THE
ADVENTURES
KOBINSON CETJSOE,
DANIEL BE FOE.
MEMOIR OP THE AUTHOR,
ILLUSTRATED BY
SEPARATE PLATES,
AND NUMEROUS WOODCUTS INSERTED IN THE TEXT,
DESIGNED BY
T. H. NICHOLSON, AND ENGRAVED BY C. W. SHEERER.
LONDON:
BICKERS AND BUSH, 1, LEICESTER SQUARE,
AND 40, LISLE STREET, W.
1862.
PR
3403
CONTENTS,
PAGE
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS xi
MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR... . xiii
CHAPTER I.
Robinson Crusoe declares his birth and parentage He inclines to a seafaring life
His father expostulates with him Visits Hull, where a companion tempts him to
take a trip by sea A storm arises, in the midst of which he reflects on his disobedient
conduct The ship springs a leak, and goes down in Yarmouth Roads Escapes to the
shore in a boat Is advised not to go to sea again, but is unwilling to return home,
and travels to London. . . 1
CHAPTER II.
Crusoe makes the acquaintance of the captain of a merchant vessel bound for the
African coast, and embarks as a trading adventurer Takes a fever, learns how to
navigate a ship, and returns enriched On the death of the captain he makes a second
voyage with the mate The ship is taken by Turkish pirates, whose leader makes
Crusoe his slave Fishing off the Morocco coast, he contrives an escape The Moor is
thrown overboard, and swims for his life Sets sail with the Moresco boy Dangers of
coasting An African Lion Steers for the south Falls in with savages, who supply
him with provisions Shoots a leopard, whereat the natives are astonished and
terrified Is picked up by a Portuguese merchantman Sells the Moresco boy, with
a reservation Arrives at the Brazils. ... 13
CHAPTER III.
Crusoe buys land, and becomes a planter The Portuguese captain continues his
good offices The plantation succeeds, but prosperity does not bring contentment
Becomes supercargo of a slaver A hurricane- The ship is driven westward, and
strikes on a sandbank The crew take to their boat, which is swamped All are
VI CONTENTS.
PAGE
drowned, except Crusoe, who is washed against a rock, and succeeds in reaching
the mainland He rejoices at his deliverance, reflects on his position, and re
members that he has neither food for sustenance nor weapons for defence Sleeps
in a tree 30
CHAPTER IV.
Crusoe, on waking in the morning, sees the ship lying a-ground high out of the
water He comes down from the tree Swims to the ship Constructs a raft, which
he loads with stores, and guides with difficulty to the shore Surveys the country,
and discovers that it is an island and uninhabited Shoots a bird, the flesh of which
proves to be carrion Unloads the raft, and erects a hut Swims to the ship again,
and brings a second cargo ashore On his return is confronted by a wild cat, which
discovers a disposition to be friendly Makes a tent, which he furnishes and fortifies
Repeats his visits to the ship, which he strips of its contents Removes his tent to
a more advantageous site, and fences it strongly Kills a she-goat, and is grieved
thereat 42
CHAPTER V.
Crusoe sets up a wooden cross, on which he inscribes the date of his landing, and
keeps his reckoning of time He seriously considers his position, and, balancing the
good in it against the evil, arrives at the conclusion that he is not altogether
miserable Makes various articles of furniture for his house, with the aid of the tools
found in the ship Keeps a Journal 57
CHAPTER VI.
Crusoe enlarges upon the circumstances noted in his Journal, and details his diffi
culties Is surprised by the appearance of barley growing out of the ground At first
supposes that Providence has specially intervened on his behalf, but afterwards
remembers that the barley was accidentally sown Prudently preserves the grain for
seed The Journal resumed Is startled by an earthquake, which is followed by a
hurricane Recovers various articles from the wreck, which have been cast ashore in
the storm Finds a turtle, and cooks it Falls ill, and is alarmed by a terrible
dream Reproaches himself on account of his past life, and reflects upon his present
miseries 68
CHAPTER VII.
The Journal resumed Crusoe's thoughts during his illness His reflections on
the dealings of Providence with him Finds a Bible in a seaman's chest which is
cast on shore, and is consoled and encouraged by the reading of it Tobacco as a
remedial agent His first prayer Finds deliverance from sin a greater blessing than
deliverance from affliction Convalesence Takes a fresh survey of the Island, and
discovers tobacco, aloes, lemons, melons, grapes, and wild sugar-canes Gathers
grapes, limes, and lemons, to store up for the winter His lost cat returns with
a family of kittens 81
CONTENTS. Vll
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
The Journal continued Crusoe celebrates the anniversary of his landing on the
island by a solemn fast Sets apart every seventh day for a Sabbath His ink begin
ning to fail, he only records remarkable events in his Journal Sows a portion of the
grain he had saved, at the wrong season, and learns something worth knowing from
the experiment A new division of the seasons Turns his early habit of observing
to account, in making baskets Makes a journey through the island, and comes to a
spot where the shore is covered with turtles Loses his way in the interior, and
returns to the shore, from whence he reaches his home Catches and tames a young
kid The second anniversary of his landing Reflections Difficulties overcome by
labour and patience 93
CHAPTER IX.
Crusoe in trouble about his growing crops, which are attacked by goats and birds
He delivers himself from these enemies, and reaps his corn Is perplexed how to
make bread of it, and determines to preserve the whole crop for seed Makes a
spade In-door employment in the rainy season Teaches his parrot to talk Makes
pottery, and a mortar to grind his corn in His first baking A new harvest
Contemplates escaping from the island Constructs a boat, but is unable to launch
it Begins to cut a canal, but gives up the attempt in depair Fresh reflections 104
CHAPTER X.
Crusoe makes and launches a boat Leaves the island in search of the main land,
and encounters unexpected dangers He despairs of getting back again Returns to
the island, and on reaching home is startled by the greeting of his parrot Perfects
himself in the making of earthenware and baskets His contrivances to snare the
goats which devour his corn He catches and tames them At home with his family
He describes his personal appearance Sets out on a new journey through the
island 122
CHAPTER XI.
Crusoe is surprised by the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, and fears an
attack from savages Erects a second fortification round his dwelling Discovers the
remains of a feast of cannibals 137
CHAPTER XII.
Crusoe takes precautions against an incursion of the savages Lives a more
retired life His principal employment, the milking of his goats, and the manage
ment of his flock Is surprised by an old he-goat in a cave Discovers a party of
cannibals on the shore A ship in distress Finds the body of a drowned boy cast on
shore Laments that not one of the crew has been saved, and feels more solitary than
ever Goes off to the wreck in his boat, and finds the only living thing on board to
be a dog Loads his boat with money-bags, clothes, etc., and returns to the shore
Reflections ., ..155
V1U CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIII.
PACK
The four-and-twentieth year of Crusoe's sojourn on the island He dreams about
the savages He conceives the design of getting a savage into his possession The
cannibals visit the island again, and proceed to slay the prisoners they bring with
them The dream is fulfilled One of the savages escapes, but is pursued Crusoe
knocks down one of the pursuers, and shoots the other He welcomes the fugitive,
whom he encourages to slay the second of his enemies Names his savage, Friday
Instructs and clothes him Human companionship almost reconciles him to his lot... 175
CHAPTER XIV.
Crusoe attempts to reclaim Friday from cannibalism, and converses with him
about his country and its inhabitants Instructs him in the knowledge of the true
God, and exposes the delusions of Pagan priestcraft Friday finds it difficult to
account for the existence of evil The savage becomes a Christian, and Crusoe is
completely happy 188
CHAPTER XV.
