e wreck; and got a great many pieces
of timber, and boards, or plank, and two or three hundred weight
of iron.

_May 15._ I carried two hatchets, to try if I could not cut a piece off
the roll of lead, by placing the edge of one hatchet, and driving it
with the other; but as it lay about a foot and a half in the water, I
could not make any blow to drive the hatchet.

_May 16._ It had blown hard in the night, and the wreck appeared more
broken by the force of the water; but I staid so long in the woods, to
get pigeons for food, that the tide prevented my going to the wreck
that day.

_May 17._ I saw some pieces of the wreck blown on shore, at a great
distance, two miles off me, but resolved to see what they were, and
found it was a piece of the head, but too heavy for me to bring away.

_May 24._ Every day, to this day, I worked on the wreck; and with hard
labour I loosened some things so much with the crow, that the first
blowing tide several casks floated out, and two of the seamen's chests:
but the wind blowing from the shore, nothing came to land that day but
pieces of timber, and a hogshead, which had some Brazil pork in it; but
the salt-water and the sand had spoiled it. I continued this work every
day to the 15th of June, except the time necessary to get food; which I
always appointed, during this part of my employment, to be when the tide
was up, that I might be ready when it was ebbed out: and by this time I
had gotten timber, and plank, and iron-work, enough to have built a
good boat, if I had known how: and I also got, at several times, and in
several pieces, near one hundred weight of the sheet-lead.

_June 16._ Going down to the sea-side, I found a large tortoise, or
turtle. This was the first I had seen; which, it seems, was only my
misfortune, not any defect of the place, or scarcity: for had I happened
to be on the other side of the island, I might have had hundreds of them
every day, as I found afterwards; but perhaps had paid dear enough
for them.

_June 17._ I spent in cooking the turtle. I found in her threescore
eggs: and her flesh was to me, at that time, the most savoury and
pleasant that I ever tasted in my life; having had no flesh, but of
goats and fowls, since I landed in this horrid place.

_June 18._ Rained all that day, and I staid within. I thought, at this
time, the rain felt cold, and I was somewhat chilly; which I knew was
not usual in that latitude.

_June 19._ Very ill, and s