Having food in abundance, and the climate being healthy and pleasant, in about eighteen months he became easy in his situation. The time hung no longer heavy upon his hands. His devotions and frequent study of the Scriptures, soothed and elevated his mind: and this, coupled with the vigor of his health, and a constant serene sky, and temperate air, rendered his life one continual feast. His feelings were now as joyful as they had before been sorrowful. He took delight in every thing around him; fixed up the hut in which he lay, with fragrant branches, cut from a spacious wood, on the side of which it was situated, and thereby formed a pleasant bower, fanned with continual breezes, soft and balmy as poets describe, which made his repose, after the fatigues of the chase, very gratifying. Yet happy and contented as he became, there were cares that broke in upon his pleasing thoughts, as it were to place his situation on a level with that of other human beings; for it is the lot of man to care while he dwells on earth. During the early part of his residence, he was much annoyed by multitudes of rats, which gnawed his feet and other parts of his body, as he slept during the night. To remedy this evil, he caught and tamed after much exertion and patient toil, some of the cats that ran wild on the island. These new friends soon put the rats to flight, and became themselves the companions of his leisure hours. He amused himself by teaching them to dance, and do a number of antic feats. They multiplied so fast too, under his fostering hand, that they lay upon his bed, and upon the floor in great numbers: and although freed from his former troublesome visitors, yet, so strangely are we formed, that when one care is removed, another takes its place. [Illustration: Selkirk amusing himself with his Cats.] These very protectors became a source of great uneasiness to him: for the idea haunted his mind, and made him at times melancholy, that, after his death there would be no one to bury his remains, or to supply the cats with food, his body must be devoured by the very animals which he at present nourished for his convenience. The island abounds in goats, which he shot while his powder lasted, and afterwards caught by speed of foot. At first he could only overtake kids: but latterly, so much did his frugal life, joined to air and exercise, improve his strength and habits of body, that he could run down the strongest goat on the island in a few minutes, and tossing it over his shoulders, carry it with ease to his hut. All the by-ways and easy parts of the mountains became familiar to him. He could bound from crag to crag, and slip down the precipices with confidence.