I usually rose early and worked till noon, when I ate my meal; then I went out with my gun, after which I worked once more till the sun had set; and then to bed. It took me more than a week to change the shape and size of my cave. Unfortunately, I made it far too large, for, later on, the earth fell in from the roof; and had I been in it when this took place, I should have lost my life. I had now to set up posts in my cave, with planks on the top of them, so as to make a roof of wood.
HOW I SUPPLIED MY NEEDS
I had to go to bed at dusk, till I made a lamp of goat's fat, which I put in a clay dish; and this, with a piece of hemp for a wick, made a good light. As I had found a, use for the bag which had held the fowls' food on board ship, I shook out from it the husks of grain. This was just at the time when the great rains fell, and in the course of a month, blades of rice and barley sprang up. As time went by, and the grain was ripe, I kept it, and took care to sow it each year; but I could not boast of a crop of grain for three years.
I knew that tools would be my first want and that I should have to grind mine on the stone, as they were blunt and worn with use. But as it took both hands to hold the tool, I could not turn the stone; so I made a wheel by which I could move it with my foot. This was no small task, but I took great pains with it, and at length it was done.
I had now been in the isle twelve months, and I thought it was time to go all round it in search of its woods, springs, and creeks. So I set off, and brought back with me limes and grapes in their prime, large and ripe. I had hung the grapes in the sun to dry, and in a few days' time went to fetch them, that I might lay up a store. The vale on the banks of which they grew was fresh and green, and a clear, bright stream ran through it, which gave so great a charm to the spot as to make me wish to live there.
But there was no view of the sea from this vale, while from my house no ships could come on my side of the isle and not be seen by me; yet the cool, soft banks were so sweet and new to me that much of my time was spent there.
In the first of the three years in which I had grown barley, I had sown it too late; in the next it was spoiled by the drought; but the third year's crop had sprung up well.
Few of us think of the cost at which a loaf of bread is made. Of course, there was no plow here to turn up the earth, and no spade to dig it with, so I made one with wood; but this was soon worn out, and for want of a rake I made use of the bough of a tree. When I had got the grain home, I had to thresh it, part the grain from the chaff, and store it up. Then came the want of sieves to clean it, of a mill to grind it, and of yeast to make bread of it.
If I could have found a large stone, slightly hollow on top, I might, by pounding the grain on it with another round stone, have made very good meal. But all the stones I could find were too soft; and in the end I had to make a sort of mill of hard wood, in which I burned a hollow place, and in that pounded the grain into' meal with a heavy stick.
Baking I did by building a big fire, raking away the ashes, and putting the dough on the hot place, covered with a kind of basin made of clay, over which 'I had heaped the red ashes.