vigilance of Providence over us poor creatures, and the various
instances wherein it interposes to save or relieve us in cases of
the deepest distress, where our own foresight, wisdom, and power have
utterly failed, and when, looking all around, we could discover no
means of deliverance. And I saw a train of circumstances leading to
the incident I have just mentioned, which obliged me to acknowledge the
superintendence of Heaven over even my affairs; and as the goodness
of God had cared for me thus far, and manifested itself to me now, in
rescuing me, as it were, from being swallowed up in darkness, I had
ground to hope He intended a complete deliverance of me out of
that dismal abyss, and would cause me yet to praise Him in the full
brightness of day.

A series of these meditations brought me (at the end of five weeks, as
nearly as I could compute it by my lamp) to a prodigious lake of water,
bordered with a grassy down, about half a mile wide, of the finest
verdure I had ever seen: this again was flanked with a wood or grove,
rising like an amphitheatre, of about the same breadth; and behind, and
above all, appeared the naked rock to an immense height.

CHAPTER XI.

His joy on his arrival at land--A description of the place--
No inhabitants--Wants fresh water--Resides in a grotto--
Finds water--Views the country--Carries his things to the
grotto.

It is impossible to express my joy at the sight of day once more. I got
on the land as soon as possible after my dismission from the cavern,
and, kneeling on the ground, returned hearty thanks to God for my
deliverance, begging, at the same time, grace to improve His mercies,
and that I might continue under His protection, whatever should
hereafter befall me, and at last die on my native soil.

I unloaded my vessel as well as I could, and hauled her up on the
shore; and, turning her upside down, made her a covering for my arms
and baggage. I then sat down to contemplate the place, and eat a most
delightful meal on the grass, being quite a new thing to me.

I walked over the greensward to the wood, with my gun in my hand, a
brace of pistols in my girdle, and my cutlass hanging before me; but,
when I was just entering the wood, looking behind me and all around the
plain, "Is it possible," says I, "that so much art (for I did not then
believe it was natural) could have been bestowed upon this place, and
no inhabitant in it? Here are neither bui