f removing my habitation, and looking out for a place equally safe as
where now I was situate, if possible, in that pleasant, fruitful part of
the island.

This thought ran long in my head, and I was exceeding fond of it for some
time, the pleasantness of the place tempting me; but when I came to a
nearer view of it, I considered that I was now by the seaside, where it
was at least possible that something might happen to my advantage, and,
by the same ill fate that brought me hither might bring some other
unhappy wretches to the same place; and though it was scarce probable
that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among the
hills and woods in the centre of the island was to anticipate my bondage,
and to render such an affair not only improbable, but impossible; and
that therefore I ought not by any means to remove. However, I was so
enamoured of this place, that I spent much of my time there for the whole
of the remaining part of the month of July; and though upon second
thoughts, I resolved not to remove, yet I built me a little kind of a
bower, and surrounded it at a distance with a strong fence, being a
double hedge, as high as I could reach, well staked and filled between
with brushwood; and here I lay very secure, sometimes two or three nights
together; always going over it with a ladder; so that I fancied now I had
my country house and my sea-coast house; and this work took me up to the
beginning of August.

I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labour, when the
rains came on, and made me stick close to my first habitation; for though
I had made me a tent like the other, with a piece of a sail, and spread
it very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me from storms,
nor a cave behind me to retreat into when the rains were extraordinary.

About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower, and
began to enjoy myself. The 3rd of August, I found the grapes I had hung
up perfectly dried, and, indeed, were excellent good raisins of the sun;
so I began to take them down from the trees, and it was very happy that I
did so, for the rains which followed would have spoiled them, and I had
lost the best part of my winter food; for I had above two hundred large
bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, and carried the
most of them home to my cave, than it began to rain; and from hence,
which was the 14th of August, it rained, more or less, every