so I even let him
out, and he ran away, as if he had been frightened out of his wits. But
I did not then know what I afterwards learnt, that hunger will tame a
lion. If I had let him stay there three or four days without food, and
then have carried him some water to drink, and then a little corn, he
would have been as tame as one of the kids; for they are mighty
sagacious, tractable creatures, where they are well used.

However, for the present I let him go, knowing no better at that time:
then I went to the three kids, and taking them one by one, I tied them
with strings together, and with some difficulty brought them all home.

It was a good while before they would feed; but throwing them some sweet
corn, it tempted them, and they began to be tame. And now I found that
if I expected to supply myself with goat's flesh when I had no powder or
shot left, breeding some up tame was my only way; when, perhaps, I might
have them about my house like a flock of sheep. But then it occurred to
me, that I must keep the tame from the wild, or else they would always
run wild when they grew up: and the only way for this was, to have some
enclosed piece of ground, well fenced, either with hedge or pale, to
keep them in so effectually, that those within might not break out, or
those without break in.

This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands; yet as I saw there
was an absolute necessity for doing it, my first work was to find out a
proper piece of ground, where there was likely to be herbage for them
to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep them from the sun.

Those who understand such enclosures will think I had very little
contrivance, when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these
(being a plain open piece of meadow land, or savannah, as our people
call it in the western colonies,) which had two or three little drills
of fresh water in it, and at one end was very woody; I say, they will
smile at my forecast, when I shall tell them, I began my enclosing this
piece of ground in such a manner, that my hedge or pale must have been
at least two miles about. Nor was the madness of it so great as to the
compass, for if it was ten miles about, I was like to have time enough
to do it in; but I did not consider that my goats would be as wild in so
much compass as if they had had the whole island, and I should have so
much room to chase them in, that I should never catch them.

My hedge was begun and carried on,