In my wicker ware also I improved much, and made abundance of necessary baskets, as well as my invention shewed me, tho not very handsome, yet they were such as were very handy and convenient for my laying things up in, or fetching things home in. For example, if I killed a goat abroad, I could hang it up in a tree, flea it, and dress it, and cut it in pieces, and bring it home in a basket, and the like by a turtle, I could cut it up, take out the eggs, and a piece or two of the flesh, which was enough for me, and bring them home in a basket, and leave the rest behind me. Also large deep baskets were my receivers for my corn, which I always rubbed out as soon as it was dry, and cured, and kept it in great baskets.
I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably, and this was a want which it was impossible for me to supply, and I began seriously to consider what I must do when I should have no more powder; that is to say, how I should do to kill any goat. I had, as is observed in the third year of my being here, kept a young kid, and bred her up tame, and I was in hope of getting a he-goat, but I could not by any means bring it to pass, ’till my kid grew an old goat; and I could never find in my heart to kill her, till she dyed at last of mere age.
But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I have said, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to trap and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of them alive; and particularly I wanted a she-goat great with young.
To this purpose I made snares to hamper them; and believe they were more than once taken in them; but my tackle was not good, for I had no wire, and always found them broken, and my bait devoured.
At length I resolved to try a pitfall; so I dug several large pits in the earth, in places where I had observed the goats used to feed, and over these pits I placed hurdles of my own making too, with a great weight upon them; and several times I put ears of barley, and dry rice, without setting the trap; and I could easily perceive, that the goats had gone in, and eaten up the corn, that I could see the mark of their feet: at length, I set three traps in one night, and going the next morning, I found them all standing, and yet the bait eaten and gone. This was very discouraging; however, I altered my trap; and, not to trouble you with particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of them a large old he-goat; and, in one of the other, three kids, a male and two females.
As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him; he was so fierce I durst not go into the pit to him; that is to say, to go about to bring him away alive, which was what I wanted; I could have killed him, but that was not my business, nor would it answer my end; so I e’en let him out, and he ran away as if he had been frightened out of his wits; but I did not then know what I afterwards learnt, that hunger would tame a lion: if I had let him stay there three or four days without food, and then have carried him some water to drink, and then a little corn, he would have been as tame as one of the kids; for they are mighty sagacious tractable creatures, where they are well used.
However, for the present I let him go, knowing no better at that time; then I went to the three kids; and, taking them one by one, I tied them with strings together; and with some difficulty brought them all home.
It was a good while before they would feed; but throwing them some sweet corn, it tempted them, and they began to be tame: and now I found, that if I expected to supply myself with goat’s flesh, when I had no powder or shot left, breeding some up tame was my only way, when perhaps I might have them about my house like a flock of sheep.
But then it presently occurred to me, that I must keep the tame from the wild, or else they would always run wild when they grew up; and the only way for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground, well fenced either with hedge or pale, to keep them up so effectually, that those within might not break out, or those without break in.
This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands; yet as I saw there was an absolute necessity of doing it, my first piece of work was to find out a proper piece of ground; viz. where there was likely to be herbage for them to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep them from the sun.