A day or two I spent in roaming to and fro, gazing hungrily seawards for a ship. And when none appeared, I bethought me that I should certainly be none the worse conditioned—nay, I might be a great deal the better—if I should cross to the smaller island and there make my abode. Having once been the habitation of Christian folk, methought it would retain some remnants of its former plantations, so that I need not want for food; and of a surety, with a wider expanse of sea before me, I should be in better case to spy a passing vessel than if I remained on Hispaniola. I was minded at first to swim the channel—’twould be no great feat—but, observing at the water’s edge a pair of ground-sharks lying in wait for a toothsome meal, I gave up this design very readily, and considered of some safer way. There were woods growing almost to the shore. To a boy with his mind set on it, and a sharp knife to his hand, the making of a raft is a task of no great labour or hardship. ’Twas the work of two days to lop branches meet for my purpose, strip them, and bind them together with strands of bejuca, a climbing plant of serviceable sort; and on the third day I launched my raft, and oared myself across the still water, being companied by a disappointed shark the better part of the way. I went ashore in some fear and trembling lest I should meet Spaniards, or other hostile men; but I saw no sign of present habitation, and wandered for near a day without lighting on any traces of mankind. But at length in my course I spied a heap of wood ashes, and some rinds of fruit, and a little beyond a broken hen-coop, whereby I knew that men sometimes resorted to the island, as Antonio had said. It came into my mind that my late companions of the _Elizabeth_ had perchance set foot here no long while before me, and I felt a great longing to look on them again. I wondered where they might be, whether they had fought the Spaniards on the Main and gained great treasure, or whether they had given up their quest and sailed away for home. Some days I spent in solitude, never straying far from the coast, lest I should be out of sight if a ship came near. There was food in plenty—such is the bounty of Providence in those climes; and of nights I ensconced myself in a little hut I built of branches in a nook on the shore.