am satisfied I might have loaded my canoe several times
over with money; and, thought I, if I ever escape to England, it might
lie here safe enough till I come again and fetch it.

CHAPTER XIV--A DREAM REALISED

Having now brought all my things on shore and secured them, I went back
to my boat, and rowed or paddled her along the shore to her old harbour,
where I laid her up, and made the best of my way to my old habitation,
where I found everything safe and quiet. I began now to repose myself,
live after my old fashion, and take care of my family affairs; and for a
while I lived easy enough, only that I was more vigilant than I used to
be, looked out oftener, and did not go abroad so much; and if at any time
I did stir with any freedom, it was always to the east part of the
island, where I was pretty well satisfied the savages never came, and
where I could go without so many precautions, and such a load of arms and
ammunition as I always carried with me if I went the other way. I lived
in this condition near two years more; but my unlucky head, that was
always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable, was all
these two years filled with projects and designs how, if it were
possible, I might get away from this island: for sometimes I was for
making another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me that there
was nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage; sometimes for a
ramble one way, sometimes another--and I believe verily, if I had had the
boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea, bound
anywhere, I knew not whither. I have been, in all my circumstances, a
memento to those who are touched with the general plague of mankind,
whence, for aught I know, one half of their miseries flow: I mean that of
not being satisfied with the station wherein God and Nature hath placed
them--for, not to look back upon my primitive condition, and the
excellent advice of my father, the opposition to which was, as I may call
it, my _original sin_, my subsequent mistakes of the same kind had been
the means of my coming into this miserable condition; for had that
Providence which so happily seated me at the Brazils as a planter blessed
me with confined desires, and I could have been contented to have gone on
gradually, I might have been by this time--I mean in the time of my being
in this island--one of the most considerable planters in the
Brazils--nay, I am persuaded, that by the impr