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the rigging, but fancied she lay in some deep hole, where it was impossible to get at her.
Thus despairing, and fretting and teasing himself, he calls to mind that he had a hatchet in his hand when he was cast away, and thought probably it might lie in that clift of the rock into which he was thrown, thither he went, and looking about, perceived something like the handle of an hatchet just above the surface of the water at the bottom of the rock; and going down to it, took it up; which to his great joy proved to be the very thing he wanted.
Having got his tool, he dresses himself, and goes on to the island again, intending to cut down some trees to make himself a hut: looking about therefore for the properest plants, and taking notice of a sort of trees, whose branches, bending to the ground, took root, and became pliant, he thought they might be the fittest for this purpose, and cut a sufficient parcel of them to make his barrack; which was full business for him that day.
His barrack being finished, which took him up fifteen days hard work; now, said he, here is a house, but where is the furniture? This, indeed, may keep the weather from me, but not the cold. The ground on which I do and must lie is hard, and doubtless in the winter will grew damp, which, with want of covering, may occasion agues and fevers, the cholic and the rheumatism, and twenty racking distempers, which may cause me to repent my having escaped a milder death.
In this great consternation and perplexity, he goes to see if he could spy any shipping riding within sight of the island: as he was walking along, full of heavy and dull thoughts, which weighed his looks to the ground, he happened to
