I am singled out and separated, as it were, from all the world to be miserable. But I am singled out, too, from all the ship’s crew to be spared from death; and He that miraculously saved me from death, can deliver me from this condition.
I am divided from mankind, a solitaire, one banished from human society.
But I am not starved and perishing on a barren [barren〈adj.〉不毛的，荒蕪的] place, affording no sustenance.
I have no clothes to cover me.
But I am in a hot climate, where if I had clothes, I could hardly wear them.
I am without any defence or means to resist any violence of man or beast. But I am cast on an island, where I see no wild beasts to hurt me, as I saw on the coast of Africa; and what if I had been shipwrecked there?
I have no soul to speak to, or relieve me. But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have gotten out as many necessary things as will either supply my wants, or enable me to supply myself even as long as I live.
Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; and let this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world, that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and to set in the description of good and evil on the credit side of the account.
Having now brought my mind a little to relish my condition, and given over looking out to sea, to see if I could spy a ship; I say, giving over these things, I began to apply myself to accommodate my way of living, and to make things as easy to me as I could.
I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under the side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables; but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up against it of turfs [turf〈n.〉草皮], about two feet thick on the outside, and after some time – I think it was a year and a half – I raised rafters [rafter〈n.〉屋椽] from it leading to the rock, and thatched [thatch〈v.〉用茅草蓋屋頂] or covered it with boughs of trees, and such things as I could get to keep out the rain, which I found at some times of the year very violent.
I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale, and into the cave which I had made behind me. But I must observe, too, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, which as they lay in no order, so they took up all my place; I had no room to turn myself. So I set myself to enlarge my cave, and work farther into the earth; for it was a loose sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed on it. And so, when I found I was pretty safe as to beasts of prey, I worked sideways to the right hand, into the rock; and then, turning to the right again, worked quite out, and made me a door to come out on the outside of my pale or fortification [fortification〈n.〉防禦工事；堡壘].
This gave me not only egress [egress〈n.〉出口] and regress, as it were a back-way to my tent and to my storehouse, but gave me room to store my goods.