Besides this barley, there were, as above, twenty or thirty stalks of rice, which I preserved with the same care; and whose use was of the same kind, or to the same purpose, viz. to make me bread, or rather food; for I found ways to cook it up without baking, though I did that also after some time.—­But to return to my Journal.

I worked excessively hard these three or four months, to get my wall done; and the 14th of April I closed it up; contriving to get into it, not by a door, but over the wall, by a ladder, that there might be no sign on the outside of my habitation.

April 16. I finished the ladder; so I went up with the ladder to the top, and then pulled it up after me, and let it down in the inside:  this was a complete enclosure to me; for within I had room enough, and nothing could come at me from without, unless it could first mount my wall.

The very next day after this wall was finished, I had almost all my labour overthrown at once, and myself killed; the case was thus:—­As I was busy in the inside of it, behind my tent, just at the entrance into my cave, I was terribly frightened with a most dreadful surprising thing indeed; for, all on a sudden, I found the earth come crumbling down from the roof of my cave, and from the edge of the hill over my head, and two of the posts I had set up in the cave cracked in a frightful manner.  I was heartily scared; but thought nothing of what really was the cause, only thinking that the top of my cave was falling in, as some of it had done before:  and for fear I should be buried in it, I ran forward to my ladder, and not thinking myself safe there neither, I got over my wall for fear of the pieces of the hill which I expected might roll down upon me.  I had no sooner stepped down upon the firm ground, than I plainly saw it was a terrible earthquake; for the ground I stood on shook three times at about eight minutes distance, with three such shocks as would have overturned the strongest building that could be supposed to have stood on the earth; and a great piece of the top of a rock, which stood about half a mile from me, next the sea, fell down, with such a terrible noise as I never heard in all my life.  I perceived also that the very sea was put into a violent motion by it; and I believe the shocks were stronger under the water than on the island.

I was so much amazed with the thing itself (having never felt the like, nor discoursed with any one that had) that I was like one dead or stupified; and the motion of the earth made my stomach sick, like one that was tossed at sea:  but the noise of the falling of the rock awaked me, as it were; and rousing me from the stupified condition I was in, filled me with horror, and I thought of nothing but the hill falling upon my tent and my household goods, and burying all at once; this sunk my very soul within me a second time.

After the third shock was over, and I felt no more for some time, I began to take courage; yet I had not heart enough to go over my wall again, for fear of being buried alive, but sat still upon the ground greatly cast down, and disconsolate, not knowing what to do.  All this while, I had not the least serious religious thought; nothing but the common Lord, have mercy upon me! and when it was over, that went away too.