With my clay I easily baked some shallow dishes with a handle, into which I poured my sharks' liver oil and fitted with pith wick and had no want of light. One of these lamps I suspended from the ridgepole in nearly the centre of the room, just clear of the upright, and two or three feet above my head, fitted with three wicks, which, when lit at night gave me a pleasant and abundant light. I made favorites of one or two of my young goats, and used to allow them to occupy the house with me, and became much attached to them, and in the evening when not too busy, amused myself by teaching them to walk on their hind legs, and other playful tricks which seemed for a moment to make me forget my loneliness. I was not satisfied with what I had yet done for the interior of my house, and I therefore went to work, and made myself a table on the same plan as the bed, except that it was higher and much lighter, and across this I stretched a large section of birch bark which I stripped from a tree; this table pleased me so much that I went to work and made a lighter one still for my ink, pens, and books, etc., retaining the other for eating purposes. In fact, before the winter was ended I had four of these tables in the house, which were very handy, and yet after all were not difficult to make. For a door, I cut several canes and lashed them together with manilla rope strands, and hung it by the same material, but it would not open or shut very well, and I was forced to lift it carefully, but then I only closed and opened it once a day, morning and night. The floor of my house troubled me more than anything else, but finally I covered it with a coating of clay that I brought on the sled by repeated trips to the clay field; this I mixed with a quantity of lime and sand and put it down whilst moist, and it formed a sort of cement, and soon became hard and firm, but it was always dusty to a degree and not as clean as I could have wished, but it did very well,—at least, I could think of nothing to improve it.
It was at this time, when I seemed to have gotten everything well about me for the winter, which was sensibly approaching, for it was now the month of May, and some of the days had been quite chilly and unpleasant, that I was taken with the insane idea of building a boat. I do not know for what earthly purpose I desired one, except, possibly, I might coast along in Stillwater Cove or the margin of Perseverance Bay and if I found anything that I needed I could transport it better in the boat than any other way. I was well aware that I had no tools to make a boat with, but for that very reason I was determined to make one. I had made up my mind, if I must play the part of Robinson Crusoe, that I would at least prove to myself, if to no one else, that thousands of things can be accomplished by a little ingenuity and contrivance that seem difficult upon first view. For instance, I thought at once of several ways in which I could make a boat: one, by hollowing out a log with my hatchet and by means of fire; another by making a light frame of twigs and stretching skins over it; or still another and very much the best method, by taking the bark from a birch tree and making an Indian birch-bark canoe. This latter was the easiest and simplest, and a plan that I knew something about, so I went about in the woods till I found a splendid great birch that pleased my eye, some two feet or more in diameter, with a bark seemingly without a flaw. It took me nearly a day to build up a kind of platform of wood and stones, so as to reach high enough up the trunk of the tree to make a circular incision with my knife at about fifteen feet from the ground, and then one perpendicular till within about two feet of the ground, where I made another round about the tree, leaving me a strip of bark some thirteen feet in length. This I forced off, using great care not to tear or split it, by means of a series of wedges which I forced in under the bark with my hatchet. At last the piece lay before me upon the ground, and the worst part of my task was done, for I soon brought the ends together, filling them first with melted pitch, and lashed them with thin withes of a kind of willow which I split for the purpose, the same as the Indians do; and having sewed and lashed up both ends, after cutting the bark with my knife in the right shape, I split up with my hatchet long, limber, thin pieces of a species of ash, in the green state, something like hoops to a flour barrel, but somewhat wider and stronger, and with these cut in different lengths, and inserted within the bark, I gave the canoe its shape, the longest, widest, and strongest ones being in the centre, from which they shortened towards each end. Inside of the gunwale the whole length on each side I stretched a pliable cane pole, rolling the bark round about it and sewing the whole down with manilla strands and green withes of willow.
It was amazing to see what a beautiful, light, and graceful boat I had produced with only about a week's labor; one that I could put upon my head and carry towards the water with ease. I soon, by means of my hatchet and knife, fashioned out a paddle, and my canoe was complete. I launched her in Stillwater Cove, and she floated like a duck, and was besides of a beautiful model, and, as I well knew, would stand terrific weather if properly handled, being one of the best sea-boats in the world, not excepting the famous Nantucket whale-boats. I was delighted with my success.
I did not gather all these things about me without many bitter hours of loneliness and despair; but their constructions and the reading of my book, which I consulted almost nightly, kept me often from miserable repinings. I felt that I was gaining, and that I had not yet done making nature, ingenuity, and industry improve my condition and increase my comforts.
CHAPTER XIV.
Make chairs, and arrange my house, seal-skins, and goat-skins. Provide provisions for winter. Discover wild grapes, and make wine and vinegar. Find potassium, or saltpetre. Make gunpowder, and by means of my compass discover iron. Thoughts of the future.
The completion of my canoe, which I named the "Fairy," was a great delight to me, and I made several trips in her along the coast in Stillwater Cove, and made an exploration near the place where I had first landed. Somewhat into the interior of the island, I came upon what was a great discovery for me,—although I had the seeds amongst my stores, and had already planted some,—and that was grapes, in large and abundant clusters, growing wild and naturally. Here was both food and drink for me, and they were at this time in their prime. From them I could make vinegar, wine, and raisins. I gathered a large quantity, which I placed in the canoe and transported to the Hermitage, and although late in season hung up many bunches to dry in the still quite warm sun, and from the remainder I extracted the juice by pressing them between my hands and catching the liquor in several of my numerous earthen jars. The flavor of these grapes was a little wild, but pleasant and agreeable. I knew that fermentation would take place, and that in time I should have a light claret wine, and thereafter good wine vinegar. To cause fermentation, and to improve the flavor, I put a piece of goat's flesh into each vessel, and covered up the mouths with earthen covers that I had made to each.