s experiment: and though it did carry off the fit, yet it
rather contributed to weakening me; for I had frequent convulsions in my
nerves and limbs for some time. I learned from it also this, in
particular, that being abroad in the rainy season was the most pernicious
thing to my health that could be, especially in those rains which came
attended with storms and hurricanes of wind; for as the rain which came
in the dry season was almost always accompanied with such storms, so I
found that rain was much more dangerous than the rain which fell in
September and October.

CHAPTER VII--AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

I had now been in this unhappy island above ten months. All possibility
of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from me;
and I firmly believe that no human shape had ever set foot upon that
place. Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my mind,
I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the island, and
to see what other productions I might find, which I yet knew nothing of.

It was on the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey
of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I
brought my rafts on shore. I found after I came about two miles up, that
the tide did not flow any higher, and that it was no more than a little
brook of running water, very fresh and good; but this being the dry
season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it--at least not
enough to run in any stream, so as it could be perceived. On the banks
of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs or meadows, plain, smooth,
and covered with grass; and on the rising parts of them, next to the
higher grounds, where the water, as might be supposed, never overflowed,
I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and growing to a great and very
strong stalk. There were divers other plants, which I had no notion of
or understanding about, that might, perhaps, have virtues of their own,
which I could not find out. I searched for the cassava root, which the
Indians, in all that climate, make their bread of, but I could find none.
I saw large plants of aloes, but did not understand them. I saw several
sugar-canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I
contented myself with these discoveries for this time, and came back,
musing with myself what course I might take to know the virtue and
goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I sho