There were , besides , some of the little shells that we call buckies ; I think periwinkle is the English name . Of these two I made my whole diet , devouring them cold and raw as I found them ; and so hungry was I , that at first they seemed to me delicious . Perhaps they were out of season , or perhaps there was something wrong in the sea about my island . But at least I had no sooner eaten my first meal than I was seized with giddiness and retching , and lay for a long time no better than dead . A second trial of the same food -LRB- indeed I had no other -RRB- did better with me , and revived my strength . But as long as I was on the island , I never knew what to expect when I had eaten ; sometimes all was well , and sometimes I was thrown into a miserable sickness ; nor could I ever distinguish what particular fish it was that hurt me . All day it streamed rain ; the island ran like a sop , there was no dry spot to be found ; and when I lay down that night , between two boulders that made a kind of roof , my feet were in a bog . The second day I crossed the island to all sides . There was no one part of it better than another ; it was all desolate and rocky ; nothing living on it but game birds which I lacked the means to kill , and the gulls which haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious number . But the creek , or strait , that cut off the isle from the main-land of the Ross , opened out on the north into a bay , and the bay again opened into the Sound of Iona ; and it was the neighbourhood of this place that I chose to be my home ; though if I had thought upon the very name of home in such a spot , I must have burst out weeping . I had good reasons for my choice . There was in this part of the isle a little hut of a house like a pig 's hut , where fishers used to sleep when they came there upon their business ; but the turf roof of it had fallen entirely in ; so that the hut was of no use to me , and gave me less shelter than my rocks . What was more important , the shell-fish on which I lived grew there in great plenty ; when the tide was out I could gather a peck at a time : and this was doubtless a convenience . But the other reason went deeper . I had become in no way used to the horrid solitude of the isle , but still looked round me on all sides -LRB- like a man that was hunted -RRB- , between fear and hope that I might see some human creature coming . Now , from a little up the hillside over the bay , I could catch a sight of the great , ancient church and the roofs of the people 's houses in Iona . And on the other hand , over the low country of the Ross , I saw smoke go up , morning and evening , as if from a homestead in a hollow of the land . I used to watch this smoke , when I was wet and cold , and had my head half turned with loneliness ; and think of the fireside and the company , till my heart burned . It was the same with the roofs of Iona . Altogether , this sight I had of men 's homes and comfortable lives , although it put a point on my own sufferings , yet it kept hope alive , and helped me to eat my raw shell-fish -LRB- which had soon grown to be a disgust -RRB- , and saved me from the sense of horror I had whenever I was quite alone with dead rocks , and fowls , and the rain , and the cold sea .
I say it kept hope alive ; and indeed it XXXXX impossible that I should be left to die on the shores of my own country , and within view of a church-tower and the smoke of men 's houses .
coming distinguish eaten grown hurt kill made seemed thought used