while on the island, besides having caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let them go.  When his powder failed, he run down the goats by speed of foot; for his mode of living, with continual exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross humours, so that he could run with wonderful swiftness through the woods, and up the hills and rocks, as we experienced in catching goats for us.  We had a bull-dog, which we sent along with several of our nimblest runners to help him in catching goats, but he outstript our dog and men, caught the goats, and brought them to us on his back.  On one occasion, his agility in pursuing a goat had nearly cost him his life:  as, while pursuing it with great eagerness, he caught hold of it on the brink of a precipice, of which, he was not aware, being concealed by bushes, so that he fell with the goat down the precipice to a great depth, and was so bruised and stunned by the fall, that he lay senseless, as he supposed, for twenty-four hours, and when he recovered his senses found the goat dead under him.  He was then scarcely able to crawl to his hut, about a mile distant, and could not stir out again for ten days.

He came at length to relish his meat well enough without bread and salt.  In the proper season he had plenty of good turnips, which had been sowed there by Captain Dampier’s men, and had now spread over several acres of ground.  He had also abundance of cabbage, from the cabbage-palms, and seasoned his food with the fruit of the pimento, which is the same with Jamaica pepper, and has a fine flavour.  He found also a species of black pepper, called malageta, which was good for expelling wind and curing gripes.  He soon wore out all his shoes and other clothes, by running in the woods; and, being forced to shift without, his feet became so hard that he ran about every where without inconvenience, and it was some time after he came to us before he could wear shoes, as his feet swelled when he first began again to wear them.  After he had got the better of his melancholy, he sometimes amused himself with carving his name on the trees, together with the date of his being left there, and the time of his solitary residence.  At first he was much pestered with cats and rats, which had bred there in great numbers from some of each species which had got on shore from ships that had wooded and watered at the island.  The rats gnawed his feet and clothes when he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats, by feeding them with goats flesh, so that many of them became so tame that they used to lie beside him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats.  He also tamed some kids, and for his diversion would at times sing and dance with them and his cats:  So that, by the favour of Providence and the vigour of his youth, for he was now only thirty years of age, he came at length to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to be quite easy in his mind.