I confess I had not entertained any notion of my ammunition being
destroyed at one blast - I mean my powder being blown up by
lightning; and this made the thoughts of it so surprising to me,
when it lightened and thundered, as I observed just now.
And now being about to enter into a melancholy relation of a scene
of silent life, such, perhaps, as was never heard of in the world
before, I shall take it from its beginning, and continue it in its
order. It was by my account the 30th of September, when, in the
manner as above said, I first set foot upon this horrid island;
when the sun, being to us in its autumnal equinox, was almost over
my head; for I reckoned myself, by observation, to be in the
latitude of nine degrees twenty-two minutes north of the line.
After I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my
thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books,
and pen and ink, and should even forget the Sabbath days; but to
prevent this, I cut with my knife upon a large post, in capital
letters - and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the
shore where I first landed - "I came on shore here on the 30th
September 1659.
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