Crusoe teaches Friday the use of fire-arms, and describes to him the countries of
Europe They make a boat, and fit it with masts and sails Friday is instructed how
to navigate it The savages again visit th'e island They are attacked and routed
Crusoe rescues a Spaniard, their prisoner, and Friday discovers his father 199
CHAPTER XVI.
Crusoe's subjects and their religions The dead bodies of* the slain savages are
buried The Spaniard and Friday's father set out for the mainland to fetch Euro
peans who had been shipwrecked there In their absence Crusoe is surprised by the
appearance of a boat-load of mutinous sailors, who bring their officers to the island
to murder them Crusoe releases the prisoners The mutineers are attacked and
defeated... ..217
CHAPTER XVII.
Crusoe and the captain consult how they may recover the ship from the muti
neers In the meanwhile a fresh party come ashore An ambuscade is contrived,
and the mutineers lay down their arms The captain promises mercy to all except
"Will Atkins The ship taken from the mutineers Crusoe leaves the island, in
which he had lived for twenty-eight years 231
CHAPTER XVIII.
Crusoe arrives in England, and finds that most of his relations are dead, and that
his benefactor and steward has fallen into misfortune He goes to Lisbon, where he
makes himself known to the captain of the ship who took him up at sea, and is put
CONTENTS. IX
PAGE
in the way of recovering his property in the Brazils His possessions are restored,
and he finds himself a wealthy man Makes arrangements for the conduct of his
estate, and sets out for England hy way of Spain An encounter with wolves
Friday makes merry with a bear Crusoe arrives in England, and settles there 248
CHAPTER XIX.
Crusoe's reflections in England- He dreams of his island, and conceives a desire
to return to it, which his wife discovers Resolves to divert his thoughts, and begins
farming in Bedfordshire On the death of his wife, he determines to re-visit his
island, and sets sail in an Indiaman, which is to touch at the Brazils The vessel is
driven by contrary winds on the coast of Galway, which leads to new adventures
Falls in with a French merchant vessel on fire, and delivers the crew, who are
carried to Newfoundland Steers thence for the "West Indies, and falls in with a
Bristol ship, the crew and passengers of which are famishing 272
CHAPTER XX.
Crusoe arrives at his island, which he finds with some difficulty, having dis
covered, in his search for it, that that which he previously supposed to be a continent,
was, in reality, a group of islands Friday is very joyous upon seeing the old' place
The first person Crusoe meets is the Spaniard whose life he saved Friday meets
with his father Crusoe discovers that the English sailors he left behind have
behaved badly The history of the island during his absence 295
CHAPTER" XXI.
The islanders are greatly relieved by the arrival of Crusoe, who furnishes them
with tools of all kinds The Spaniards recount their adventures among the savages
before they came to the island, and describe their joy at being delivered Will
Atkins, who had been the ringleader of the English sailors in their evil doings,
having shown a better disposition, the Spaniards take him and his companions into
their confidence The island is divided into three colonies The French priest,
whom Crusoe had brought out of the ship relieved by him at sea, proposes certain
reforms Conversion of Will Atkins' Indian wife The English sailors are married
A religious conversation Crusoe leaves the island in a hopeful condition 335
CHAPTER XXII.
Crusoe encounters a fleet of Indian canoes at sea The savages attack his vessel
Friday is killed Crusoe arrives at Brazil, where he gets his sloop set up, and
despatches it, laden with live-stock, to his- island Sets sail for the East Indies
Touches at Madagascar, where they are well received by the natives The crime of
one of the sailors is avenged by his death, whereupon the crew commence a general
massacre, which Crusoe vainly attempts to stay On resuming the voyage, he
reproaches the sailors, who at length mutiny, and leave him on shore at Bengal 352
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PAGK
At Bengal, Crusoe meets with an English merchant, with whom he enters into
partnership, and makes a voyage to Siam and China They return to Bengal, where
they purchase a Dutch coasting vessel, which they afterwards discover the crew had*
run away with Their new purchase brings them into danger, as they are mistaken
for pirates, and chased by English and Dutch boats They beat off their pursuers,
and set sail for Cochin China, where they have an encounter with the natives They
arrive at Quinchang, where they part from their ship Crusoe visits Nankin and
Pekin, and travels with a caravan of merchants through Tartary and Eussia
Winters in Siberia Sails from Archangel to Hamburg Arrives in England, after
an absence of nearly eleven years, and determines to wander no more 366
INDEX TO ILLTJSTEATIONS.
PAGE
CRUSOE STEERING HIS EAFT FROM THE WRECK 45
CRUSOE AND HIS GOAT 66
THE ANNIVERSARY OF CRUSOE'S LANDING 93
CRUSOE'S FAMILY 132
CRUSOE MEETING WITH FRIDAY 182
FRIDAY INSTRUCTED IN BOAT BUILDING 204
A RELIGIOUS CONVERSATION 350
CRUSOE RESCUING THE INDIANS 362
"WOOIDCTJTS IN THE TEXT.
PORTRAIT OF DANIEL DE FOE xiii
His BOOKS BURNT xxv
DE FOE IN THE PILLORY ,., xxvi
IN NEWGATE xxvii
THE RESTING PLACE xxxi
CRUSOE AND HIS FATHER 4
AN ADVENTURE WITH A LION 23
THE PEAK OF TENERIFFE 29
CRUSOE CAST ASHORE 40
THE FIRST GUN FIRED ON THE ISLAND 48
THE SHE-GOAT AND HER KID 54
MEDITATION IN SICKNESS 81
THE FIRST PRAYER 85
A WALK BY THE SEA SHORE 97
Xll INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
CRUSOE GATHERS IN HIS HARVEST 104
A PERILOUS CRUISE 124
CRUSOE'S BOWER 128 j
THE FOOTPRINT DISCOVERED 137
THE PLACE OP SKULLS 148
MILKING GOATS 156
DISCOVERING SAVAGES 164
THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR BOY 168
VISITING THE WRECK 172
CRUSOE'S HOUSE 174 i
A DISCOURSE WITH FRIDAY 193
FRIDAY INSTRUCTED IN NAVIGATION 208
A RAZZIA AMONG THE SAVAGES 209
THE SPANISH PRISONER RESCUED 212
CRUSOE'S DEPARTURE FROM THE ISLAND 248
AN ENCOUNTER WITH WOLVES : 261
THE SHIP ON FIRE 281 i
A BROIL ON THE ISLAND 316
A STORM AT SEA 351
DEATH OF FRIDAY ; 352
A FIGHT WITH THE COCHIN CHINESE 372
A CHINESE DON TRAVELLING 376
DINING al fresco 377
CRUSOE IN RETIREMENT ., 384
DANIEL DE FOE.
the ancestry, immediate or remote, of the great
man who invented "Robinson Crusoe," little is known.
That little, however, as might be reasonably expected of a
stock from whence sprung so good a man, is fair and honourable ; which,
to my thinking that is, to the thinking of an individual who cherishes
the warmest love and regard for dear old Crusoe is an exceedingly
comfortable fact to reflect on. True, it would have mattered little to
his fame as a story- wright, had De Toe been no better than a brawling
tavern-haunter, and his father and grandfather mere men of the mob ;
but it would have been very painful to Crusoe's ten thousand friends
and acquaintances to have made the discovery. The peculiarities of
XIV MEMOIR OF
the case should be considered. There can be no doubt that, as a rule,
nine-tenths of the number of boy readers who peruse Robinson Crusoe's
adventures have the most implicit belief that that hero once existed
in the flesh : and this though they are aware that the matter was
written by Daniel De Foe. For written they read narrated; and, if they
think about De Foe at all, it is as a good sort of fellow who wrote
from Crusoe's dictation, an individual to whom the doughty adventurer
was under considerable obligation. It is a severe blow to the young
and trusting mind to discover that their darling solitary-islander is, after
all, a fictitious personage that lived only in the brain of a romancist, as
did Jack the Giant-killer ; but if, in addition, truth insisted on the further
explanation that the said romancist was a sot or a coxcomb, or a surly
fellow, who wielded his pen for bread as a toy-maker handles his tools,
and with as sincere contempt for his fantastic handiwork, the disappoint
ment would indeed be complete.
