distance, and which were very terrible to me, from the remembrance of
the hazard I had been in before, and my heart began to fail me; for I
foresaw, that if I was driven into either of those currents, I should
be carried a vast way out to sea and perhaps out of my reach, or sight
of the island again; and that then, as my boat was but small, if any
little gale of wind should rise, I should be inevitably lost.

These thoughts so oppressed my mind, that I began to give over my
enterprise, and having haled my boat into a little creek on the shore, I
stepped out, and sat me down upon a little spot of rising ground, very
pensive and anxious, between fear and desire, about my voyage; when, as
I was musing, I could perceive that the tide was turned, and the flood
came on, upon which my going was for so many hours impracticable: upon
this it presently occurred to me, that I should go up to the highest
piece of ground I could find, and observe, if I could, how the sets of
the tide or currents lay, when the flood came in, that I might judge
whether, if I was driven one way out, I might not expect to be driven
another way home, with the same rapidness of the currents. This thought
was no sooner in my head, but I cast my eye upon a little hill which
sufficiently overlooked the sea both ways, and from whence I had a clear
view of the currents, or sets of the tide, and which way I was to guide
myself in my return: here I found, that as the current of the ebb set
out close by the south point of the island, so the current of the flood
set in close by the shore of the north side; and that I had nothing to
do but to keep to the north of the island in my return, and I should do
well enough.

Encouraged with this observation, I resolved the next morning to set out
with the first of the tide; and reposing myself for that night in the
canoe, under the great watch-coat I mentioned, I launched out. I made