part of the world these wretches lived in? how far off
the coast was from whence they came? what they ventured over so far from
home for? what kind of boats they had? and why I might not order myself
and my business so that I might be able to go over thither, as they were
to come to me?

I never so much as troubled myself to consider what I should do with
myself when I went thither; what would become of me if I fell into the
hands of these savages; or how I should escape them if they attacked me;
no, nor so much as how it was possible for me to reach the coast, and not
to be attacked by some or other of them, without any possibility of
delivering myself: and if I should not fall into their hands, what I
should do for provision, or whither I should bend my course: none of
these thoughts, I say, so much as came in my way; but my mind was wholly
bent upon the notion of my passing over in my boat to the mainland. I
looked upon my present condition as the most miserable that could
possibly be; that I was not able to throw myself into anything but death,
that could be called worse; and if I reached the shore of the main I
might perhaps meet with relief, or I might coast along, as I did on the
African shore, till I came to some inhabited country, and where I might
find some relief; and after all, perhaps I might fall in with some
Christian ship that might take me in: and if the worst came to the worst,
I could but die, which would put an end to all these miseries at once.
Pray note, all this was the fruit of a disturbed mind, an impatient
temper, made desperate, as it were, by the long continuance of my
troubles, and the disappointments I had met in the wreck I had been on
board of, and where I had been so near obtaining what I so earnestly
longed for--somebody to speak to, and to learn some knowledge from them
of the place where I was, and of the probable means of my deliverance. I
was agitated wholly by these thoughts; all my calm of mind, in my
resignation to Providence, and waiting the issue of the dispositions of
Heaven, seemed to be suspended; and I had as it were no power to turn my
thoughts to anything but to the project of a voyage to the main, which
came upon me with such force, and such an impetuosity of desire, that it
was not to be resisted.

When this had agitated my thoughts for two hours or more, with such
violence that it set my very blood into a ferment, and my pulse beat as
if I had been in a fever, mere