Then there was the matter of my water supply.  After any heavy gale, the flying spray salted my saved rainwater, so that at times I was grievously put to live through till fresh rains fell unaccompanied by high winds.  Aware that a continual dropping will wear a stone, I selected a large stone, fine and tight of texture and, by means of smaller stones, I proceeded to pound it hollow.  In five weeks of most arduous toil I managed thus to make a jar which I estimated to hold a gallon and a half.  Later, I similarly made a four-gallon jar.  It took me nine weeks.  Other small ones I also made from time to time.  One, that would have contained eight gallons, developed a flaw when I had worked seven weeks on it.

But it was not until my fourth year on the island, when I had become reconciled to the possibility that I might continue to live there for the term of my natural life, that I created my masterpiece.  It took me eight months, but it was tight, and it held upwards of thirty gallons.  These stone vessels were a great gratification to me—­so much so, that at times I forgot my humility and was unduly vain of them.  Truly, they were more elegant to me than was ever the costliest piece of furniture to any queen.  Also, I made me a small rock vessel, containing no more than a quart, with which to convey water from the catching-places to my large receptacles.  When I say that this one-quart vessel weighed all of two stone, the reader will realize that the mere gathering of the rainwater was no light task.

Thus, I rendered my lonely situation as comfortable as could be expected.  I had completed me a snug and secure shelter; and, as to provision, I had always on hand a six months’ supply, preserved by salting and drying.  For these things, so essential to preserve life, and which one could scarcely have expected to obtain upon a desert island, I was sensible that I could not be too thankful.

Although denied the privilege of enjoying the society of any human creature, not even of a dog or a cat, I was far more reconciled to my lot than thousands probably would have been.  Upon the desolate spot, where fate had placed me, I conceived myself far more happy than many, who, for ignominious crimes, were doomed to drag out their lives in solitary confinement with conscience ever biting as a corrosive canker.

However dreary my prospects, I was not without hope that that Providence, which, at the very moment when hunger threatened me with dissolution, and when I might easily have been engulfed in the maw of the sea, had cast me upon those barren rocks, would finally direct some one to my relief.

If deprived of the society of my fellow creatures, and of the conveniences of life, I could not but reflect that my forlorn situation was yet attended with some advantages.  Of the whole island, though small, I had peaceable possession.  No one, it was probable, would ever appear to dispute my claim, unless it were the amphibious animals of the ocean.  Since the island was almost inaccessible, at night my repose was not disturbed by continual apprehension of the approach of cannibals or of beasts of prey.  Again and again I thanked God on my knees for these various and many benefactions.