rots, and fain would
I have caught one, if possible, to have kept it to be tame, and taught
it to speak to me. I did, after some painstaking, catch a young parrot;
for I knocked it down with a stick, and having recovered it, I brought
it home, but it was some years before I could make him speak. However,
at last I taught him to call me by my name very familiarly: but the
accident that followed, though it be a trifle, will be very diverting in
its place.

I was exceedingly diverted with this journey: I found in the low
grounds, hares, as I thought them to be, and foxes, but they differed
greatly from all the other kinds I had met with; nor could I satisfy
myself to eat them, though I killed several: but I had no need to be
venturous; for I had no want of food, and of that which was very good
too; especially these three sorts, viz. goats, pigeons, and turtle or
tortoise; which added to my grapes. Leadenhall-market could not have
furnished a better table than I, in proportion to the company: and
though my case was deplorable enough, yet I had great cause for
thankfulness, that I was not driven to any extremities for food; but
rather plenty, even to dainties.

I never travelled in this journey above two miles outright in a day, or
thereabouts; but I look so many turns and returns, to see what
discoveries I could make, that I came weary enough to the place where I
resolved to sit down for all night; and then either reposed myself in a
tree, or surrounded myself with a row of stakes set upright in the
ground, either from one tree to another, or so as no wild creature could
come at me without waking me.

As soon as I came to the sea-shore, I was surprised to see that I had
taken up my lot on the worst side of the island; for here indeed the
shore was covered with innumerable turtles, whereas on the other side I
had found but three in a year and an half. Here was also an infinite
number of fowls of many kinds, some of which I had not seen before, and
many of them very good meat; but such as I knew not the names of except
those called penguins.

I could have shot as many as I pleased, but was very sparing of my
powder and shot: and therefore had more mind to kill a she-goat, if I
could, which I could better feed on: and though there were many goats
here more than on the other side of the island, yet it was with much
more difficulty that I could come near them; the country being flat and
even, and they saw me much sooner tha