De Foe's ancestry can be traced no further than his grandfather. He
was a jovial country gentleman, living on his own estate, at Elton, in
Northamptonshire, sowing and reaping for his profit, and following the
hounds for his pleasure. It is not recorded that De Foe, the yeoman, was
a public man, or that he at all meddled with the affairs of State ; still it is
shown that he was not indifferent concerning such matters, and that he
followed, or at least countenanced, the common practice of the men of his
time, of bestowing the names borne by statesmen not of their party on
dogs and other animals of low degree. Says De Foe : " I remember my
grandfather had a huntsman that used the same familiarity with his dogs ;
and he had his Roundhead and his Cavalier, his Goring and his Waller,
and all the generals of both armies were hounds in his pack, till, the times
turning, the old gentleman was fain to scatter the pack, and make them
up of more dog-like surnames."
The jovial fox-hunting squire had among his sons one named James.
DANIEL DE FOE. XV
Concerning the boyhood of this person nothing is recorded until we hear
of his being bound apprentice to a certain John Levit, a butcher, of Lon
don ; and, having duly served his master, we find him a master butcher in
the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and of habits altogether different from
those of his respected father, inasmuch as he was a man of sober mind,
and a strict Nonconformist, and, with his wife, among the most constant
adherents of the Eev. Dr. Annesley.
Young Daniel is supposed to have been born in St. Giles's parish, but
the registration of his birth does not exist in the parish records. This,
however, may be explained. As before-mentioned, his parents were strict
Nonconformists ; and their pastor, Dr. Annesley, was, for a considerable
period after James Foe the butcher had settled in business, the ordained
minister of St. Giles's parish church. The severe and simple teachings
of this good man, however, gave offence, and he was ejected from the
living. After this, Dr. Annesley established a meeting-house in Little St.
Helen's, Bishopsgate, whither the Foe family, with the majority of his old
congregation, followed him. This alteration probably took place shortly
before Daniel was born ; and when that auspicious event occurred, the
boy's parents found themselves in a strait concerning his registration.
The foolish Church that had closed its doors against their pastor was not
the place to which the sturdy Nonconformist's child could be carried ; at
the little meeting-house the ceremony could not be performed ; and so the
birthday of the great Daniel Foe remained unchronicled.
He is above spoken of as named " Foe," and correctly; for, however
good his claim may have been to the prefix "De," his father and his grand
father did not adopt it. They were plain Foes ; and a plain Foe our hero
was born, in the year 1661. (Some few authorities give the date 1664.)
Hazlitt remarks : " Upon what occasion it was that De Foe made the
alteration in his name, by connecting it with the foreign prefix, nowhere
appears. His motive was probably a dislike to his original name, either
XVI MEMOIR OF
for its import or its harshness ; or he might have been desirous of restoring
it to its Norman origin." The period at which he adopted the new title
also is not clear. It would almost seem that he must have been past the
middle age before the alteration occurred to him ; for, while at the age of
forty-two, and while he was long a prisoner in Newgate for his offences
against the State, he thus replies to one of his numerous enemies who had
sneered at his name in connection with De Foe's own newspaper, the
Review : " If the gentleman has a favourable opinion of the Review, we
fancy he will not dislike it upon the account of the author's name, as like
a thing which he himself is not, being a Foe in name only, not in nature
to anybody."
Of young De Foe's childhood little or nothing is positively known.
Judging, however, from the man that sprung from the child, it is impos
sible to conceive him anything but a studious, frank, honest boy, with
sufficient, perhaps, of his father's severity and bluntness to get him into
scrapes innumerable, and certainly with sufficient fortitude to bear man
fully the punishment thus brought upon him. It may, too, be fairly
assumed that he was a daring and venturesome boy, the sort of boy, in
fact, who runs away to sea. But these are mere speculations, for which
space cannot here be permitted. It cannot, however, but be regretted
that more of such a man's boyhood is not known. Possessing but the
merest foreshadowings of the imagination that could conjure up "Robin
son Crusoe," with all his vicissitudes, adventures, and variable fortunes,
an account of his behaviour from ten till fourteen years of age would be
vastly interesting.
At the age of fourteen Daniel was placed under the care of the Rev.
Charles Morton, who kept an academy for young gentlemen at Newington
Green. "This gentleman," says De Foe, "was a polite and profound
scholar ; a master who taught nothing, either in politics or science, which
was dangerous to monarchical government, or which was improper for a
DANIEL DE K)E.
diligent scholar to know." De Foe further declares that he left Dr.
Morton's school with a considerable store of learning. Five languages,
mathematics, natural philosophy, logic, geography, and history were
among his acquisitions.
He remained at school till he was nineteen, when he is again lost sight
of for two years, and then appears with his first printed effusion. This,
according to Chadwick, was a pamphlet on the then raging war between
the Austrians and Turks, and in which he opposed the .popular clamour,
and pointed out the disastrous consequences likely to ensue from assisting
the Turks against their enemies, who, as he observes, "were at least
Christians." Hazlitt and others, however, assert that De Foe's first lite
rary production was a lampoon directed against Roger L'Estrange, who
shortly before had published a " Guide to the Inferior Clergy." The title
of De Foe's pamphlet was " Speculum Crape-Gownorium ; or a Looking-
Glass for the young Academicks new Foyled, &c. By a Guide to the
Inferior Clergy." L'Estrange had in his publication directed the heaviest
and sharpest shafts of his wit against the Dissenters, but they were impo
tent as reeds compared with De Foe's rejoining onslaught on the weak
nesses of the Established clergy.
From this period 1682 to 1685 De Foe's mark is missing from
the pages of history. Then we have the rebellion of the Duke of Mon-
mouth, and the doughty Daniel .De Foe, a hot-blooded young ihan of
twenty-four, enlisted in his cause, not with his pen, but practically;
equipped as a soldier, and wearing a sword. The disastrous termina
tion of the Monmouth attempt is well known ; and De Foe with many
others laid down the unprofitable sword, and returned to their peaceful
and proper callings.
De Foe, who does not seem as yet to have embarked in any other busi
ness speculation save that of pamphlet printing, now turned his attention
seriously to citizen life, and established himself in Freeman's Yard, Corn-
l
xviii MEMOIR OP
I
hill, as a hosier, or, according to Hazlitt, " as a hose-factor or middle-man
between the manufacturer and retail dealer." Whatever its exact nature,
the Freeman's Yard business must have proved tolerably satisfactory ; for
within two years De Foe had come so far to regard himself as a man whose
future was settled, that, on his application, he was admitted a Liveryman
of London on the 26th of January, 1688.
De Foe continued ten years in the hosiery business. He was not,
however, so utterly devoted to it that the dangers of the nation escaped him.
