)
17. Aft er ten or twelve days it came into my thoughts that I should
lose my reckoning for want of pen and ink; but to prevent this I cut
with my knife upon a large post in capital letters the following words:
"I came on shore here on the 30th of September, 1659." On the sides of
this post I cut every day a notch; and thus I kept my calendar,
or weekly, monthly, and yearly reckoning of time.
(He afterward found pen, ink, and paper in the ship; but the record on
the post was more lasting than anything he could have written on paper.
However, when he got his pen and ink he wrote out a daily journal,
giving the history of his life almost to the hour and minute.
Thus he tells us that the shocks of earthquake were eight minutes apart,
and that he spent eighteen days widening his cave.)
18. I made a strong fence of stakes about my tent that no animal could
tear down, and dug a cave in the side of the hill, where I stored my powder
and other valuables. Every day I went out with my gun on this scene of
silent life. I could only listen to the birds, and hear the wind among
the trees. I came out, however, to shoot goats for food.
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