If I had had hands to have refitted her, and have launched her into the water, the boat would have done well enough, and I might have gone back into the Brafils with her eafy enough; but I might have eatily foreseen, that I could no more turn her, and fet her upright upon her bottom, than I could remove the island. However, I went to the wood, and cut leaves and rollers, and brought them to the boat, refolved to try what I could do; fuggefting to my felf, that if I could but turn her down, I might easily repair the damage the had received, and the would be a very good boat, and I might go to fea in her very easily. I fpared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and fpent, I think, three or four weeks about it. At laft, finding it impoffible to heave it up with my little ftrength, I fell to digging away the fand to undermine it; and fo to make it fall down, fetting pieces of wood to thruft and guide it right in the fall. But when I had done this, I was unable to ftir it up again, or to get under it, much less to move it forwards towards the water; fo I was forced to give it over; and yet, though I gave over the hopes of the boat, my detire to venture over for the main increased,, rather than decreased, as the means for it seemed impoffible. This at length fet me upon thinking whether it was not poffible to make myself a canoe or periagua, fuch as the natives of thofe climates make, even without tools, or, as I might say, without hands, viz. of the trunk of a great tree. This I not only thought poffible, but easy; and pleafed myself extremely with my thoughts of making it, and with my having much more convenience for it than any of the negroes or Indians; but not at all confidering the particular inconveniencies which I lay under more than the Indians did, viz. want of hands to move it into the water, when it was made ;a difficulty much harder for me to farmount than all the confequences of want of tools could be to them :for what was it to me, that when I had chosen a vast tree in the woods, I might with great trouble cut it down, if, after I might be able with my tools to hew and dub the outfide into a proper fhape of a boat, and burn or cut the infide to make it hollow, fo to make a boat of it, if, after all this, I must leave it just there where where I found it, aud was not able to launch it into the water. One would have thought I could not have had the leaft reflection upon my mind of my circumítance, while I was making this boat, but I fhould have immediately thought how I could get it into the fea; but my thoughts were fo intent upon my voyage over the ea in it, that I never once confidered how I should get it off of the land; and it was really in its own nature more easy for me to guide it over forty-five miles of tea, than about forty-five fathom of land, where it lay, to fet it afloat in the water. I went to work upon this boat the moft like a fool that ever man did, who had any of his fenfes awake.I pleafed myfelf with the defign, without determining whether I was ever able to undertake it; not but that the difficulty of launching my boat came often into my head; but I put a stop to my own inquiries into it by this foolish anfwer, which I gave myfelf; Let me first make it; I'll warrant I'll find fome way or other to get it along, when it is done. This was a moft prepofterous method; but the eager nefs of my fancy prevailed, and to work I went, and felled a cedar-tree; I question much whether Solomon ever had fuch an one for the building the temple at Jerufalem; it was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part next the ftump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two feet, after which-it leffened for a while, and then parted into branches. It was not without infinite labour that I felled this tree I was twenty days hacking and hewing at it at the bottom; I was fourteen more getting the branches and limbs, and the vaft fpreading head of it, cut off, which I hacked and hewed through with my axe and hatchet, with inexpreffible labour: After this it coft me a month to shape it, and dub it to a proportion, and to fomething like the bottom of a boat, that it might fwim upright as it ought to do. It coft me near three months more to clear the infide, and work it out fo as to make an exact boat of it. This I did indeed without fire, by mere mallet and chiffel, and by the dint of hard labour; till I had brought it to be a very hand fome fome periagua, and big enough to have carried fix and twenty men, and confequently big enough to have car→ ried me and all my cargo. in When I had gone through this work, I was extremely delighted with it. The boat was really much bigger than I ever faw a canoe or periagua, that was made of one tree, my life; many a weary ftroke it had coft, you may be fure, for there remained nothing but to get it into the water; and had I gotten it into the water, I make no queftion but I fhould have begun the madeft voyage, and the moft unlikely to be performed, that ever was undertaken. But all my devices to get it into the water failed me, though they coft infinite labour too; it lay about one hundred yards from the water, and not more; but the firft inconvenience was, it was up hill towards the creek. Well, to take away this, difcouragement, I refolved.to dig into the furface of the earth, and fo make a declivity; this I began, and it coft me a prodigious deal of pains but who grudge pains that have their deliverance in view? But when this was worked through, and this difficulty managed, it was ftill much as one; for I could no more ftir the canoe than I could the other boat. Then I measured the distance of the ground, and refolved to cut a dock, or canal, to bring the water up to the canoe, feeing I could not bring the canoe down to the water: Well, I began this work; and when I began to enter into it, and calculated how deep it was to be dug, how broad, how the ftuff to be thrown out, I found, that by the number of hands I had, being none but my own, it must have been ten or twelve years before I fhould have gone through with it; for the fhore lay high, fo that at the upper end it must have been at least twenty feet deep; fo at length, though with great reluc tancy, I gave this attempt over alfo, This grieved me heartily; and now I faw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the coft, and before we judge rightly of our own ftrength to go through with it." In the middle of this work I finiflied my fourth year in this place, and kept my anniverfary with the fame devotion, and with as much comfort, as ever before; for by a conftant ftudy, and ferious application of the word |