at I spared no pains
to bring to pass whatever appeared necessary for my comfortable support;
for I considered the keeping up a breed of tame creatures thus at my
hand would be a living magazine of flesh, milk, butter, and cheese for
me as long as I lived in the place, if it were to be forty years; and
that keeping them in my reach depended entirely upon my perfecting my
enclosures to such a degree, that I might be sure of keeping them
together; which, by this method, indeed, I so effectually secured, that
when these little stakes began to grow, I had planted them so very
thick, that I was forced to pull some of them up again.

In this place also I had my grapes growing, which I principally depended
on for my winter store of raisins, and which I never failed to preserve
very carefully, as the best and most agreeable dainty of my whole diet:
and indeed they were not only agreeable, but medicinal, wholesome,
nourishing, and refreshing to the last degree.

As this was also about half-way between my other habitation and the
place where I had laid up my boat, I generally stayed and lay here in my
way thither; for I used frequently to visit my boat; and I kept all
things about, or belonging to her, in very good order: sometimes I went
out in her to divert myself, but no more hazardous voyages would I go,
nor scarce ever above a stone's cast or two from the shore, I was so
apprehensive of being hurried out of my knowledge again by the currents
or winds, or any other accident. But now I come to a new scene of
my life.

It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was
exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore,
which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like one
thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition; I listened, I looked
round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see any thing; I went up to a
rising ground, to look farther; I went up the shore, and down the shore,
but it was all one; I could see no other impression but that one. I went
to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might
not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly
the print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot: how it came
thither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but, after
innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out
of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the
ground I went on,