od like one
astonished and amazed. However, with a little use, I made all these
things familiar to him, and he became an expert sailor, except that of
the compass I could make him understand very little. On the other hand,
as there was very little cloudy weather, and seldom or never any fogs in
those parts, there was the less occasion for a compass, seeing the stars
were always to be seen by night, and the shore by day, except in the
rainy seasons, and then nobody cared to stir abroad either by land or
sea.

I was now entered on the seven-and-twentieth year of my captivity in this
place; though the three last years that I had this creature with me ought
rather to be left out of the account, my habitation being quite of
another kind than in all the rest of the time. I kept the anniversary of
my landing here with the same thankfulness to God for His mercies as at
first: and if I had such cause of acknowledgment at first, I had much
more so now, having such additional testimonies of the care of Providence
over me, and the great hopes I had of being effectually and speedily
delivered; for I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts that my
deliverance was at hand, and that I should not be another year in this
place. I went on, however, with my husbandry; digging, planting, and
fencing as usual. I gathered and cured my grapes, and did every
necessary thing as before.

The rainy season was in the meantime upon me, when I kept more within
doors than at other times. We had stowed our new vessel as secure as we
could, bringing her up into the creek, where, as I said in the beginning,
I landed my rafts from the ship; and hauling her up to the shore at
high-water mark, I made my man Friday dig a little dock, just big enough
to hold her, and just deep enough to give her water enough to float in;
and then, when the tide was out, we made a strong dam across the end of
it, to keep the water out; and so she lay, dry as to the tide from the
sea: and to keep the rain off we laid a great many boughs of trees, so
thick that she was as well thatched as a house; and thus we waited for
the months of November and December, in which I designed to make my
adventure.

When the settled season began to come in, as the thought of my design
returned with the fair weather, I was preparing daily for the voyage.
And the first thing I did was to lay by a certain quantity of provisions,
being the stores for our voyage; and intended in a week