could not imagine, for he had given us the slip, and we never imagined he
could swim so well as to venture off to the ship, which lay at so great a
distance; nay, we did not so much as know that he could swim at all, and
not thinking anything of what really happened, we thought he must have
wandered into the woods and was devoured, or was fallen into the hands of
the natives, and was murdered; and these thoughts filled us with fears
enough, and of several kinds, about its being some time or other our lot to
fall into their hands also. But hearing how he had with much difficulty
been received on board the ship again and pardoned, we were much better
satisfied than before.

Being now, as I have said, a considerable number of us, and in condition to
defend ourselves, the first thing we did was to give every one his hand
that we would not separate from one another upon any occasion whatsoever,
but that we would live and die together; that we would kill no food, but
that we would distribute it in public; and that we would be in all things
guided by the majority, and not insist upon our own resolutions in anything
if the majority were against it; that we would appoint a captain among us
to be our governor or leader during pleasure; that while he was in office
we would obey him without reserve, on pain of death; and that every one
should take turn, but the captain was not to act in any particular thing
without advice of the rest, and by the majority.

Having established these rules, we resolved to enter into some measures for
our food, and for conversing with the inhabitants or natives of the island
for our supply. As for food, they were at first very useful to us, but we
soon grew weary of them, being an ignorant, ravenous, brutish sort of
people, even worse than the natives of any other country that we had seen;
and we soon found that the principal part of our subsistence was to be had
by our guns, shooting of deer and other creatures, and fowls of all other