time, to have some quantity
sufficient to supply me with bread. But it was not till the fourth year
that I could allow myself the least grain of this corn to eat, and even
then but sparingly, as I shall show afterwards, in its order; for I lost
all that I sowed the first season, by not observing the proper time; as
I sowed just before the dry season, so that it never came up at all, at
least not as it would have done; of which in its place.

Besides this barley, there were, as above, twenty or thirty stalks of
rice, which I preserved with the same care; and whose use was of the
same kind, or to the same purpose, viz. to make me bread, or rather
food; for I found ways to cook it up without baking, though I did that
also after some time.--But to return to my Journal.

I worked excessively hard these three or four months, to get my wall
done; and the 14th of April I closed it up; contriving to get into it,
not by a door, but over the wall, by a ladder, that there might be no
sign on the outside of my habitation.

_April 16._ I finished the ladder; so I went up with the ladder to the
top, and then pulled it up after me, and let it down in the inside: this
was a complete enclosure to me; for within I had room enough, and
nothing could come at me from without, unless it could first mount
my wall.

The very next day after this wall was finished, I had almost all my
labour overthrown at once, and myself killed; the case was thus:--As I
was busy in the inside of it, behind my tent, just at the entrance into
my cave, I was terribly frightened with a most dreadful surprising thing
indeed; for, all on a sudden, I found the earth come crumbling down from
the roof of my cave, and from the edge of the hill over my head, and two
of the posts I had set up in the cave cracked in a frightful manner. I
was heartily scared; but thought nothing of what really was the cause,
only thinking that the top of my cave was falling in, as some of it had
done before: and for fear I should be buried in it, I ran forward to my
ladder, and not thinking myself safe there neither, I got over my wall
for fear of the pieces of the hill which I expected might roll down upon
me. I had no sooner stepped down upon the firm ground, than I plainly
saw it was a terrible earthquake; for the ground I stood on shook three
times at about eight minutes distance, with three such shocks as would
have overturned the strongest building that could be supposed to have
sto