No sooner
had I taken them all down, and carried the most of them home to my
cave, than it began to rain; and from hence, which was the 14th of
August, it rained, more or less, every day till the middle of
October; and sometimes so violently, that I could not stir out of
my cave for several days.
In this season I was much surprised with the increase of my family;
I had been concerned for the loss of one of my cats, who ran away
from me, or, as I thought, had been dead, and I heard no more
tidings of her till, to my astonishment, she came home about the
end of August with three kittens. This was the more strange to me
because, though I had killed a wild cat, as I called it, with my
gun, yet I thought it was quite a different kind from our European
cats; but the young cats were the same kind of house-breed as the
old one; and both my cats being females, I thought it very strange.
But from these three cats I afterwards came to be so pestered with
cats that I was forced to kill them like vermin or wild beasts, and
to drive them from my house as much as possible.
From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain, so that I
could not stir, and was now very careful not to be much wet.
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