tions on board-Remarks on her sagacity--She
despatches several chests of goods through the gulf to the
lake--An account of a danger she escaped--The Author has a
fit of sickness

Strange is the temper of mankind, who, the more they enjoy, the
more they covet. Before I received any return from my ship, I rested
tolerably easy, and but seldom thought upon what I had left behind me
in her, thinking myself happy in what I had, and completely so since
my union with my dear wife; but after I had got what I could never
have expected, I grew more and more perplexed for want of the rest, and
thought I should never enjoy true happiness while even a plank of the
ship remained. My head, be I where I would, or at what I would, was ever
on board. I wished for her in the lake, and could I but have got her
thither, I thought I should be an emperor; and though I wanted for
nothing to maintain life, and had so good a wife and five children I was
very fond of, yet the one thing I had not, reduced the comfort of all
the rest to a scanty pattern, even so low as to destroy my whole peace.
I was even mad enough to think of venturing up the cavern again, but was
restrained from the attempt by the certain impracticableness of it Then
I thought Youwarkee should make another trip to the ship. But what can
she bring from it, says I to myself, in respect of what must be left
behind? Her whole life will not suffice to clear it in, at the rate she
can fetch the loading hither in parcels. At last a project started, that
as there were so many chests on board, Youwarkee should fill some of
them and send them through the gulf to take their chance for the lake.
This, at first sight, seemed feasible; but then I considered how they
could be got from the ship to the gulf; and again, that they would never
keep out the water, and if they filled with a lading in them they would
sink; or, if this did not happen, they might be dashed to pieces against
the crags in the cavern. These apprehensions stopped me again; till,
unwilling to quit the thought, "True," says I, "this may happen to some;
but if I get but one in five, it is better than nothing." Thus I turned
and wound the affair in my mind; but objections still started too
obstinate to be conquered.

In the height of my soliloquy in comes Youwarkee, and seeing my dejected
look, would needs know the meaning of it I told her plainly that I could
get no rest from day to day ever since she first we