When this wall was finished, and the outside double-fenced, with a turf-wall raised up close to it, I persuaded myself that if any people were to come on shore there they would not perceive any thing like a habitation:  and it was very well I did so, as may be observed hereafter, upon a very remarkable occasion.

During this time, I made my rounds in the woods for game every day, when the rain permitted me, and made frequent discoveries, in these walks, of something or other to my advantage; particularly, I found a kind of wild pigeons, who build, not as wood-pigeons, in a tree, but rather as house-pigeons, in the holes of the rocks:  and, taking some young ones, I endeavoured to breed them up tame, and did so; but when they grew older, they flew all away; which, perhaps, was at first for want of feeding them, for I had nothing to give them:  however, I frequently found their nests, and got their young ones, which were very good meat.  And now, in the managing my household affairs, I found myself wanting in many things, which I thought at first it was impossible for me to make; as indeed, as to some of them, it was:  for instance, I could never make a cask to be hooped.  I had a small runlet or two, as I observed before; but I could never arrive to the capacity of making one by them, though I spent many weeks about it:  I could neither put in the heads, nor join the staves so true to one another as to make them hold water; so I gave that also over.  In the next place, I was at a great loss for candle; so that as soon as it was dark, which was generally by seven o’clock, I was obliged to go to bed.  I remember the lump of bees-wax with which I made candles in my African adventure; but I had none of that now; the only remedy I had was, that when I had killed a goat, I saved the tallow; and with a little dish made of clay, which I baked in the sun, to which I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a lamp; and this gave me light, though not a clear steady light like a candle.  In the middle of all my labours it happened, that in rummaging my things, I found a little bag; which, as I hinted before, had been filled with corn, for the feeding of poultry; not for this voyage, but before, as I suppose, when the ship came from Lisbon.  What little remainder of corn had been in the bag was all devoured with the rats, and I saw nothing in the bag but husks and dust; and being willing to have the bag for some other use (I think, it was to put powder in, when I divided it for fear of the lightning, or some such use,) I shook the husks of corn out of it, on one side of my fortification, under the rock.

It was a little before the great rain just now mentioned, that I threw this stuff away; taking no notice of any thing, and not so much as remembering that I had thrown any thing there:  when about a month after, I saw some few stalks of something green, shooting out of the ground, which I fancied might be some plant I had not seen; but I was surprised, and perfectly astonished, when, after a little longer time, I saw about ten or twelve ears come out, which were perfect green barley of the same kind as our European, nay, as our English barley.