“I must get some poles for the tent, though; and no spars, I see, have been brought on shore.”
He looked out an axe, and sticking it in his belt, set out to search for what he wanted.
“I shall not lose my way in this new kingdom of mine, that’s one advantage in having it of moderate size; and if I climb to the top of the hill, I shall be able to sing with Robinson Crusoe, ‘I am lord of all I survey,’—ah, ah, ah!” and he laughed for the first time for many a day.
There was nothing to excite his risibility on board. He felt his spirits rising.
“Stay!” he exclaimed suddenly. “What an ungrateful wretch I am! Here have I been saved from a great danger, and placed in safety, at all events for the present, and yet I have not uttered one word of thanks to Him who has preserved me.”
He knelt down, and lifted up his heart as well as he could to God.
“Careless, worthless fellow that I have been! yet God promises to hear all those that come to Him, not trusting to themselves or to their own good deeds, but to the perfect and complete atonement Jesus Christ made for their sins on the cross, so I know that He will hear me; and I am sure, though I am unworthy of His care, that He put it into the hearts of those men to bring me on shore instead of throwing me overboard, or what would have been worse, keeping me among them.”
He felt his heart much lighter when he rose from his knees.
He then, carefully observing the appearance of the rocks, that he might find his way back without difficulty, proceeded on his expedition. Clambering over them, he came to more level ground covered with various bushes, and soon reached a hill-side on which grew a number of trees, palms and others, with the names of which he was unacquainted. He looked in vain for cocoa-nuts, not being aware that the trees are only generally found on the level shore to which the nuts have been borne by the wind and tides of the ocean from other islands. He cut two stout poles for uprights, and a longer one for a ridge-pole, and shouldering them, returned to his camp.
“I shall want a fire, though,” he thought, as he got back, and throwing them down he again set out to get fuel.