I now began to consider that I might yet get a great many things out of the ship which would be useful to me; so every day at low water I went on board, and brought away something or other until I had the biggest magazine that was ever laid up, I believe, for one man.  I verily believe, had the calm weather held, I should have brought away the whole ship piece by piece; but on the fourteenth day it blew a storm, and next morning, behold, no more ship was to be seen.  I must not forget that I brought on shore two cats and a dog.  He was a trusty servant to me many years.  I wanted nothing that he could fetch me, nor any company.  I only wanted him to talk to me, but that he could not do.  Later, I managed to catch a parrot, which did much to cheer my loneliness.  I taught him to speak, and it would have done your heart good to have heard the pitying tones in which he used to say, “Robin—­poor Robin Crusoe!”

I now went in search of a place where to fix my dwelling.  I found a little plain on the side of a rising hill, which was there as steep as a house-side, so that nothing could come down on me from the top.  On the side of this rock was a hollow space like the entrance of a cave, before which I resolved to pitch my tent.  Before I set up my tent, I drew a half-circle before the hollow place, which extended backwards about twenty yards.  In this half-circle I planted two rows of strong stakes, driving them into the ground like piles, above five feet and a half high, and sharpened at the top.  Then I took some pieces of cable I had found in the ship, and laid them in rows one upon another between the stakes; and this fence was so strong that neither man nor beast could get into it or over it.  The entrance I made to be by a short ladder to go over the top, and when I was in I lifted the ladder after me.

Inside the fence, with infinite labour, I carried all my riches, provisions, ammunition, and stores.  And I made me a large tent, also, to preserve me from the rains.  When I had done this I began to work my way into the rock.  All the earth and stones I dug out I laid up within my fence, and thus I made me a cave just behind my tent which served me like a cellar.

In the middle of my labours it happened that, rummaging in my things, I found a little bag with but husks of corn and dust in it.  Wishing to make use of the bag, I shook it out on one side of my fortification.  It was a little before the great rains that I threw this stuff away, not remembering that I had thrown anything there; about a month after, I saw some green stalks shooting up.  I was perfectly astonished when, after a little longer time, I saw ten or twelve ears of barley.  I knew not how it came there.  At last it occurred to me that I had shaken out the bag there.  Besides the barley there were also a few stalks of rice.  I carefully saved the ears of this corn, you may be sure, and resolved to sow them all again.  When my corn was ripe, I used a cutlass as a scythe, and cut off the ears, and rubbed them out with my hands.  At the end of my harvesting I had nearly two bushels of rice, and two bushels and a half of barley.  I kept all this for seed, and bore the want of bread with patience.