I would to a shipwreck, if it had pleased God to have
brought such a disaster upon me.

In its turn, natural courage would sometimes take its place; and then I
would be talking myself up to vigorous resolution, that I would not be
taken to be barbarously used by a parcel of merciless wretches in cold
blood; that it was much better to have fallen into the hands of the
savages, who were men-eaters, and who, I was sure, would feast upon me,
when they had taken me, than by those who would perhaps glut their rage
upon me by inhuman tortures and barbarities: that, in the case of the
savages, I always resolved to die fighting to the last gasp; and why
should I not do so now, seeing it was much more dreadful, to me at
least, to think of falling into these men's hands, than ever it was to
think of being eaten by men? for the savages, give them their due, would
not eat a man till he was dead; and killed him first, as we do a
bullock; but that these men had many arts beyond the cruelty of death.
Whenever these thoughts prevailed I was sure to put myself into a kind
of fever, with the agitations of a supposed fight; my blood would boil,
and my eyes sparkle, as if I was engaged; and I always resolved that I
would take no quarter at their hands; but even at last, if I could
resist no longer, I would blow up the ship, and all that was in her, and
leave them but little booty to boast of.

But by how much the greater weight the anxieties and perplexities of
those things were to our thoughts while we were at sea, by so much the
greater was our satisfaction when we saw ourselves on shore; and my
partner told me he dreamed that he had a very heavy load upon his back,
which he was to carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to stand
long under it; but the Portuguese pilot came, and took it off his back,
and the hill disappeared, the ground before him shewing all smooth and
plain: and truly it was so; we were all like men who had a load taken
off their backs.

For my part, I had a weight taken off from my heart, that I was not able
any longer to bear; and, as I said above, we resolved to go no more to
sea in that ship. When we came on shore, the old pilot, who was now our
friend, got us a lodging, and a warehouse for our goods, which, by the
way, was much the same: it was a little house, or hut, with a large
house joining to it, all built with canes, and palisadoed round with
large canes, to keep out pilfering thieves, of which it s