extraordinary.

About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower, and
began to enjoy myself. The 3d of August, I found the grapes I had hung
up were perfectly dried, and indeed were excellent good raisins of the
sun: so I began to take them down from the trees; and it was very happy
that I did so, as the rains which followed would have spoiled them, and
I should have lost the best part of my winter food; for I had above two
hundred large bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, and
carried most of them home to my cave, but it began to rain: and from
hence, which was the 14th of August, it rained, more or less, every day
till the middle of October; and sometimes so violently, that I could not
stir out of my cave for several days.

In this season, I was much surprised with the increase of my family. I
had been concerned for the loss of one of my cats, who ran away from me,
or, as I thought, had been dead; and I heard no more of her, till, to my
astonishment, she came home with three kittens. This was the more
strange to me, because, about the end of August, though I had killed a
wild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought it was quite a
different kind from our European cats: yet the young cats were the same
kind of house-breed as the old one; and both of my cats being females, I
thought it very strange. But from these three, I afterwards came to be
so pestered with cats, that I was forced to kill them like vermin, or
wild beasts, and to drive them from my house as much as possible.

From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain; so that I could not
stir, and was now very careful not to be much wet. In this confinement,
I began to be straitened for food; but venturing out twice, I one day
killed a goat, and the last day, which was the 26th, found a very large
tortoise, which was a treat to me. My food was now regulated thus: I ate
a bunch of raisins for my breakfast; a piece of the goat's flesh, or of
the turtle, broiled, for my dinner (for, to my great misfortune, I had
no vessel to boil or stew any thing;) and two or three of the turtle's
eggs for my supper.

During this confinement in my cover by the rain, I worked daily two or
three hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked it on towards
one side, till I came to the outside of the hill; and made a door, or
way out, which came beyond my fence or wall: and so I came in and out
this way. But I was not perfectly easy