ived
uncomfortably, by reason of the constant apprehensions of their coming
upon me by surprise: from whence I observe, that the expectation of evil
is more bitter than the suffering, especially if there is no room to
shake off that expectation, or those apprehensions.

During all this time I was in the murdering humour, and took up most of
my hours, which should have been better employed, in contriving how to
circumvent and fall upon them, the very next time I should see them;
especially if they should be divided, as they were the last time, into
two parties: nor did I consider at all, that if I killed one party,
suppose ten or a dozen, I was still the next day, or week, or month, to
kill another, and so another, even _ad infinitum_, till I should be at
length no less a murderer than they were in being man-eaters, and
perhaps much more so. I spent my days now in great perplexity and
anxiety of mind, expecting that I should, one day or other, fall into
the hands of these merciless creatures; and if I did at any time
venture abroad, it was not without looking round me with the greatest
care and caution imaginable. And now I found, to my great comfort, how
happy it was that I had provided a tame flock or herd of goats; for I
durst not, upon any account, fire my gun, especially near that side of
the island where they usually came, lest I should alarm the savages; and
if they had fled from me now, I was sure to have them come again, with
perhaps two or three hundred canoes with them, in a few days, and then I
knew what to expect. However, I wore out a year and three months more
before I ever saw any more of the savages, and then I found them again,
as I shall soon observe. It is true, they might have been there once or
twice, but either they made no stay, or at least I did not see them: but
in the month of May, as near as I could calculate, and in my four and
twentieth year, I had a very strange encounter with them; of which in
its place.

The perturbation of my mind, during this fifteen or sixteen months'
interval, was very great; I slept unquiet, dreamed always frightful
dreams, and often started out of my sleep in the night: in the day great
troubles overwhelmed my mind; and in the night, I dreamed often of
killing the savages, and of the reasons why I might justify the doing of
it. But, to wave all this for a while.--It was in the middle of May, on
the sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor wooden calendar would
r