and that with infinite labour. For example, if I wanted a board, I
had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before
me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I brought it
to be thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze. It is
true, by this method I could make but one board out of a whole
tree; but this I had no remedy for but patience, any more than I
had for the prodigious deal of time and labour which it took me up
to make a plank or board: but my time or labour was little worth,
and so it was as well employed one way as another.

However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the
first place; and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that
I brought on my raft from the ship. But when I had wrought out
some boards as above, I made large shelves, of the breadth of a
foot and a half, one over another all along one side of my cave, to
lay all my tools, nails and ironwork on; and, in a word, to
separate everything at large into their places, that I might come
easily at them. I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock to hang
my guns and all things that would hang up; so that, had my cave
been to be seen, it looked like a general magazine of all necessary
things; and had everything so ready at my hand, that it was a great
pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order, and especially to
find my stock of all necessaries so great.

And now it was that I began to keep a journal of every day's
employment; for, indeed, at first I was in too much hurry, and not
only hurry as to labour, but in too much discomposure of mind; and
my journal would have been full of many dull things; for example, I
must have said thus: "30TH. - After I had got to shore, and escaped
drowning, instead of being thankful to God for my deliverance,