were very apt to
my case, and made some impression upon my thoughts at the time of reading
them, though not so much as they did afterwards; for, as for being
_delivered_, the word had no sound, as I may say, to me; the thing was so
remote, so impossible in my apprehension of things, that I began to say,
as the children of Israel did when they were promised flesh to eat, "Can
God spread a table in the wilderness?" so I began to say, "Can God
Himself deliver me from this place?" And as it was not for many years
that any hopes appeared, this prevailed very often upon my thoughts; but,
however, the words made a great impression upon me, and I mused upon them
very often. It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said, dozed my
head so much that I inclined to sleep; so I left my lamp burning in the
cave, lest I should want anything in the night, and went to bed. But
before I lay down, I did what I never had done in all my life--I kneeled
down, and prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me, that if I called
upon Him in the day of trouble, He would deliver me. After my broken and
imperfect prayer was over, I drank the rum in which I had steeped the
tobacco, which was so strong and rank of the tobacco that I could
scarcely get it down; immediately upon this I went to bed. I found
presently it flew up into my head violently; but I fell into a sound
sleep, and waked no more till, by the sun, it must necessarily be near
three o'clock in the afternoon the next day--nay, to this hour I am
partly of opinion that I slept all the next day and night, and till
almost three the day after; for otherwise I know not how I should lose a
day out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it appeared some
years after I had done; for if I had lost it by crossing and recrossing
the line, I should have lost more than one day; but certainly I lost a
day in my account, and never knew which way. Be that, however, one way
or the other, when I awaked I found myself exceedingly refreshed, and my
spirits lively and cheerful; when I got up I was stronger than I was the
day before, and my stomach better, for I was hungry; and, in short, I had
no fit the next day, but continued much altered for the better. This was
the 29th.

The 30th was my well day, of course, and I went abroad with my gun, but
did not care to travel too far. I killed a sea-fowl or two, something
like a brandgoose, and brought them home, but was not very forward to eat
them; so