dering beforehand, as I ought to have done, how I should be able to
launch it, so, never being able to bring it into the water, or bring the
water to it, I was obliged to let it lie where it was as a memorandum to
teach me to be wiser the next time: indeed, the next time, though I could
not get a tree proper for it, and was in a place where I could not get
the water to it at any less distance than, as I have said, near half a
mile, yet, as I saw it was practicable at last, I never gave it over; and
though I was near two years about it, yet I never grudged my labour, in
hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last.

However, though my little periagua was finished, yet the size of it was
not at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I made the
first; I mean of venturing over to the _terra firma_, where it was above
forty miles broad; accordingly, the smallness of my boat assisted to put
an end to that design, and now I thought no more of it. As I had a boat,
my next design was to make a cruise round the island; for as I had been
on the other side in one place, crossing, as I have already described it,
over the land, so the discoveries I made in that little journey made me
very eager to see other parts of the coast; and now I had a boat, I
thought of nothing but sailing round the island.

For this purpose, that I might do everything with discretion and
consideration, I fitted up a little mast in my boat, and made a sail too
out of some of the pieces of the ship's sails which lay in store, and of
which I had a great stock by me. Having fitted my mast and sail, and
tried the boat, I found she would sail very well; then I made little
lockers or boxes at each end of my boat, to put provisions, necessaries,
ammunition, &c., into, to be kept dry, either from rain or the spray of
the sea; and a little, long, hollow place I cut in the inside of the
boat, where I could lay my gun, making a flap to hang down over it to
keep it dry.

I fixed my umbrella also in the step at the stern, like a mast, to stand
over my head, and keep the heat of the sun off me, like an awning; and
thus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but never
went far out, nor far from the little creek. At last, being eager to
view the circumference of my little kingdom, I resolved upon my cruise;
and accordingly I victualled my ship for the voyage, putting in two dozen
of loaves (cakes I should call them) of barley-bread, an