After I had been there about ten or twelve days,it came into my thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books and pen and ink,and should even forget the Sabbath days from the working days;but to prevent this,I cut it with my knife upon a large post,in capital letters;and making it into a great cross,I set it up on the shore where I first landed,viz.,‘I came on shore here on the 30th of September 1659.’Upon the sides of this square post I cut every day a notch with my knife,and every seventh notch was as long again as the rest,and every first day of the month as long again as that long one;and thus I kept my calendar,or weekly,monthly,and yearly reckoning of time.
In the next place we are to observe,that among the many things which I brought out of the ship in the several voyages,which,as above mentioned,I made to it,I got several things of less value,but not all less useful to me,which I omitted setting down before;as in particular,pens,ink,and paper,several parcels in the captain's,mate's,gunner's,and carpenter's keeping,three or four compasses,some mathematical instruments,dials,perspectives,charts,and books of navigation,all which I huddled together,whether I might want them or no.Also I found three very good Bibles,which came to me in my cargo from England,and which I had packed up among my things;some Portuguese books also,and among them two or three Popish prayer books,and several other books,all which I carefully secured.And I must not forget,that we had in the ship a dog and two cats,of whose eminent history I may have occasion to say something in its place;for I carried both the cats with me;and as for the dog,he jumped out of the ship of himself,and swam on shore to me the day after I went on shore with my first cargo,and was a trusty servant to me many years.I wanted nothing that he could fetch me,nor any company that he could make up to me;I only wanted to have him talk to me,but that would not do.As I observed before,I found pen,ink,and paper,and I husbanded them to the utmost;and I shall show that while my ink lasted,I kept things very exact;but after that was gone,I could not,for I could not make any ink by any means that I could devise.
And this put me in mind that I wanted many things,notwithstanding all that I had amassed together;and of these,this of ink was one,as also spade,pick axe,and shovel,to dig or remove the earth,needles,pins,and thread;as for linen,I soon learned to want that without much difficulty.
This want of tools made every work I did go on heavily;and it was near a whole year before I had entirely finished my little pale or surrounded habitation.The piles or stakes,which were as heavy as I could well lift,were a long time in cutting and preparing in the woods,and more by far in bringing home;so that I spent sometimes two days in cutting and bringing home one of those posts,and a third day in driving it into the ground;for which purpose I got a heavy piece of wood at first,but at last bethought myself of one of the iron crows,which,however,though I found it,yet it made driving those posts or piles very laborious and tedious work.
But what need I have been concerned at the tediousness of anything I had to do,seeing I had time enough to do it in?nor had I any other employment,if that had been over,at least,that I could foresee,except the ranging the island to seek for food,which I did more or less every day.
I now began to consider seriously my condition,and the circumstance I was reduced to;and I drew up the state of my affairs in writing;not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me,for I was like to have but few heirs,as to deliver my thoughts from daily poring upon them,and afflicting my mind.And as my reason began now to master my despondency,I began to comfort myself as well as I could,and to set the good against the evil,that I might have something to distinguish my case from worse;and I stated it very impartially,like debtor and creditor,the comforts I enjoyed against the miseries I suffered,thus:
Evil
I am cast upon a horrible desolate island,void of all hope of recovery.
I am singled out and separated,as it were,from all the world to be miserable.
I am divided from mankind,a solitaire,one banished from human society.
I have not clothes to cover me.
I am without any defence or means to resist any violence of man or beast.
I have no soul to speak to,or relieve me.
Good
But I am alive,and not drowned,as all my ship's company was.
But I am singled out,too,from all the ship's crew to be spared from death;and He that miraculously saved me from death,can deliver me from this condition.
But I am not starved and perishing on a barren place,affording no sustenance.
But I am in a hot climate,where if I had clothes I could hardly wear them.
But I am cast on an island,where I see no wild beasts to hurt me,as I saw on the coast of Africa;and what if I had been shipwrecked there?
But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore,that I have gotten out so many necessary things as will either supply my wants,or enable me to supply myself even as long as I live.
