l I took her off on
my back, and then the young one ran by my side. I put down the goat, and
brought the kid home to tame it; but as it was too young to feed, I had
to kill it.

At first I thought that, for the lack of pen and ink, I should lose all
note of time; so I made a large post, in the shape of a cross, on which
I cut these words, "I came on these shores on the 8th day of June, in
the year 1659" On the side of this post I made a notch each day as it
came, and this I kept up till the last.

I have not yet said a word of my four pets, which were two cats, a dog,
and a bird. You may guess how fond I was of them, for they were all the
friends left to me. I brought the dog and two cats from the ship. The
dog would fetch things for me at all times, and by his bark, his whine,
his growl, and his tricks, he would all but talk to me; yet he could not
give me thought for thought.

If I could but have had some one near me to find fault with, or to find
fault with me, what a treat it would have been! Now that I had brought
ink from the ship, I wrote down a sketch of each day as it came; not so
much to leave to those who might read it, when I was dead and gone, as
to get rid of my own thoughts, and draw me from the fears which all day
long dwelt on my mind, till my head would ache with the weight of them.

I was a long way out of the course of ships: and oh, how dull it was to
be cast on this lone spot with no one to love, no one to make me laugh,
no one to make me weep, no one to make me think. It was dull to roam,
day by day, from the wood to the shore; and from the shore back to the
wood, and feed on my own thoughts all the while.

So much for the sad view of my case; but like most things it had a
bright side as well as a dark one. For here was I safe on land, while
all the rest of the ship's crew were lost. Well, thought I, God who
shapes our ways, and led me by the hand then, can save me from this
state now, or send some one to be with me; true, I am cast on a rough
and rude part of the globe, but there are no beasts of prey on it to
kill or hurt me. God has sent the ship so near to me, that I have got
from it all things to meet my wants for the rest of my days. Let life be
what it may, there is sure to be much to thank God for; and I soon gave
up all dull thoughts, and did not so much as look out for a sail.

My goods from the wreck had been in the cave for more than ten months;
and it was time now to put them ri