Page:Remarkable account of a shipwreck on an uninhabited island.pdf/7

 was too heavy for them, they broke: and, unbinding the casks and chests, and taking out the goods, they secured all; so that they wanted neither cloaths, nor other necessaries for housekeeping. But the salt water had spoiled all the victuals except one cask of biscuit, which being lighter, and perhaps better secured than the rest was undamaged; this served them for bread a while; and a fowl, about the bigness of a swan, very heavy and fat, which by reason of its weight could not fly, served them for present subsistance. The poultry of the ship, by some means getting ashore, bred exceedingly, and were a great help to them. They found also in the flags, by a little river plenty of eggs of fowl, much like our ducks, which were very nourishing food, so that they wanted for nothing to keep them alive.

Mr. Pine being now less apprehensive of any thing to disturb him, looked out for a convenient place to build a hut to shelter him and his family from the weather: and, in about a week’s time, made a room large enough to hold them all, and their goods; and put up hamocks for his family to sleep in.

Having lived in this manner full four months,