Within the above-mentioned ten years several most important events in
English history transpired, and with the chief of w.hich our hero was asso
ciated. About 1686, the King (James II.), actuated by craft and cowardice,
held out to all religious sects and creeds a project of general toleration
Dissenters were to be allowed as much freedom of speech and action as
members of the Established Church, and Papists as both. Such a pretence
of generosity on the part of the King was well calculated to find favour
with men as oppressed as were the Dissenters of the period ; but although
their desire for toleration was great, their hatred of Popery was greater,
and as a body they stood firm against the proposition. At such a time,
and in such a cause, De Foe was not likely to be idle. " Was ever any
thing more absurd," wrote he, " than this conduct of King James and his
party in wheedling the Dissenters ? Giving them liberty of conscience by
his own arbitrary dispensing authority, and his expecting they should be
content with their religious liberty at the expense of their constitution ?
a thing, though a few were deluded with, yet the body of Dissenters saw
through. Thertrain, indeed, was laid deep and subtilly; but this was
plain to everybody, that it was wholly inconsistent with Popish interests
to protect the Dissenters any otherwise than it was made a project to create
a feud between them and the Church, and in the end destroy both." De
Foe afterwards stated that he did his utmost to oppose the scheme, and
that he wrote two tracts on the subject.
DANIEL DE FOE. xx
This behaviour of the King created much discontent among all classes
of his subjects ; till at last certain of the nobility and gentry, and even
clergy including the University of Oxford petitioned the Prince of
Orange to come and take possession of the distracted kingdom. The Prince
replied with alacrity, and on the 4th of November, 1688 being both his
birth and marriage day landed at Torbay with fifteen thousand men.
His march to London was an uninterrupted triumph. The people so far
from resenting the invasion welcomed the invader as a deliverer, and greeted
him and his host with tumultuous joy. De Foe was an ardent admirer of
this revolution. When he heard the news that the army of the Prince of
Orange was approaching the oity, he set out as far as Henley to meet it,
and joined the motley troop of Dutch soldiers and English soldiers, and
renegade statesmen, and disaffected clergy and citizens, in their march to
Whitehall. The 4th of November was ever after regarded by De Foe as
a sacred day " a day famous on various accounts, and every one of them
dear to Britons who love their country, value the Protestant interest, or
have an aversion to tyranny and oppression. On this day he (the Prince of
Orange) was born ; on this day he married the daughter of England ; and
on this day he rescued the nation from a bondage worse than that of
Egypt a bondage of soul as well as bodily servitude ; a slavery to the
ambition and raging lust of a generation set on fire by pride, avarice,
cruelty, and blood." The revolution was thus consummated without
bloodshed ; and the last of the Stuarts, finding a throne without the sup
port of the people untenable, fled to France, where he was well received
by the reigning monarch.
It may be assumed from passages that occur in some of his pamphlets,
that during his occupancy of the Freeman's Yard warehouse, De Foe had a
country house in Surrey. He was instrumental in forming the first regular
Dissenting congregation at Tooting, the Eev. Joshua Oldfield being elected
their pastor.
XX MEMOIR OF
De Foe, in his pamphlets, repeatedly repudiates the occupation of an
hosier and claims to be a trader a general merchant. Oldmixon, one of
De Foe's most annoying enemies, says, "he never had been a merchant,
otherwise than peddling a little to Portugal." There is every reason to
believe, however, that during his ten years' experience as a trader he made
several voyages to Spain and Portugal, and he himself declares that he
resided in Spain long enough to acquire the language of that country. He
had some connexion also with Dutch commerce. He is alluded to con
temptuously as a " civet-cat merchant;" but, says Hazlitt, "it was pro
bably the drug, rather than the animal, in which he traded."
Whatever may have been the nature of the various enterprises De Foe
embarked in during the said ten years, it is certain that they landed him a
bankrupt, and he had to fly from his creditors. Yarious causes have been
assigned for this collapse of his fortune ; but it must be the boldest specu
lation to speak of the reasons of a man's failing in business when it is
actually unknown what the nature of that business was. His debts
amounted to several thousand pounds ; and now his behaviour showed him
something more than; a "pedlar " or a man whose heart was in the till of
a hosiery shop. He might and still have been nothing below the average
" trade mark" have availed himself of the bankruptcy law, and to a very
large extent have eluded the payment of his obligations. Had he done so,
however, he would have been false to his own noble teaching, "Never
think yourself discharged in conscience though you may be discharged in
law. No title of honour,* no recorded merit, no mark of distinction, can
exceed that lasting appellation, an honest man. The obligations of an honest
mind can never die. He that lies buried under such an epitaph has more
said of him than volumes of history can contain. The payment of debts
after fair discharge, is the dearest title to such a character that I know :
and how any man can begin again and hope for a blessing from Heaven,
or favour from man, without such a resolution, I know not." The debts
DANIEL DE FOE. XXI
incurred during his trading were subsequently paid to the uttermost
farthing.
To what part of the kingdom De Foe fled, that he might in quiet arrange
his affairs, and at the same time avoid the horrors of a debtors' prison, is
not certain. Probably Bristol was his hiding place. There is a tolerably
well-authenticated story of his appearing in a certain quarter of that city,
handsomely dressed with flowing wig, lace ruffles, and a sword at his side
but only on Sundays. " He there attained the name of the Sunday Gentle
man, because through fear of the bailiffs he dare not appear in public on
any other day."
At this time he was thirty -four years old, and, having arranged his
pecuniary affairs, he was offered and accepted a situation in the glass duty
commission. This, however, he only retained for four years, as at the
expiration of that time the glass tax was repealed. About this time he
became secretary to a tile and brick making concern at Tilbury, in Essex.
He must have had a considerable share in the monetary affairs of the
business, for on its failure in 1703, De Foe's personal loss was three thou
sand pounds.
His duties, however, as a collector of taxes, or secretary at the tile
works, did not induce him to throw aside his pen. From 1695 till 1701
he wrote and published numerous works and pamphlets. His " Essay on
Prospects," which appeared in 1697, is remarkable for the soundness and
ingenuity of its arguments, as well as for the novel views it advocates. A
tract in defence of the necessity of the maintenance of an English standing
army was published by him in 1697, and shortly afterwards another tract
on the same subject appeared. The subject was making considerable stir
in the country at the time. The treaty of Eyswick had just been signed,
and consequently a large army which had been engaged in the French war
was now entirely without employment. It was the popular wish that this
force should be disbanded. Tradition and precedent alike strengthened the
XX11 MEMOIR OP
prevailing notion that a standing army was of all institutions the most to
be dreaded in a country famous for its maintenance of civil and religious
liberty. This however was, in the opinion of the wise King, a time when
precedent should be disregarded, and a deaf ear turned to the shallow
reasoning of the majority of his subjects. There were substantial grounds
for this : James, the late King of England, was residing with the King of
France, whose army was immense, skilfully generalled, and eager for active
service. King James had not forgotten that he had an hereditary right to
the English throne, and there were among the English people thousands
who likewise remembered that fact, and who would be ready, at a fair
opportunity, to push it to an issue. This, then, was no time for the
reigning King of England to abate his defensive strength, but the rather
to increase it. With all the vigour of his pen De Foe defended the King's
policy, and the King was not ungrateful.
Be Foe now appears to have devoted himself solely, and with con
siderable energy, to literary pursuits. Numerous works, both in poetry
and prose, emanated from his fertile pen, the bare enumeration of which
would occupy almost as many pages as are here devoted to his whole life.
