Part 13 (1/2)

This was a dreadful sight todown to the shore, I could see the marks of horror which the dismal work they had been about had left behind it, viz the blood, the bones, and part of the flesh of human bodies, eaten and devoured by those wretches with nation at the sight, that I began now to premeditate the destruction of the next that I saw there, let them be who or how many soever

It seemed evident to me, that the visits which they thus made to this island were not very frequent; for it was above fifteen ain; that is to say, I never saw thenals of them, in all that time; for as to the rainy seasons, then they are sure not to come abroad, at least not so far; yet all this while I lived uncomfortably, by reason of the constant apprehensions I was in of their co upon me by surprise; from whence I observe, that the expectation of evil is , especially if there is no room to shake off that expectation or those apprehensions

During all this ti humour; and took up most of my hours, which should have been better e how to circumvent and fall upon them the very next time I should see them; especially if they should he 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 mouth, to kill another, and so another, even _ad infinituth no less amen-eaters, and perhaps reat perplexity and anxiety ofthat I should one day or other fall into the hands of those merciless creatures; if I did at any ti round inable; and now I found, to reat comfort, how happy it was that I had provided a taoats; for I durst not, upon any account, fire un especially near that side of the island, where they usually caes; and if they had fled froain, with perhaps two or three hundred canoes with them in a few days, and then I knehat to expect

However, I wore out a year and three es, and then I found theht have been there once or twice, but either they made no stay, or, at least, I did not hear them; but in the month of May, as near as I could calculate, and in e encounter with them, of which in its place

The perturbation ofthis fifteen or sixteen reat; I slept unquiet, dreahtful dreaht; in the day great troubles overwheles, and the reasons why Iof it But to wave all this for awhile, it was in the middle of May, on the sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor wooden calendar would reckon, for I marked all upon, the post still; I say, it was on the sixteenth of May that it blew a great stor and thunder, and a very foul night was after it: I know not as the particular occasion of it; but as I was reading in the Bible, and taken up with serious thoughts about un, as I thought, fired at sea

This was, to be sure, a surprise of a quite different nature from any I had hts were quite of another kind: I started up in the greatest haste iinable; and in a trice clapped up my ladder to theit the second tiot to the top of the hill; that very un, which accordingly in about half a moment I heard, and by the sound knew that it was from that part of the sea where I was driven out with the current in my boat

I immediately considered that this must be some shi+p in distress, and that they had some couns for signals of distress, and to obtain help I had this presence of h I could not help theether all the dry wood I could get at hand, and ood handsome pile, I set it on fire upon the hill; the as dry, and blazed freely, and though the wind blew very hard, yet it burnt fairly out, so that I was certain, if there was any such thing as a shi+p, they must need see it, and no doubt they did; for as soon as ever un, and after that several others, all fro, till day broke; and when it was broad day, and the air cleared up, I saw soreat distance at sea, full east of the island, whether a sail, or an hull, I could not distinguish, no not with reat, and the weather still so hazy also; at least it was so out at sea

I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived that it did not move; so I presently concluded that it was a shi+p at anchor; and being eager, you un in my hand, and ran towards the south-east side of the island, to the rocks, where I had been for up there, the weather by this tireat sorrow, the wreck of a shi+p cast away in the night upon those concealed rocks which I found when I was out in my boat; and which rocks, as they checked the violence of the stream, and made a kind of counter-strea then from the most desperate hopeless condition that ever I had been in all my life

Thus, what is one man's safety is another man's destruction; for it seee, and the rocks being wholly under water, had been driven upon the hard at E and ENE Had they seen the island, as I ht, have endeavoured to have saved the of their guns for help, especially when they saw, as I iined, that, upon seeing ht have put themselves into their boat, and have endeavoured to ht have been cast away; other tiht have lost their boat before, asof the sea upon their shi+p, which es men to stave, or take in pieces their boat; and sometimes to throw it overboard with their own hands; other tiined, they had sonals of distress they had made, had taken them up, and carried theone off to sea in their boat, and being hurried away by the current that I had been forreat ocean, where there was nothing but ht by this ti in a condition to eat one another

All these were but conjectures at best, so, in the condition I was in, I could do no more than look upon the ood effect on ive thanks to God, who had so happily and comfortably provided for me in my desolate condition; and that of two shi+ps'

companies, ere now cast away upon this part of the world, not one life should be spared but ain to observe, that it is very rare that the providence of God casts us into any condition of life so low, or anyor other to be thankful for, and may see others in worse circumstances than our own

Such certainly was the case of these men, of whom I could not socould make it rational, so much as to wish or expect that they did not all perish there, except the possibility only of their being taken up by another shi+p in company: and this was but nal or appearance of any such thing

