was comparing the happy posture of my affairs, in the first
years of my habitation here, to that course of anxiety, fear, and care,
which I had lived in ever since I had seen the print of a foot in the
sand; not that I did not believe the savages had frequented the island
even all the while, and might have been several hundreds of them at
times on the shore there; but as I had never known it, and was incapable
of any apprehensions about it, my satisfaction was perfect, though my
danger was the same; and I was as happy in not knowing my danger, as if
I had never really been exposed to it; this furnished my thoughts with
many very profitable reflections, and particularly this one: How
infinitely good that Providence is, which has settled in its government
of mankind such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and
though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of
which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his
spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid
from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him.

After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to reflect
seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years in this
very island; and how I had walked about in the greatest security, and
with all possible tranquillity, even perhaps when nothing but a brow on
a hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night, had been between
me and the worst kind of destruction, viz. that of falling into the
hands of cannibals, and savages, who would have seized on me with the
same view, as I did of a goat, or a turtle; and have thought it no more
a crime to kill and devour me, than I did of a pigeon, or a curlieu: I
would unjustly slander my self, if I should say I was not sincerely
thankful to my great Preserver, to whose singular protection I
acknowledged, with great humility, that all these unknown deliverances
were due; and without which, I must inevitably have fallen into their
merciless hands.

When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up in
considering the nature of these wretched creatures; I mean, the savages;
and how it came to pass in the world, that the wise governour of all
things should give up any of his creatures to such inhumanity; nay, to
something so much below, even brutality it self, as to devour its own
kind; but as this ended in some (at that time fruitless) speculat