f, that certainly they might be made to burn whole, if they
would burn broken.

This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn some
pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in, or of
glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but I
placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one upon
another, and placed my firewood all round it, with a great heap of embers
under them. I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside and upon
the top, till I saw the pots in the inside red-hot quite through, and
observed that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear red, I
let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of
them, though it did not crack, did melt or run; for the sand which was
mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would have
run into glass if I had gone on; so I slacked my fire gradually till the
pots began to abate of the red colour; and watching them all night, that
I might not let the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three very
good (I will not say handsome) pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as
hard burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly glazed with the
running of the sand.

After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort of
earthenware for my use; but I must needs say as to the shapes of them,
they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when I had no way of
making them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would make
pies that never learned to raise paste.

No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I
found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and I had
hardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one on the fire
again with some water in it to boil me some meat, which it did admirably
well; and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth, though I
wanted oatmeal, and several other ingredients requisite to make it as
good as I would have had it been.

My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn
in; for as to the mill, there was no thought of arriving at that
perfection of art with one pair of hands. To supply this want, I was at
a great loss; for, of all the trades in the world, I was as perfectly
unqualified for a stone-cutter as for any whatever; neither had I any
tools to go about it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stone
big enough t