After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to
reflect seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many
years in this very island, and how I had walked about in the
greatest security, and with all possible tranquillity, even when
perhaps nothing but the brow of a hill, a great tree, or the casual
approach of night, had been between me and the worst kind of
destruction - viz. that of falling into the hands of cannibals and
savages, who would have seized on me with the same view as I would
on a goat or turtle; and have thought it no more crime to kill and
devour me than I did of a pigeon or a curlew. I would unjustly
slander myself if I should say I was not sincerely thankful to my
great Preserver, to whose singular protection I acknowledged, with
great humanity, all these unknown deliverances were due, and
without which I must inevitably have fallen into their merciless
hands.
When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up
in considering the nature of these wretched creatures, I mean the
savages, and how it came to pass in the world that the wise
Governor of all things should give up any of His creatures to such
inhumanity - nay, to something so much below even brutality itself
- as to devour its own kind: but as this ended in some (at that
time) fruitless speculations, it occurred to me to inquire what
part of the world these wretches lived in? how far off the coast
was from whence they came? what they ventured over so far from home
for? what kind of boats they had? and why I might not order myself
and my business so that I might be able to go over thither, as they
were to come to me?
I never so much as troubled myself to consider what I should do
with myself when I went thither; what would become of me if I fell
into the hands of these savages; or how I should escape them if
they attacked me; no, nor so much as how it was possible for me to
reach the coast, and not to be attacked by some or other of them,
without any possibility of delivering myself: and if I should not
fall into their hands, what I should do for provision, or whither I
should bend my course: none of these thoughts, I say, so much as
came in my way; but my mind was wholly bent upon the notion of my
passing over in my boat to the mainland.
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