But however they resolved not to change their habitation; yet they agreed, that as I had carefully covered it first with a wall and fortification, and then with a grove of trees; so seeing their safety consisted entirely in their being concealed, of which they were now fully convinced, they set to work to cover and conceal the place yet more effectually than before:  to this purpose, as I had planted trees (or rather thrust in stakes which in time all grew to be trees) for some good distance before the entrance into my apartment, they went on in the same manner, and filled up the rest of that whole space of ground, from the trees I had set quite down to the side of the creek, where, as I said, I landed my floats, and even into the very ooze where the tide flowed, not so much as leaving any place to land, or any sign that there had been any landing thereabout.  These stakes also being of a wood very forward to grow, as I had noted formerly, they took care to have generally very much larger and taller than those which I had planted, and placed them so very thick and close, that when they had been three or four years grown there was no piercing with the eye any considerable way into the plantation.  As for that part which I had planted, the trees were grown as thick as a man’s thigh; and among them they placed so many other short ones, and so thick, that, in a word, it stood like a palisado a quarter of a mile thick, and it was next to impossible to penetrate it but with a little army to cut it all down; for a little dog could hardly get between the trees, they stood so close.

But this was not all; for they did the same by all the ground to the right hand, and to the left, and round even to the top of the hill, leaving no way, not so much as for themselves to come out, but by the ladder placed up to the side of the hill, and then lifted up and placed again from the first stage up to the top; which ladder, when it was taken down, nothing but what had wings or witchcraft to assist it, could come at them.

This was excellently well contrived, nor was it less than what they afterwards found occasion for; which served to convince me, that as human prudence has authority of Providence to justify it, so it has, doubtless, the direction of Providence to set it to work, and, would we listen carefully to the voice of it, I am fully persuaded we might prevent many of the disasters which our lives are now by our own negligence subjected to:  but this by the way.

I return to the story:  They lived two years after this in perfect retirement, and had no more visits from the savages; they had indeed an alarm given them one morning, which put them in a great consternation for some of the Spaniards being out early one morning on the west side, or rather end of the island which, by the way, was that end where I never went, for fear of being discovered, they were surprised with seeing above twenty canoes of Indians just coming on shore.