I bathed my knee, and did all I could for it, but it was many days before I fully recovered the use of the limb; in fact, for three days I used a crutch, which helped me along famously. Fancy a Crusoe on crutches! After this adventure I made up my mind that I was not born to be drowned. Now, a week after my Creux adventure another incident occurred which greatly influenced my career both as regards my stay on the island and my after life. This was a curious discovery I made quite by accident. It happened to be a very wet morning when I rose, and looked as if it would continue all day, so I thought I would stay indoors and tidy up my dwelling. I soon prepared my breakfast, and sat down to enjoy it, and as I and my dog were discussing it, I could not help noticing the dilapidated state of the stained and ragged wall-paper. It had probably been on many years, and I recollected that somewhere among my stores I had about a dozen rolls of new paper, so I said to myself, "Why not strip the walls and re-paper the room?" Good! I soon cleared the room, and with a pail of water and a brush began to soak the old paper and strip it off, when I found, to my surprise, that it was several layers thick--five at least--while underneath all was a kind of netting of some sort of linen-looking fabric. I surmised that this was to give a better adhesive power to the paste, as probably the walls might be damp, although they did not appear to be so. So I tore the various papers off the wall, till I clumsily dragged off a piece of the netting also. The netting came quite off in my hand; a circular piece, about eighteen inches across. I examined it to see what it really was, and to my amazement discovered it was a beautiful lace collar. What a curious way of putting a collar on I thought, and returned to the wall to see if it wore any other finery, and quickly discovered that the four walls were covered all over with lace of beautiful design. There were pieces of all shapes and sizes, and most of it of exquisite workmanship; so, packing it into a trunk with plenty of tobacco among it to keep away insects, I sealed it up, and stood it in a dry place for future consideration.