d than ever, and seldom
went from my Cell, other than upon my constant Employment, viz. To milk my
She-goats, and manage my little Flock, in the Wood; which as it was quite on the
other Part of the Island, was quite out of Danger; for certain it is, that these
Savage People who sometimes haunted this Island, never came with any Thoughts of
finding any Thing here; and consequently never wandred off from the Coast; and I
doubt not, but they might have been several Times on Shore, after my
Apprehensions of them had made me cautious as well as before; and indeed, I
look'd back with some Horror upon the Thoughts of what my Condition would have
been, if I had chop'd upon them, and been discover'd before that, when naked and
unarm'd, except with one Gun, and that loaden often only with small Shot, I
walk'd every where peeping, and peeping about the Island, to see what I could
get; what a Surprise should I have been in, if when I discover'd the Print of a
Man's Foot, I had instead of that, seen fifteen or twenty Savages, and found
them pursuing me, and by the Swiftness of their Running, no Possibility of my
escaping them.
    The Thoughts of this sometimes sunk my very Soul within me, and distress'd
my Mind so much, that I could not soon recover it, to think what I should have
done, and how I not only should not have been able to resist them, but even
should not have had Presence of Mind enough to do what I might have done; much
less, what now after so much Consideration and Preparation I might be able to
do: Indeed, after serious thinking of these Things, I should be very Melancholy;
and sometimes it would last a great while; but I resolv'd it at last all into
Thankfulness to that Providence, which had deliver'd me from so many unseen
Dangers, and had kept me from those Mischiefs which I could no way have been the
Agent in delivering my self from; because I had not the least Notion of any such
Thing depending, or the least Supposition of it being possible.
    This renew'd a Contemplation, which often had come to my Thoughts in former
Time, when first I began to see the merciful Dispositions of Heaven, in the
Dangers we run through in this Life. How wonderfully we are deliver'd, when we
know nothing of it. How when we are in