One of the most remarkable, however, and which more closely than ever
attracted the King to him, was " The True-born Englishman," a satirical
poem which made its appearance in 1701, and when the author was in his
fortieth year. The phrase "True-born Englishman" was constantly in
the mouths of those who were disaffected towards the King and his
countrymen the Dutch. By this little sentence the malcontents expressed
their immense superiority to the great Dutchman who ruled them, and to
all his adherents ; when a man declared " I am a true-born Englishman,'
it was as though he had said " I am an enemy to the King." De Foe's
admiration of the King was very great : he was "his hero, his deliverer,
his friend ; he was bound to him by the ties of patriotism, of religion, and
of personal obligation." Pamphleteers of all grades, taking the cant watch-
DANIEL DE FOE. XX111
word as their cue, had indulged in the most scandalous libels against His
Majesty, and it was to answer them, and through them their employers
and admirers, that De Foe penned his satirical poem. His description of the
origin of the "True-born Englishman" will serve as an example of the
entire production.
These are the heroes who despise the Dutch
And rail at new-come foreigners so much,
Forgetting that themselves are all derived
From the most scoundrel race that ever lived :
A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones,
"Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns :
The Pict and painted Briton, treacherous Scot,
By hunger, theft, and rapine, hither brought ;
Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
Who, joined with Norman French, compound the breed
From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
As might reasonably be expected, although a reply to his enemies
couched in such language pleased King William not a little, and had the
effect of stopping their clamour, it in no way tended to alter their opinions
or to promote their esteem for Daniel De Foe, the writer. The poem had
an enormous sale at least eighty thousand copies finding their way into
the hands of an equal number of Englishmen, "true-born" or otherwise.
Erom this time De Foe was high in favour with the King, who
employed him in many secret services the nature of which is not known.
In one of his " Reviews," published about ten years after the King's death,
this bold counsellor tells how that he advised His Majesty "to send a
strong fleet to the Havannah to seize that part of the island in which it is
situated, and from thence to seize and secure the possession at least of the
coast, if not by consequence the Terra Firma, of the Empire of Mexico,
and thereby entirely cut off the Spanish commerce and the return of their
plate ships, by the immense riches whereof, and by which only, both France
and Spain have been enabled to support this war."
.MEMOIR OP
De Foe's career as a courtier was, however, cut short 'by the death
of his royal patron, which took place on the 8th of March, 1702. No
sooner was the lion dead than the host of curs who since the publication
of " The True-born Englishman" had vented their spleen in smothered
growls, again gave tongue and heaped scandal and abuse on the "dead
Dutchman" one pamphlet more prominent than the rest appearing with
the title " The Mourners." To this De Foe replied by a dignified letter
calling it " The Mock Mourners," sufficiently forcible to still the mirth of
the dead King's cowardly defamers.
With Anne for Queen came in fresh troubles for the Dissenters. Ad
vised doubtless by those whose interest that way lay, the Queen, from the
moment of her accession, to the throne, made it her business to conciliate
the Church at all risks. " Sacheverell and the Established Church, and
extermination to Dissenters," became a popular cry ; and there was nothing
left for De Foe but again to take the helm and endeavour to steer his co
religionists through the storm that lowered on every side. With the view
of warning them he published " A New Test of the Church of England's
Loyalty," and shortly afterwards " The Shortest Way with the Dissenters,"
which is regarded as one of the finest pieces of satire and irony ever com
posed indeed its extreme cleverness militated against it. The High
Church, against whom the satire was of course levelled, failed to see or
feel the hidden sting, and, taking the pamphlet, rejoiced at winning over
so powerful an advocate to their cause ; while the Dissenters, with mar
vellous dulness, especially as they had had so many proofs of De Foe's
sincerity, failed likewise to catch the true meaning of the tract, and re
garded their unwearying champion as a traitor a wolf that at last had
thrown off his disguise.
In this strait De Foe was reduced to the necessity of publishing an
explanation to his pamphlet ; but this only made bad worse, for while it
failed to convince his fellow Dissenters of the injustice of which they had
DANIEL DE FOE.
XXV
been guilty, the eyes of the Churchmen were opened to the folly they had
been betrayed into, and they suddenly turned from glorying in their new
champion to hating him as a villain double-dyed. An advertisement was
inserted in the London Gazette for the apprehension of "Daniel De Foe,
alias De Eooe, a middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, of .a
brownish complexion and dark brown-coloured hair, a hooked nose, a
sharp chin, and a large mole near his mouth." At the same time it was
resolved in the House of Commons, " That this book, being full of scan
dalous reflections on the Parliament, and tending to promote sedition,
be burnt by the hands of the common hangman to-morrow in New Palace
Yard."
His Books Burnt.
In this predicament he was forced to go into hiding to save himself
from a gaol. This course, however, he soon abandoned. The offer of a
reward of fifty pounds for his apprehension, was followed by the arrest
of the printer and publisher of the obnoxious pamphlet, so he generously
XXVI MEMOIR OP
came forward and gave himself up to the Government. He was brought
to trial, and the penalty of his crime was fixed at a fine of two hundred
marks, three separate standings in the pillory, and imprisonment during
the Queen's pleasure ; and, when that expired, he was to find substantial
securities for his good behaviour during the following seven years.
It happened, however, that although De Foe had lost the faith of his
old friends, and earned for himself the extreme hatred of his enemies, he
was the idol of the crowd ; and, when he was led out to the pillory, a vast
mob accompanied him, cheering as lustily as though they had elected him
king, and were about to crown him. As for the pillory, it was hung with
garlands of flowers ; and, while he stood in it, the mob made a merry time
of it, cheering him and drinking his health, and converting what was
intended as a degrading punishment into a famous triumph.
In the Pillory.
The imprisonment in Newgate had to be endured for several months.
However, this time was not passed by the great man in an idle way. Novels
and pamphlets were projected, and a complete edition of his works collected
and printed. It was while he was a tenant of Newgate also that the
Review was established a publication which appeared two or three times
a week for several years. It was entirely written by De Foe. At last,
DANIEL DE FOE.
XXV11
in August, 1704, through the instrumentality of Mr. Harley, then Secre
tary of State, the prisoner was released. After all, it would not seem to
have been the Queen's pleasure that he remained in Newgate so long, for
when she was informed of the facts of his case, she not only gave him his
liberty, but forwarded him by Lord Godolphin a considerable sum of money,
wherewith he was enabled to pay his debts and re-establish his home.
In Newgate.
To recruit his health, De Foe now retired with his family to Bury St.
Edmunds, continuing his literary labours, however, with untiring energy.
In 1706 he was commissioned by the Government to visit Scotland, with
a view of assisting in the formation of a union between the two countries.
So ably did he acquit himself of this mission, that in 1708 a pension
was granted him. Political changes, however, soon deprived him of this
benefit.
Being once more dependent on his pen, he set to work assiduously,
and from 1708 till 1715, produced a vast number of pamphlets and works
XXV111 MEMOIR OF
of greater size, including a " History of the Union of Great Britain," " An
Essay on the South Sea Trade," "The Present State of Parties in Great
Britain, &c., &c. In 1713, and when he was fifty-two years old, De Foe
once more got into trouble. He produced a clever, well-meaning tract,
entitled, " An Answer to the Question that nobody Thinks of, viz. : But
what if the Queen should Die? and What if the Pretender should
Come ?" Once more was the point of his wit too fine for the dull-eyed.
The Government was amazed at the writer's audacity, and he was arrested
and sent to gaol ; and it was not until he endured considerable imprison
ment that his accusers saw their error, and recommended the Queen's
pardon.
It would seem that even the giant mind of Daniel De Foe now found
itself overtaxed, and he resolved to have no more to do at least directly
with politics. For thirty years he had busied himself with public affairs,
and with no better reward beyond the serene consciousness that his
course had been true and honest than persecution, and disaster, and
imprisonment, or, at best, with five enemies for one friend. Before, how
ever, he abandoned his political career, he was desirous of squaring accounts
with those with whom he had so long dealt, and to that end prepared " An
Appeal to Honour and Justice, though it be of his worst Enemies. By
Daniel De Foe : being a True Account of his Conduct in Public Affairs."
