The baking part was the next thing to be considered, and how I should make bread when I came to have corn; for, first, I had no yeast; as to that part, there was no supplying the want, so I did not concern myself much about it. But for an oven, I was, indeed, in great pain. At length I found out an expedient for that also, which was this:—I made some earthen vessels very broad, but not deep; that is to say, about two feet diameter, and not above nine inches deep; these I burnt in the fire, as I had done the others, and laid them by; and when I wanted to bake, I made a great fire upon the hearth, which I had paved with some square tiles of my own making and burning also—but I should not call them square.
When the firewood was burnt pretty much into embers, or live coals, I drew them forward upon this hearth, so as to cover it all over, and there I let them lie, till the hearth was very hot; then, sweeping away all the embers, I set down my loaf, or loaves, and whelming down the earthen pot upon them, drew the embers all round the outside of the pot, to keep in, and add to the heat: and thus, as well as in the best oven in the world, I baked my barley-loaves, and became in a little time a good pastry-cook into the bargain; for I made myself several cakes of the rice, and puddings: indeed, I made no pies, neither had I any thing to put into them, supposing I had, except the flesh either of fowls or goats.
It need not be wondered at, if all these things took me up most part of the third year of my abode here; for it is to be observed, that in the intervals of these things I had my new harvest and husbandry to manage; for I reaped my corn in its season, and carried it home as well as I could, and laid it up in the ear, in my large baskets, till I had time to rub it out; for I had no floor to thrash it on, or instrument to thrash it with.
And now, indeed, my stock of corn increasing, I really wanted to build my barns bigger: I wanted a place to lay it up in; for the increase of the corn now yielded me so much, that I had of the barley about twenty bushels, and of the rice as much, or more; insomuch, that I now resolved to begin to use it freely, for my bread had been quite gone a great while; also I resolved to see what quantity would be sufficient for me a whole year, and to sow but once a-year.
Upon the whole, I found that the forty bushels of barley and rice were much more than I could consume in a year; so I resolved to sow just the same quantity every year that I sowed the last, in hopes that such a quantity would fully provide me with bread, etc.
All the while these things were doing, you may be sure my thoughts ran many times upon the prospect of land which I had seen from the other side of the island; and I was not without secret wishes that I was on shore there, fancying that, seeing the mainland and an inhabited country, I might find some way or other to convey myself farther, and, perhaps, at last find some means of escape.
But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such a condition, and how I might fall into the hands of savages, and, perhaps, such as I might have reason to think far worse than the lions and tigers of Africa—that, if I once came into their power, I should run a hazard more than a thousand to one of being killed, and, perhaps, of being eaten; for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coasts were cannibals, or men-eaters; and I knew by the latitude that I could not be far off from that shore—that, suppose they were not cannibals, yet they might kill me, as many Europeans who had fallen into their hands had been served, even when they had been ten or twenty together; much more I that was but one, and could make little or no defence. All these things, I say, which I ought to have considered well of, and I did cast up in my thoughts afterwards, yet took none of my apprehensions at first; and my head ran mightily upon the thoughts of getting over to that shore.