I first dug a trench round a space which took in twelve yards;
and in this I drove two rows of stakes, till they stood firm like
piles, five and a half feet from the ground. I made the stakes
close and tight with bits of rope; and put small sticks on the
top of them in the shape of spikes. This made so strong a fence
that no man or beast could get in.

The door of my house was on the top, and I had to climb up to it
by steps, which I took in with me, so that no one else might come
up by the same way. Close to the back of the house stood a high
rock, in which I made a cave, and laid all the earth that I had
dug out of it round my house, to the height of a foot and a half.
I had to go out once a day in search of food. The first time, I
saw some goats, but they were too shy and swift of foot, to let
me get near them.

At last I lay in wait for them close to their own haunts. If they
saw me in the vale, though they might be on high ground, they
would run off, wild with fear; but if they were in the vale, and
I on high ground, they took no heed of me. The first goat I shot
had a kid by her side, and when the old one fell, the kid stood
near her, till I took her off on my back, and then the young one
ran by my side. I put down the goat, and brought the kid home to
tame it; but as it was too young to feed, I had to kill it.

At first I thought that, for the lack of pen and ink, I should
lose all note of time; so I made a large post, in the shape of a
cross, on which I cut these words, "I came on these shores on the
8th day of June, in the year 1659" On the side of this post I
made a notch each day as it came, and this I kept up till the