This narrative, however, though published, was never completed. "While
working at it, De Foe was smitten with apoplexy, and lay between life
and death for six months. Knowing the sick man's anxiety that this'
" True Account of his Conduct" should go forth to the world, his friends
resolved to delay its publication no longer, and it therefore appeared un
finished as it was, and with a note added by the publisher ascribing the
delay to the author's illness.
As Hazlitt truly observes : " The close of De Foe's political career
was the beginning of his greatness. In the retirement which he now
DANIEL DE FOE. XXIX
sought to quit no more, the leisure of his active spirit was occupied in the
creation of a series of works which raised his name immeasurably higher
than it had ever been before in the opinion of his contemporaries, and
which will preserve that name in freshness and honour so long as the lan
guage in which they are written endures." De Foe recovered from his
illness, and, being in his fifty-fifth year, sat down to romance writing with
a mind as vigorous and elastic as a young man of thirty. "Within six years
he produced more than a dozen works, among the rest, " The Life, Ad
ventures, and Pyracies of Captain Singleton ;" " The Dumb Philosopher ;"
"Colonel Jack;" "Moll Flanders ;" "The Mysteries of Magic;" "The
History of the Plague;" and "Robinson Crusoe." The last mentioned
story was one of the earliest produced after his retirement from political
life, and was published in 1719. Concerning " Robinson Crusoe," nothing
need here be said. All that could be attempted would be to sing its
praises to a new air ; and when one has so few words to harp on " won
drous wisdom," "perfection of wit," "enchanting interest," and a few
others their adaptation to a new tune is difficult, especially as the said
tune must be one that every English boy may easily sing, for sing it he
certainly will to some tune or other.
At the age of sixty, De Foe was famous through his latter works ; he
possessed a handsome house at Stoke Newington, and could have been in
no other than easy circumstances. He was sorely afflicted with gout, and
besides was troubled with a painful intestinal complaint. Another mis
fortune he had to bear was heavier than both, a dissolute, ungrateful son.
Still, in the teeth of these great troubles, De Foe's teeming brain could not
be still. His " History of the Plague " is justly regarded as one of the most
marvellous of his productions. " No one," says Hazlitt, " can take up the
book without believing that it is the saddler of Whitechapel who is telling
his own story ; and that he was an eye-witness to all he relates ; that he
actually saw the blazing stars which portended the calamity ; that he wit-
XXX MEMOIR OF
nessed the grass growing in the streets ; read the inscriptions upon the
doors of the infected houses ; heard the bell-men crying ( Bring out your
dead ;' saw the dead carts conveying the people to their graves, and was
present at the digging of the pits in which they were deposited. It is no
wonder that a work so gravely written should have deceived Dr. Mead,
who quoted it as an authentic history in his ' Treatise on the Plague.' "
In 1724 appeared "Boxana, the Fortunate Mistress;" and the follow
ing year a new " Voyage Eound the World," the most instructive, if not
the most interesting, of his histories. Other works of a less important
character followed, and in 1727 was issued " The Complete English
Tradesman." This is generally regarded as the best of De Foe's prac
tical works, and was greatly admired by Benjamin Franklin. Following
this came " The Military Memories of Captain Carleton," which, with
some few pamphlets, carried him on to his sixty-ninth year, when we find
him engaged on a work of considerable magnitude, entitled " The Com
plete Gentleman."
Of this, however, part only was written, and but a single sheet printed.
"We find him writing to his printer (Mr. J. Watt, in Wild Court), apolo
gising for some delay, but excusing himself on the ground that he is
" exceedingly ill." He was not fated, however, to end his well-worn life
easily and pleasantly. Strange as it may appear, considering the profitable
nature of his works during the preceding twelve or fifteen years, he was
reduced in his extreme old age to absolute poverty, forfeiting his house at
Newington, and actually thrown into prison for debt. His imprisonment
was of but short duration, but his worldly condition never afterwards
mended. His bodily afflictions increased, and his wicked son added a
climax to his previous ill-behaviour by squandering the little hoard saved
from the wreck of his father's property, entrusted to this son for the use of
his mother and sisters. Writing concerning family matters generally to his
son-in-law, Mr. Baker, a few months before his death, poor De Foe thus
DANIEL DE FOE. XXXI
alludes to this scapegrace : " I depended upon him I trusted him I gave
up my two dear unprovided children into his hands ; but he has no com
passion, and suffers them and their poor dying mother to beg their bread
at his door and to crave, as if it were an alms, what he is bound by hand
and seal, besides the most sacred promises, to supply them with ; himself
at the same time living in a profusion of plenty. It is too much for me.
Excuse my infirmity ; I can say no more, my heart is too full."
On the 24th of April, 1731, in the seventieth year of his age, De Foe
found rest from the world wherein he had worked so long and so nobly,
and which at last treated him so unkindly. He died in the parish he was
born in St. Giles's, Cripplegate and was buried in what was then known
as TindalTs Burying Ground, and now as Bunhill Fields. Whether he died
surrounded by his family, whether he died all alone or attended by strangers,
cannot be discovered. The worst, however, maybe surmised; for had
one of his kindred been at hand at the time of his death, it is reason
able to suppose that the good man's proper name would have been supplied
to the parish registrar, which certainly was not the case, for there the
entry reads : " 1731 April 26 Mr. Dubow, Cripplegate."
__
The Resting Place.
ADVENTTJKES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
CHAPTEK I.
Robinson Crusoe declares his birth and parentage He inclines to a seafaring life His father
expostulates with him Visits Hull, where a companion tempts him to take a trip by sea A
storm arises, hi the midst of which he reflects on his disobedient conduct The ship springs a
leak, and goes down in Yarmouth Roads Escapes to the shore in a boat Is advised not to
go to sea again, but is unwilling to return home, and travels to London.
WAS born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good
family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner
of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate
by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at
York ; from whence he had married my mother, whose relations
were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and
from whom I was so called Eobinson Kreutznaer ; but, by the
usual corruption of words in England, we are now called, nay,
we call ourselves, and write our name, Crusoe ; and so my companions
always called me.
I had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieutenant- colonel to an
English regiment of foot in Elanders, formerly commanded by the famous
Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the
Spaniards. "What became of my second brother, I never knew, any more
than my father or mother did know what was become of me.
Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head
began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was
very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house
1
2 ADVENTURES OF
education and a country free school generally go, and designed me for the
law : but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea : and my
inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, (nay, the commands
of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother
and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that pro-
pension of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was to
befal me.
/Ky father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent
counsel against what he foresaw was my designT) He called me one
t t iA morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and ex
postulated very warmly with me upon this subject : he asked me what
reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving my
father's house, and my native country, where I might be well introduced,
and had a prospect of raising my fortune, by application and industry,
with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was for men of desperate
fortunes, on one hand, or of aspiring superior fortunes, on the other, who
went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make them
selves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road ; that
these things were all either too far above me, or too far below me ; that
mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of
low life, which he had found, by long experience, was the best state in
the world, the most suited to human happiness ; not exposed to the mi
series and hardships, the labour and sufferings, of the mechanic part of
mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy
of the upper part of mankind : he told me, I might judge of the happi
ness of this state by this one thing, viz., that this was the state of life
which all other people envied ; that kings have frequently lamented the
miserable consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had
been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the
great ; that the wise man gave his testimony to this as the just standard
of true felicity, when he prayed to have " neither poverty nor riches."
