Page:Unparalleled sufferings and surprising adventures of Philip Quarle.pdf/15

 would not: why, said he, should I add barbarity to injustice; it is but natural and reasonable for every creature to guard and defend their own; this was given them by nature for food, which I come to rob them of; and since I am obliged to get of them for my subsistence, if I am decreed to be here another season, I will set some in a place distant from theirs for my own use.

Having stood a considerable time, those animals seeing he did not go forwards, each went and scratched up for itself, and afterwards retiring, giving him the opportunity to dig up a few for himself: and as he was not come to the place where they grew thick, he laid them in small heaps as he dug them up; while those sly creatures would, whilst he was digging up more, come down from the trees, where they stood hid among the leaves, and steal them away, which obliged him to be contented for that time with as many as his pockets would hold, resolving to bring something next time which would contain a larger quantity; and fearing those animals, which are naturally very cunning, should dig them up, he comes early in the morning following to make his provision: and for want of a sack to put them in, he takes his jacket, which he buttons up, and ties at the sleeves, and as he had observed that every root had abundance of little off-sets hanging at it by small fibres, he pulled off his shirt also, of which he makes another sack to put them in.

Having concluded upon catching some animals which he had seen in the woods, he considers by what means, having no dogs to hunt, nor guns to shoot: having paused a while, he resolves upon making gins, wherewith he had seen hares catched in Europe; thus, taking some of the cords