noe, which at last I finished: so that by digging a canal to it of
six feet wide, and four feet deep, I brought it into the creek, almost
half a mile. As for the first, which was so vastly big, as I made it
without considering beforehand, as I ought to do, how I should be able
to launch it, so, never being able to bring it into the water, or bring
the water to it, I was obliged to let it lie where it was, as a
memorandum to teach me to be wiser the next time: indeed, the next time,
though I could not get a tree proper for it, and was in a place where I
could not get the water to it at any less distance than, as I have said,
near half a mile, yet as I saw it was practicable at last, I never gave
it over: and though I was near two years about it, yet I never grudged
my labour, in hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last.

However, though my little periagua was finished, yet the size of it was
not at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I made the
first; I mean, of venturing over to the _terra firma_, where it was
above forty miles broad; accordingly, the smallness of my boat assisted
to put an end to that design, and now I thought no more of it. As I had
a boat, my next design was to make a cruise round the island; for as I
had been on the other side in one place, crossing, as I have already
described it, over the land, so the discoveries I made in that little
journey made me very eager to see other parts of the coast; and now I
had a boat, I thought of nothing but sailing round the island.

For this purpose, that I might do every thing with discretion and
consideration, I fitted up a little mast in my boat, and made a sail to
it out of some of the pieces of the ship's sails which lay in store, and
of which I had a great stock by me. Having fitted my mast and sail, and
tried the boat, I found she would sail very well: then I made little
lockers, or boxes, at each end of my boat, to put provisions,
necessaries, ammunition, &c. into, to be kept dry, either from rain or
the spray of the sea; and a little long hollow place I cut in the inside
of the boat, where I could lay my gun, making a flap to hang down over
it, to keep it dry.

I fixed my umbrella also in a step at the stern, like a mast, to stand
over my head, and keep the heat of the sun off me, like an awning; and
thus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but never
went far out, nor far from the little creek. At last, being