Aug. 14.  This day it began to rain; and though I had made me a tent like the other, yet having no shelter of a hill to keep me from storms, nor a cave behind me to retreat to, I was obliged to return to my old castle.  The rain continued more or less every day, till the middle of October; and sometimes so violently, that I could not stir out of my cave for several days.  This season I found my family to increase; for one of my cats that ran away from me, and which I thought had been dead, returned about August, with three kittens at her heels, like herself, which I thought strange, because both my cats were females, and the wild cats of the island seemed to be of a different kind from our European cats; but from these cats proceeded such numbers, that I was forced to kill and destroy them as I would do wild beasts and vermin.

To the 26th of this month, I could not stir out, it raining incessantly; when beginning to want food, I was compelled to venture twice, the first of which I shot a goat, and afterwards found a very large tortoise.  The manner of my regulating my food was thus:  a bunch of raisins served me for my breakfast; a piece of goat’s flesh or turtle boiled for my dinner, and two or three turtle’s eggs for my supper.  While the rain lasted, I daily worked two or three hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked it on towards one side, till I came to the outside of the hill, and made a door or way out, which came beyond my fence or wall, and so I came in and out this way.  But after I had done this, I was troubled to see myself thus exposed; though I could not perceive any thing to fear, a goat being the biggest creature I had seen upon this island.

Sept. 30.  Casting up my notches on my post, which amounted to 365, I concluded this to be the anniversary of my landing; and, therefore, humbly prostrating myself on the ground, confessing my sins, acknowledging God’s righteous judgments upon me, and praying to Jesus Christ to have mercy upon me, I fasted for twelve hours till the going down of the sun; and then eating a biscuit and a bunch of grapes, laid me on the bed, and with great comfort took my night’s repose.  Till this time I never had distinguished the Sabbath-day; but now made a longer notch than ordinary for the days of rest, and divided the weeks as well as I could, though I found I had lost a day or two in my account.  My ink failing soon after, I omitted in my daily memorandum things of an indifferent nature, & contented myself to write down only the most remarkable events of my life.  The rainy and dry seasons appeared now regular to me, and experience taught me how to provide for them; yet, in one thing I am going to relate, my experience very much failed me.  You may call to mind what I have mentioned of some barley and rice which I had saved; about thirty stalks of the former, and twenty of the latter; and at that time, the sun being in its southern position, going from me, together