I soon found that I needed many things to make me comfortable.  First I wanted a chair and a table, for without them I must live like a savage.  So I set to work.  I had never handled a tool in my life, but I had a saw, an axe, and several hatchets, and I soon learned to use them all.  If I wanted a board, I had to chop down a tree.  From the trunk of the tree I cut a log of the length my board was to be.  Then I split the log, and, with infinite labour, hewed it flat till it was as thin as a board.  I made myself a table and a chair out of short pieces of board, and from the large boards I made some wide shelves.  On these I laid my tools and other things.

From time to time I made many useful things.  From a piece of ironwood, cut in the forest with great labour, I made a spade to dig with.  Then I wanted a pick-axe, but for long I could not think how I was to get one.  At length I made use of crowbars from the wreck.  These I heated in the fire, and, little by little, shaped them till I made a pick-axe, proper enough, though heavy.

At first I felt the need of baskets in which to carry things, so I set to work as a basket-maker.  It came to my mind that the twigs of the tree whence I cut my stakes might serve.  I found them to my purpose as much as I could desire, and, during the next rainy season, I employed myself in making a great many baskets.  Though I did not finish them handsomely, yet I made them sufficiently serviceable.

I had, however, one want greater than all the others—­bread.  My barley was very fine, the grains were large and smooth; but before I could make bread I must grind the grains into flour.  I spent many a day to find out a Stone to cut hollow and make fit for a mortar, and could find none; nor were the rocks of the island of hardness sufficient.  So I gave it over and rounded a great block of hard wood and, with the help of fire and great labour, made a hollow in it.  I made a great heavy pestle of the wood called ironwood.

The baking part was the next thing to be considered; for, first, I had no yeast.  As to that, there was no supplying the want, so I did not concern myself much about it.  But for an oven I was indeed in great pain.  At length I found out an experiment for that also.  I made some earthen vessels, broad but not deep, about two feet across, and about nine inches deep.  These I burned in the fire till they were as hard as nails and as red as tiles, and when I wanted to bake I made a great fire upon a hearth which I paved with some square tiles of my own making.

When the fire had all burned I drew the embers forward upon my hearth, and let them be there till the hearth was very hot.  My loaves being ready, I swept the hearth and set them on the hottest part of it.  Over each loaf I placed one of the large earthen pots, and drew the embers all round to keep in and add to the heat.  And thus I baked my barley loaves and became, in a little time, a good pastrycook into the bargain.