them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I
found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt or run; for the
sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat,
and would have run into glass, if I had gone on; so I slacked my fire
gradually, till the pots began to abate of the red colour; and watching
them all night that I might not let the fire abate too fast, in the
morning I had three very good, I will not say handsome pipkins, and two
other earthen pots, as hard burnt as could be desired; and one of them
perfectly glazed with the running of the sand.

After this experiment I need not say that I wanted no sort of
earthenware for my use; but I must needs say, as to the shapes of them,
they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when I had no way of
making them, but as the children make dirt-pies, or as a woman would
make pies that never learnt to raise paste.

No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I
found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and I had
hardly patience to stay till they were cold, before I set one upon the
fire again with some water in it, to boil me some meat, which I did
admirably well; and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth,
though I wanted oatmeal, and several other ingredients requisite to
make it so good as I would have had it.

My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn
in; for as to the mill, there was no thought of arriving to that
perfection of art with one pair of hands. To supply this want, I was at
a great loss; for of all trades in the world I was as perfectly
unqualified for a stone-cutter, as for any whatever; neither had I any
tools to go about it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stone
big enough to cut hollow, and make fit for a mortar, and could find none
at all except what was in the solid rock, and which I had no way to dig
or cut out; nor indeed were the rocks in the island of hardness
sufficient, but were all of a sandy crumbling stone, which would neither
bear the weight of an heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without
filling it with sand; so, after a great deal of time lost in searching
for a stone, I gave it over, and resolved to look out a great block of
hard wood, which I found indeed much easier; and getting one as big as I
had strength to stir, I rounded it, and formed it on the outside with my
axe and hatchet; and then with