He bid me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities
of life were shaded among the upper and lower part of mankind ; but that
the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so
many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind: nay, they
were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body
or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagan
cies, on one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 3
insufficient diet, on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by
the natural consequences of their way of living ; that the middle station
of life was calculated for all kind of virtues, and all kind of enjoyments ;
that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune ; that tem
perance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions,
and all desirable pleasures were the blessings attending the middle station
of life ; that this way men went silently and smoothly through the world,
and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labours of the hands
or of the head, not sold to the life of slavery for daily bread, or harassed
with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace, and the body
of rest ; not enraged with the passion of envy, or secret burning lust of
ambition, for great things : but, in easy circumstances, sliding gently
through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living without the
bitter ; feeling that they are happy, and learning by every day's expe
rience to know it more sensibly.
After this he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate man
ner, not to play the young man, nor to precipitate myself into miseries
which nature, and the station of life I was born in, seemed to have pro
vided against ; that I was under no necessity of seeking my bread ; that
he would do well for me, and endeavour to enter me fairly into the
station of life which he had been just recommending to me ; and that if
I was not very easy and happy in the world, it must be my mere fate,
or fault, that must hinder it ; and that he should have nothing to answer
for, having thus discharged his duty in warning me against measures
which he knew would be to my hurt : in a word, that as he would do
very kind things for me if I would stay and settle at home as he directed,
so he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes as to give me any
encouragement to go away ; and, to close all, he told me I had my elder
brother for an example, to whom he had used the same earnest persua
sions to keep him from going into the Low Country wars, but could not
prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the army, where he
was killed ; and though, he said, he would not cease to pray for me, yet
he would venture to say to me that if I did take this foolish step, God
would not bless me, and I would have leisure, hereafter, to reflect upon
having neglected his counsel, when there might be none to assist in my
recovery.
I observed, in this last part of his discourse, which was truly pro
phetic, though, I suppose, my father did not know it to be so himself ;
4 ADVENTURES OF
I say, I observed the tears run down his face very plentifully, especially
when he spoke of my brother 'who was killed ; and that, when he spoke
of my having leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was so moved
that he broke off the discourse, and told me his heart was so full he could
say no more to me.
I was sincerely affected with this discourse ; as, indeed, who could be
otherwise ? and I resolved not to think of going abroad any more, but to
settle at home, according to my father's desire. But, alas ! a few days
wore it all off: and, in short, to prevent any of my father's further im
portunities, in a few woeks after I resolved to run quite away from him.
However, I did not act so hastily, neither as my first heat of resolution
prompted ; but I took my mother, at a time when I thought her a little
pleasanter than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so entirely
bent upon seeing the world, that I should never settle to any thing with
resolution enough to go through with it, and my father had better give
me his consent than force me to go without it ; that I was now eighteen
years old, which was too late to go apprentice to a trade, or clerk to an
attorney ; that I was sure, if I did, I should never serve out my time,
and I should certainly run away from my master before my time was out,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 5
and go to sea; and if she would speak to my father to let me go
one voyage abroad, if I came home again, and did not like it, I would
go no more ; and I would promise, by a double diligence, to recover the
time I had lost.
This put my mother into a great passion : she told me she knew it
would be to no purpose to speak to my father upon any such a subject ;
that he knew too well what was my interest, to give his consent to any
such thing so much for my hurt; and that she wondered how I could think
of any such thing, after such a discourse as I had with my father, and
such kind and tender expressions as she knew my father had used to me ;
and that, in short, if I would ruin myself, there was no help for me ; but
I might depend I should never have their consent to it: that, for her
part, she would not have so much hand in my destruction, and I should
never have it to say that my mother was willing when my father was
not.
Though my mother refused to move it to my father, yet, as I have
heard afterwards, she reported all the discourse to him; and that my
father, after showing a great concern at it, said to her with a sigh, " That
boy might be happy if he would stay at home ; but if he goes abroad, he
will be the most miserable wretch that ever was born : I can give no
consent to it."
It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose ; though in
the meantime I continued obstinately deaf to all proposals of settling to
business, and frequently expostulating with my father and mother about
their being so positively determined against what they knew my inclina
tions prompted me to. But being one day at Hull, where I went casually,
and without any purpose of making an elopement that time,, but I say,
being there, and one of my companions being going by sea to London in his
father's ship, and prompting me to go with them with the common allure
ment of seafaring men, viz., that it should cost me nothing for my passage,
I consulted neither father nor mother any more, nor so much as sent them
word of it ; but leaving them to hear of it as they might, without asking
God's blessing, or my father's, without any consideration of circumstances
or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the 1st of September,
1651, I went on board a ship bound for London. ]N"ever any young ad
venturer's misfortunes, I believe, began sooner, or continued longer, than
mine. The ship was no sooner got out of the Humber but the wind
began to blow, and the waves to rise, in a most frightful manner ; and
6 ADVENTURES OF
as I had never been at sea before, I was most inexpressibly sick in body,
and terrified in mind : I began now seriously to reflect upon what I had
done, and how justly I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for
my wicked leaving my father's house. All the good counsels of my parents,
my father's tears, and my mother's entreaties, came now fresh into my
mind ; and my conscience, which was not yet come to the pitch of hard
ness to which it has been since, reproached me with the contempt of
advice, and the breach of my duty to God and my father.
All this while the storm increased, and the sea, which I had never
been upon before, went very high, though nothing like what I have seen
many times since ; no, nor like what I saw a few days after ; but it was
enough to affect me then, who was but a young sailor, and had never
known any thing of the matter. I expected every wave would have
swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought,
in the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more ; and in
this agony of mind, I made many vows and resolutions that if it would
please God to spare my life in this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot
on dry land, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a
ship again while I lived ; that I would take his advice, and never run
myself into such miseries as these any more. Now I saw plainly the
goodness of his observations about the middle station of life ; how easy,
how comfortable, he had lived all his days, and never had been exposed
to tempests at sea or troubles on shore ; and I resolved that I would,
like a true repenting prodigal, go home to my father.
These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the storm con
tinued, and indeed some time after; but the next day the wind was
abated and the sea calmer, and I began to be a little inured to it. How
ever, I was very grave for all that day, being also a little sea-sick still ;
but towards night the weather cleared up, the wind was quite over, and a
charming fine evening followed ; the sun went down perfectly clear, and
rose so the next morning ; and having little or no wind, and a smooth sea,
the sun shining upon it, the sight was, as I thought, the most delightful
that ever I saw.
I had slept well in the night, and was now no more sea-sick, but very
cheerful, looking with wonder upon the sea that was so rough and terrible
the day before, and could be so calm and so pleasant in so little time after.
And now, lest my good resolutions should continue, my companion, who
had indeed enticed me away, comes to me. ""Well, Bob," says he,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. , 7
clapping me on the shoulder, "how do you do after it? I warrant you
were frighted, wa'n't you, last night, when it blew but a cap-full of
wind ?" "A cap-full, do you call it?" said I, " 'twas a terrible storm."
