The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
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The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
But all this is by the by; for as to my figure, I had so few to
observe me that it was of no manner of consequence, so I say no
more of that. In this kind of dress I went my new journey, and was
out five or six days. I travelled first along the seashore,
directly to the place where I first brought my boat to an anchor
to get upon the rocks; and, having no boat now to take care of, I
went over the land a nearer way to the same height that I was upon
before, when, looking forward to the points of the rocks which lay
out, and which I was obliged to double with my boat, as is said
above, I was surprised to see the sea all smooth and quiet--no
rippling, no motion, no current, any more there than in other
places. I was at a strange loss to understand this, and resolved
to spend some time in the observing it, to see if nothing from the
sets of the tide had occasioned it; but I was presently convinced
how it was; viz., that the tide of ebb setting from the west, and
joining with the current of waters from some great river on the
shore, must be the occasion of this current, and that, according
as the wind blew more forcibly from the west or from the north,
this current came nearer or went farther from the shore; for,
waiting thereabouts till evening, I went up to the rock again, and
then, the tide of ebb being made, I plainly saw the current again
as before, only that it ran farther off, being near half a league
from the shore, whereas in my case it set close upon the shore,
and hurried me and my canoe along with it, which at another time
it would not have done.
This observation convinced me that I had nothing to do but to
observe the ebbing and the flowing of the tide, and I might very
easily bring my boat about the island again; but when I began to
think of putting it in practice, I had such terror upon my spirits
at the remembrance of the danger I had been in, that I could not
think of it again with any patience, but, on the contrary, I took
up another resolution, which was more safe, though more laborious--
and this was, that I would build, or rather make, me another
perigaua or canoe, and so have one for one side of the island, and
one for the other.
You are to understand that now I had, as I may call it, two
plantations in the island--one my little fortification or tent,
with the wall about it, under the rock, with the cave behind me,
which by this time I had enlarged into several apartments or
caves, one within another. One of these, which was the driest and
largest, and had a door out beyond my wall or fortification--that
is to say, beyond where my wall joined to the rock--was all filled
up with the large earthen pots of which I have given an account,
and with fourteen or fifteen great baskets, which would hold five
or six bushels each, where I laid up my stores of provisions,
especially my corn, some in the ear, cut off short from the straw,
and the other rubbed out with my hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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