I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale, and into the cave which I had made behind me.  But I must observe, too, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, which, as they lay in no order, so they took up all my place; I had no room to turn myself:  so I set myself to enlarge my cave, and work farther into the earth; for it was a loose, sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed on it:  and when I found I was pretty safe as to the beasts of prey, I worked sideways, to the right hand, into the rock, and then turning to the right again, worked quite out, and made me a door to come out in the outside of my pale or fortification.

This gave me not only egress and regress, as it were, a back-way to my tent and to my storehouse, but gave me room to stow my goods.

And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I found I most wanted, particularly a chair and a table; for without these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world; I could not write, or eat, or do several things with so much pleasure, without a table:  so I went to work.  And here I must needs observe, that as reason is the substance and original of the mathematics, so by stating, and squaring every thing by reason, and by making the most rational judgment of things, every man may be, in time, master of every mechanic art.  I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet, in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found, at last, that I wanted nothing but I could have made, especially if I had had tools.  However, I made abundance of things, even without tools; and some with no more tools than an adze and a hatchet, which perhaps were never made that way before, and that with infinite labour.  For example, if I wanted a board, I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I had brought it to be as thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze.  It is true, by this method I could make but one board of a whole tree; but this I had no remedy for but patience, any more than I had for a prodigious deal of time and labour which it took me up to make a plank or board:  but my time or labour was little worth, and so it was as well employed one way as another.

However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the first place; and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that I brought on my raft from the ship.  But when I wrought out some boards, as above, I made large shelves, of the breadth of a foot and a half, one over another, all along one side of my cave, to lay all my tools, nails, and iron-work on; and, in a word, to separate every thing at large in their places, that I might easily come at them.  I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock, to hang my guns, and all things that would hang up:  so that had my cave been seen, it looked like a general magazine of all necessary things; and I had every thing so ready at my hand, that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order, and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great.