for no sooner was I come to the point, when I was not even my
boat's length from the shore, but I found myself in a great depth of
water, and a current like the sluice of a mill; it carried my boat along
with it with such violence that all I could do could not keep her so much
as on the edge of it; but I found it hurried me farther and farther out
from the eddy, which was on my left hand. There was no wind stirring to
help me, and all I could do with my paddles signified nothing: and now I
began to give myself over for lost; for as the current was on both sides
of the island, I knew in a few leagues distance they must join again, and
then I was irrecoverably gone; nor did I see any possibility of avoiding
it; so that I had no prospect before me but of perishing, not by the sea,
for that was calm enough, but of starving from hunger. I had, indeed,
found a tortoise on the shore, as big almost as I could lift, and had
tossed it into the boat; and I had a great jar of fresh water, that is to
say, one of my earthen pots; but what was all this to being driven into
the vast ocean, where, to be sure, there was no shore, no mainland or
island, for a thousand leagues at least?

And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make even the
most miserable condition of mankind worse. Now I looked back upon my
desolate, solitary island as the most pleasant place in the world and all
the happiness my heart could wish for was to be but there again. I
stretched out my hands to it, with eager wishes--"O happy desert!" said
I, "I shall never see thee more. O miserable creature! whither am
going?" Then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper, and that I
had repined at my solitary condition; and now what would I give to be on
shore there again! Thus, we never see the true state of our condition
till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value
what we enjoy, but by the want of it. It is scarcely possible to imagine
the consternation I was now in, being driven from my beloved island (for
so it appeared to me now to be) into the wide ocean, almost two leagues,
and in the utmost despair of ever recovering it again. However, I worked
hard till, indeed, my strength was almost exhausted, and kept my boat as
much to the northward, that is, towards the side of the current which the
eddy lay on, as possibly I could; when about noon, as the sun passed the
meridian, I thought I felt a little breeze of wind i