while, for I ate
sparingly, and preserved my provisions (my bread especially) as much as
possibly I could.

Having now fixed my habitation, I found it absolutely necessary to
provide a place to make a fire in, and fuel to burn; and what I did for
that, as also how I enlarged my cave, and what conveniences I made, I
shall give a full account of in its proper place: but I must first give
some little account of myself, and of my thoughts about living, which,
it may well be supposed, were not a few.

I had a dismal prospect of my condition; for as I was not cast away upon
that island without being driven, as is said, by a violent storm, quite
out of the course of our intended voyage; and a great way, viz. some
hundreds of leagues, out of the ordinary course of the trade of mankind,
I had great reason to consider it as a determination of Heaven, that in
this desolate place, and in this desolate manner, I should end my life.
The tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these
reflections; and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why
Providence should thus completely ruin its creatures, and render them so
absolutely miserable; so abandoned without help, so entirely depressed,
that it could hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life.

But something always returned swift upon me to check these thoughts, and
to reprove me: and particularly, one day, walking with my gun in my
hand, by the sea side, I was very pensive upon the subject of my present
condition, when reason, as it were, expostulated with me the other way,
thus: "Well, you are in a desolate condition, it is true; but, pray
remember, where are the rest of you? Did not you come eleven of you into
the boat? Where are the ten? Why were not they saved, and you lost? Why
were you singled out? Is it better to be here or there?" And then I
pointed to the sea. All evils are to be considered with the good that is
in them, and with what worse attends them.

Then it occurred to me again, how well I was furnished for my
subsistence, and what would have been my case if it had not happened
(which was a hundred thousand to one) that the ship floated from the
place where she first struck, and was driven so near to the shore, that
I had time to get all these things out of her: what would have been my
case, if I had been to have lived in the condition in which I at first
came on shore, without necessaries of life, or necessaries to supply and
procure them? "Par