I cannot explain, by any possible energy of words, what a strange longing, or hankering of desire, I felt inout sometimes thus: ”O that there had been but one or two, nay, but one soul saved out of the shi+p, to have escaped to ht but have had one companion, one fellow-creature to have spoken to me, and to have conversed with!” In all the ti a desire after the society of ret at want of it

There are sos in the affections, which, when they are set a going by soh not in view, yet rendered present to the ination, that motion carries out the soul by its is of the object, that the absence of it is insupportable

Such were these earnest wishi+ngs, ”That but one man had been saved! O that it had been but one!” I believe I repeated the words, ”O that it had been but one!” a thousand times; and my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words, ers press the pal in my hand, it would have crushed it involuntarily; and ainst one another so strong, that for soain

Let the naturalists explain these things, and the reason and manner of them: all I can say of the to h I knew not from what it should proceed; it was doubtless the effect of ardent wishes, and of strong ideas for the comfort which the conversation of one of my fellow-christians would have been to me

But it was not to be; either their fate, oron this island, I never knehether any were saved out of that shi+p, or no; and had only the affliction some days after to see the corpse of a drowned boy come on shore, at the end of the island which was next the shi+pwreck: he had on no clothes but a seaman's waistcoat, a pair of open kneed linen drawers, and a blue linen shi+rt; but nothing to directin his pocket but two pieces of eight, and a tobacco-pipe; the last was to me of ten times more value than the first

It was now calreatbut I ht be useful to ether press ht be yet soht not only save, but ree: and this thought clung so to ht nor day, but I must venture out inthe rest to God's providence, I thought the i upon my mind, that it could not be resisted, that it must co to o

Under the power of this i for reat pot for fresh water, a coreat deal of that left) a basket full of raisins: and thus loading ot the water out of her, and got her afloat, loaded all ain forfull of rice, the ue pot full of lush water, and about two dozen of my small loaves, or barley-cakes, oat's reat labour and sweat, I brought to e, I put out, and rowing or paddling the canoe along the shore, I came at last to the utmost point of the island, on that side, viz NE And noas to launch out into the ocean, and either to venture, or not to venture; I looked on the rapid currents which ran constantly on both sides of the island, at a distance, and which were very terrible to me, from the rean to fail me; for I foresaw, that if I was driven into either of those currents, I should be carried a vast way out to sea and perhaps out of ain; and that then, as ale of wind should rise, I should be inevitably lost

These thoughts so oppressedhaled my boat into a little creek on the shore, I stepped out, and sat round, very pensive and anxious, between fear and desire, about , I could perceive that the tide was turned, and the flood ca was for so many hours impracticable: upon this it presently occurred to round I could find, and observe, if I could, how the sets of the tide or currents lay, when the flood cae whether, if I was driven one way out, I ht not expect to be driven another way hoht was no sooner in my head, but I cast my eye upon a little hill which sufficiently overlooked the sea both ways, and from whence I had a clear view of the currents, or sets of the tide, and which way I was to guide myself in my return: here I found, that as the current of the ebb set out close by the south point of the island, so the current of the flood set in close by the shore of the north side; and that I had nothing to do but to keep to the north of the island in ed with this observation, I resolved the nextreat watch-coat I mentioned, I launched out I an to feel the benefit of the current, which sat eastward, and which carried reat rate, and yet did not so hurry me as the southern side current had done before, and so as to take froe with reat rate, directly for the wreck, and in less than two hours I caht to took at: the shi+p, which by its building was Spanish, stuck fast, jambed in between two rocks; all the stern and quarter of her was beaten to pieces with the sea; and as her forecastle, which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her ht by the board, that is to say, broken short off, but her boltsprit was sound, and the head and bow appeared fir appeared upon her, which, seeing , yelped and cried, and as soon as I called him, jumped into the sea to come to me: and I took hier and thirst: I gave him a cake of my bread, and he ate like a ravenous wolf that had been starving a fortnight in the snow: I then gave the poor creature some fresh water, hich, if I would have let him, he would have burst hiht I met o men drowned in the cook-room, or forecastle of the shi+p, with their arms fast about one another I concluded, as is indeed probable, that when the shi+p struck, it being in a storh, and so continually over her, that the led with the constant rushi+ng in of the water, as , there was nothing left in the shi+p that had life, nor any goods that I could see, but ere spoiled by the water: there were some casks of liquor, whether wine or brandy I knew not, which lay lower in the hold, and which, the water being ebbed out, I could see; but they were too big to ed to soot two of the as in them