hard.

But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen pot to
hold liquids, and bear the fire, which none of these could do. It
happened some time after, making a pretty large fire for cooking my
meat, when I went to put it out after I had done with it, I found a
broken piece of one of my earthen-ware vessels in the fire, burnt as
hard as a stone, and red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it;
and said to myself, that certainly they might be made to burn whole, if
they would burn broken.

This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn some
pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in, or of
glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but I
placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one upon
another, and placed my fire-wood all round it, with a great heap of
embers under them. I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside,
and upon the top, till I saw the pots in the inside red-hot quite
through, and observed that they did not crack at all: when I saw them
clear red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I
found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt or run; for the
sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat,
and would have run into glass, if I had gone on; so I slacked my fire
gradually, till the pots began to abate of the red colour; and watching
them all night, that I might not let the fire abate too fast, in the
morning I had three very good, I will not say handsome, pipkins, and two
other earthen pots, as hard burnt as could be desired; and one of them
perfectly glazed with the running of the sand.

After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort of
earthen-ware for my use; but I must needs say, as to the shapes of them,
they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, as I had no way of
making them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would make
pies that never learned to raise paste.

No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I
found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and I had
hardly patience to stay till they were cold, before I set one on the
fire again, with some water in it, to boil me some meat, which it did
admirably well; and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth;
though I wanted oatmeal, and several other ingredients requisite to make
it so good as I would have had