it been.

My next concern was to get a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn in;
for as to the mill, there was no thought of arriving to that perfection
of art with one pair of hands. To supply this want I was at a great
loss; for, of all trades in the world, I was as perfectly unqualified
for a stonecutter, as for any whatever; neither had I any tools to go
about it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stone big enough
to cut hollow, and make fit for a mortar; but could find none at all,
except what was in the solid rock, and which I had no way to dig or cut
out: nor, indeed, were the rocks in the island of sufficient hardness,
as they were all of a sandy crumbling stone, which would neither bear
the weight of a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without filling
it with sand: so, after a great deal of time lost in searching for a
stone, I gave it over, and resolved to look out a great block of hard
wood, which I found indeed much easier; and getting one as big as I had
strength to stir, I rounded it, and formed it on the outside with my axe
and hatchet; and then, with the help of fire, and infinite labour, made
a hollow place in it, as the Indians in Brazil make their canoes. After
this, I made a great heavy pestle, or beater, of the wood called
iron-wood; and this I prepared and laid by against I had my next crop of
corn, when I proposed to myself to grind, or rather pound, my corn into
meal, to make my bread.

My next difficulty was to make a sieve, or searce, to dress my meal,
and to part it from the bran and the husk, without which I did not see
it possible I could have any bread. This was a most difficult thing,
even but to think on; for I had nothing like the necessary thing to make
it; I mean fine thin canvass or stuff, to searce the meal through. Here
I was at a full stop for many months; nor did I really know what to do;
linen I had none left, but what was mere rags; I had goats'-hair, but
neither knew how to weave it nor spin it; and had I known how, here were
no tools to work it with: all the remedy I found for this was, at last
recollecting I had, among the seamen's clothes which were saved out of
the ship, some neckcloths of calico or muslin, with some pieces of these
I made three small sieves, proper enough for the work; and thus I made
shift for some years: how I did afterwards, I shall show in its place.

The baking part was the next thing to be considered, and how I should
make bread w