ng to God, to things of a
higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within, which, till now, I
knew nothing of; also, as my health and strength returned, I bestirred
me to furnish myself with every thing that I wanted, and make my way of
living as regular as I could.

From the 4th of July to the 14th, I was chiefly employed in walking
about with my gun in my hand, a little and a little at a time, as a man
that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness: for it is
hardly to be imagined how low I was, and to what weakness I was reduced.
The application which I made use of was perfectly new, and perhaps what
had never cured an ague before; neither can I recommend it to any one to
practise, by this experiment: and though it did carry off the fit, yet
it rather contributed to weakening me; for I had frequent convulsions in
my nerves and limbs for some time: I learned from it also this, in
particular; that being abroad in the rainy season was the most
pernicious thing to my health that could be, especially in those rains
which came attended with storms and hurricanes of wind; for as the rain
which came in the dry season was almost always accompanied with such
storms, so I found that this rain was much more dangerous than the rain
which fell in September and October.

I had now been in this unhappy island above ten months: all possibility
of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from me;
and I firmly believed that no human shape had ever set foot upon that
place. Having secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my mind, I
had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the island, and
to see what other productions I might find, which I yet knew nothing of.

It was on the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey
of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I
brought my rafts on shore. I found, after I came about two miles up,
that the tide did not flow any higher; and that it was no more than a
little brook of running water, very fresh and good: but this being the
dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it; at least,
not any stream. On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant
savannahs or meadows, plain, smooth, and covered with grass: and on the
rising parts of them, next to the higher grounds (where the water as it
might be supposed, never overflowed,) I found a great deal of tobacco,
green, and growing to a very gr