Page 423 - Child's own book

guessed it could not be less than twenty leagues off. I imagined
it was some savage coast, and such indeed it proved. In this
journey I caught a parrot, having knocked it down with a stick,
brought it home with me, and taught it to speak. 1 found in
the lower grounds, hares, but as they were not like what I had
seen, I was afraid to eat them ; and I had no need to make ex­
periments, as 1 had goats, pigeons, and turtle, which, added to
my grapes, Leadenhall Market could not have furnished a better
table. Here was also an infinite number of fowls, but 1 was
too sparing o.f my powder to shoot them. I travelled about
twelve miles eastward along the shore, and then setting up a
great post for a mark, returned homeward, desiring that my next
tour should be the contrary way, till I came to this post. I
took a different way home from that I went; but unfortunately
lost myself, and wandered about very uncomfortably : till at
last I was obliged to find out the seaside, to seek for my post,
being tired to death with the heat of the weather and the weight
of my arms. I now rested myself a week, employed in the
weighty affair of making a cage for my parrot, which soon be­
came one of my favourites,
My com was now coming up, and the goats and hares, having
tasted the sweetness of the blade, lay at it night and day, as
soon as it sprang out of the ground, so that it could get no time
to shoot into a stalk. To defend it, I surrounded it with a
hedge, and, in the meanwhile, shooting some of the creatures by
day, I sent my dog to watch it by night, which he did so faith­
fully, that the enemies forsook the place, and the com grew,
and began to ripen apace. When the corn was in ear, I was
nearly as much^troubled by birds; but having killed three, I
used them as we do murderers in England— hanged them in
chains, to serve as a terror to the rest. Not a fowl afterwards
came near my corn, indeed, near the place, a a long as my scare­