This hut took us above a week in building, at least I think so, for after the first day or two we neglected to take any account of the passage of time. It was a poor sort of thing when finished, and could not have stood against a hurricane; but the weather was very fair, and besides, the place we had chosen was not near so much exposed as our first habitation, on higher ground. We hoped it would serve us until we should have made our proposed fortress, and the building of it was exceeding useful to us, for it took up, with the getting and eating of our food, every minute of the daytime, and by keeping our thoughts busy, as well as our hands, hindered us from dwelling on our loneliness. I had almost forgot to mention two or three things: first, that every morning and evening one or other of us went up the mountain-side, to a spot whence we had sight of the sea all around, to spy whether a sail was visible. The second thing is, that Billy went out one day, and brought back a little sucking-pig, which he had killed with his axe. We cut off its hinder legs, and carried them to the hot spring, and found that they cooked very well; and though the meat had a slight savour of brimstone, it was vastly more agreeable than the salt junk we were used to have aboard ship. Indeed, Billy said that it only wanted pease-pudding to make a meal fit for a king, and he ran all the way to the wood and back again to fetch a bread-fruit, to see if that, when boiled, would supply the place of pease; but the fruit only boiled to a pap, and when Billy tasted it, he declared that it spoiled the flavour of the pork, so we ate the meat by itself. [Sidenote: Failure]