed purely for my sustenance on that
wild, miserable place.

This touched my hear