Daniel Defoe
Published: 2012-07
Total Pages: 222
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...some art to trap and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of them alive; and particularly I wanted a she-goat great with young. To this purpose I made snares to hamper them, and believe they were more than once taken in them; but my tackle was not good, for I had no wire, and always found them broken, and my bait devoured. At length I resolved to try a pit-fall; so I dug several large pits in the earth, in places where I had observed the goats used to feed, and over these pits I placed hurdles, of my own making too, with a great weight upon them; and several times I put ears of barley, and dry rice, without setting the trap; and I could easily perceive, that the goats had gone in, and eaten up the corn, that I could see the mark of their feet; at length, I set three traps in one night, and going the next morning, I found them all standing, and yet the bait eaten and gone. This was very discouraging; however, I altered my trap; and, not to trouble you with particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of them a large old he-goat; and, in one of the other three kids, a male and two females. As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him; he was so fierce, I durst not go into the pit to him; that is to say, to go about to bring him away alive, which was what I wanted. I could have killed him, but that was not my business, nor would it answer my end; so I e'en let him out, and he ran away as if he had been frightened out of his wits; but I did not then know what I afterwards learnt, that hunger would tame a lion: if I had let him stay there three or four days without food, and then have carried him some water to-drink, and then a little corn, he would have been as tame as one of the kids; for they are mighty...
