as at first for
want of feeding them, for I had nothing to give them: however, I
frequently found their nests, and got their young ones, which were very
good meat. And now, in the managing my household affairs, I found myself
wanting in many things, which I thought at first it was impossible for
me to make; as indeed, as to some of them, it was: for instance, I could
never make a cask to be hooped. I had a small runlet or two, as I
observed before; but I could never arrive to the capacity of making one
by them, though I spent many weeks about it: I could neither put in the
heads, nor join the staves so true to one another as to make them hold
water; so I gave that also over. In the next place, I was at a great
loss for candle; so that as soon as it was dark, which was generally by
seven o'clock, I was obliged to go to bed. I remember the lump of
bees-wax with which I made candles in my African adventure; but I had
none of that now; the only remedy I had was, that when I had killed a
goat, I saved the tallow; and with a little dish made of clay, which I
baked in the sun, to which I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a
lamp; and this gave me light, though not a clear steady light like a
candle. In the middle of all my labours it happened, that in rummaging
my things, I found a little bag; which, as I hinted before, had been
filled with corn, for the feeding of poultry; not for this voyage, but
before, as I suppose, when the ship came from Lisbon. What little
remainder of corn had been in the bag was all devoured with the rats,
and I saw nothing in the bag but husks and dust; and being willing to
have the bag for some other use (I think, it was to put powder in, when
I divided it for fear of the lightning, or some such use,) I shook the
husks of corn out of it, on one side of my fortification, under
the rock.

It was a little before the great rain just now mentioned, that I threw
this stuff away; taking no notice of any thing, and not so much as
remembering that I had thrown any thing there: when about a month after,
I saw some few stalks of something green, shooting out of the ground,
which I fancied might be some plant I had not seen; but I was surprised,
and perfectly astonished, when, after a little longer time, I saw about
ten or twelve ears come out, which were perfect green barley of the same
kind as our European, nay, as our English barley.

It is impossible to express the astonishment and confusion of my
thou