(t A storm, you fool ! " replies he, " do you call that a storm ? Why, it was
nothing at all ; give us but a good ship and sea-room, and we think nothing
of such a squall of wind as that. But you are but a fresh- water sailor,
Bob. Come, let us make a bowl of punch, and we'll forget all that. D'ye
see what charming weather 'tis now ?" To make short this sad part of my
story, we went the way of all sailors ; the punch was made, and I was
made drunk with it ; and in that one night's wickedness I drowned all my
repentance, all my reflections upon my past conduct, and all my resolu
tions for the future. In a word, as the sea was returned to its smooth
ness of surface and settled calmness by the abatement of the storm, so
the hurry of my thoughts being over, my fears and apprehensions of
being swallowed up by the sea forgotten, and the current of my former
desires returned, I entirely forgot the vows and promises that I made in
my distress. I found, indeed, some intervals of reflection ; and the serious
thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again sometimes ; but I
shook them off and roused myself from them, as it were from a distemper,
and applying myself to drinking and company, soon mastered the return of
those fits for so I called them; and I had in five or six days got as
complete a victory over conscience as any young fellow that resolved not
to be troubled with it could desire. But I was to have another trial for
it still ; and Providence, as in such cases generally it does, resolved to
leave me entirely without excuse : for if I would not take this for a
deliverance, the next was to be such a one as the worst and most hardened
wretch among us would confess both the danger and the mercy of.
The sixth day of our being at sea we came into Yarmouth Roads : the
wind having been contrary and the weather calm, we had made but little
way since the storm. Here we were obliged to come to an anchor, and
here we lay, the wind continuing contrary, viz. at south-west, for seven or
eight days, during which time a great many ships from Newcastle came
into the same roads, as the common harbour where the ships might wait
for a wind for the river. We had not, however, rid here so long, but
we should have tided up the river, but that the wind blew too fresh ; and,
after we had lain four or five days, blew very hard. However, the roads
being reckoned as good as a harbour, the anchorage good, and our ground
tackle very strong, our men were unconcerned, and not in the least
8 ADVENTURES OF
apprehensive of danger, but spent the time in rest and mirth, after the
manner of the sea. But the eighth day, in the morning, the wind
increased, and we had all hands at work to strike our topmasts, and make
everything snug and close, that the ship might ride as easy as possible.
By noon the sea went very high indeed, and our ship rid forecastle in,
shipped several seas, and we thought, once or twice, our anchor had come
home ; upon which our master ordered out the sheet anchor, so that we
rode with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out to the better end.
By this time it blew a terrible storm indeed ; and now I began to see
terror and amazement in the faces of even the seamen themselves. The
master, though vigilant in the business of preserving the ship, yet, as he
went in and out of his cabin by me, I could hear him softly to himself say
several times, " Lord, be merciful to us ! we shall be all lost ; we shall be
all undone !" and the like. During these first hurries I was stupid, lying
still in my cabin, which was in the steerage, and cannot describe my
temper. I could ill resume the first penitence, which I had so ap
parently trampled upon and hardened myself against: I thought the
bitterness of death had been past, and that this would be nothing, too, like
the first. But when the master himself came by me, as I said just now,
and said we should be all lost, I was dreadfully frighted. I got up out
of my cabin, and looked out ; but such a dismal sight I never saw : the
sea went mountains high, and broke upon us every three or four minutes.
When I could look about, I could see nothing but distress round us. Two
ships that rid near us, we found had cut their masts by the board, being
deep laden ; and our men cried out that a ship which rid about a mile
ahead of us was foundered. Two more ships being driven from their
anchors, were run out of the roads to sea, at all adventures, and that
with not a mast standing. The light ships fared the best, as not so much
labouring in the sea ; but two or three of them drove, and came close by
us, running away with only their spritsails out before the wind.
Towards evening, the mate and boatswain begged the master of our ship to
let them cut away the foremast, which he was very unwilling to do ; but
the boatswain protesting to him that if he did not the ship would founder,
he consented ; and when they had cut away the foremast the mainmast
stood so loose, and shook the ship so much, they were obliged to cut it
away also and make a clear deck.
Any one may judge what a condition I must be in at all this, who
was but a young sailor, and who had been in such a fright before at but a
ROBINSON CRUSOE. . 9
little. But if I can express, at this distance, the thoughts I had about
me at that time, I was in tenfold more horror of mind upon account of
my former convictions, and the having returned from them to the re
solutions I had wickedly taken at first, than I was at death itself ; and
these, added to the terror of the storm, put me into such a condition, that
I can by no words describe it. But the worst was not come yet ; the
storm continued with such fury, that the seamen themselves acknowledged
they had never known a worse. We had a good ship, but she was deep
laden, and wallowed in the sea, that the seamen every now and then
cried out she would founder. It was my advantage, in one respect, that
I did not know what they meant by founder, till I inquired. However,
the storm was so violent, that I saw what is not often seen, the master, the
boatswain, and some others, more sensible than the rest, at their prayers,
and expecting every moment when the ship would go to the bottom.
In the middle of the night, and under all the rest of our distresses, one of
the men that had been down on purpose to see, cried out we had sprung
a leak ; another said there was four feet water in the hold. Then all
hands were called to the pump. At that very word my heart, as I
thought, died within me, and I fell backwards upon the side of my bed
where I sat, into the cabin. However, the men roused me, and told me
that I, that was able to do nothing before, was as well able to pump as
another : at which I stirred up and went to the pump, and worked very
heartily. While this was doing, the master, seeing some light colliers
who, not able to ride out the storm, were obliged to slip and run away to
sea, and would come near us, ordered us to fire a gun as a signal of
distress. I, who knew nothing what that meant, was so surprised that
I thought the ship had broke, or some dreadful thing had happened. In
a word, I was so surprised, that I fell down in a swoon? As this was a
time when every body had his own life to think of, nobody minded me, or
what was become of me, but another man stepped up to the pump, and
thrusting me aside with his foot, let me lie, thinking I had been dead ;
and it was a great while before I came to myself.
We worked on, but the water increasing in the hold, it was apparent
that the ship would founder ; and though the storm began to abate a
little, yet as it was not possible she could swim till we might run into a
port, so the master continued firing guns for help ; and a light ship, who
had rid it out just ahead of us, ventured a boat out to help us. It was
the utmost hazard the boat came near us, but it was impossible for
10 . ADVENTURES OF
us to get on board, or for the boat to lie near the ship's side, till at last
the men, rowing very heartily and venturing their lives to save ours, our
men cast them a rope over the stern with a buoy to it, and then veered
it out a great length, which they, after great labour and hazard, took
hold of, and we hauled them close under our stern and got all into their
boat. It was to no purpose for them or us, after we were in the boat,
to think of reaching to their own ship ; so all agreed to let her drive, and
only to pull her in towards shore as much as we could ; and our master
promised them, that if the boat was staved upon shore, he would make
it good to their master : so partly rowing and partly driving, our boat
went away to the northward, sloping towards the shore almost as far as
Winterton-Ness.
"We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship, but
we saw her sink : and then I understood, for the first time, what was
meant by a ship foundering in the sea. I must acknowledge, I had hardly
eyes to look up when the seamen told me she was sinking ; for, from that
moment, they rather put me into the boat than that I might be said to go
in: my heart was, as it were, dead within me, partly with fright, partly
with horror of mind, and the thoughts of what was yet before me.
While we were in this condition, the men yet labouring at the oar
to bring the boat near the shore, we could see (when, our boat mounting
the waves, we were able to see the shore) a great many people running
along the strand, to assist us when we should come near ; but we made
slow way towards the shore, nor were we able to reach it, till being
past the light-house at Winterton, the shore falls off to the westward
towards Cromer, and so the land broke 'off a little the violence of the
wind. Here we got in, and, though not without much difficulty, got all
safe on shore, and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth ; where, as
unfortunate men, we were used with great humanity, as well by the
magistrates of the town, who assigned us good quarters, as by the
particular merchants and owners of ships ; and had money given* us
sufficient to carry us either to London or back to Hull, as we thought fit.
Had I now had the sense, to have gone back to Hull, and have gone
home, I had been happy, and my father, an emblem of our blessed
Saviour's parable, had even killed the fatted calf for me ; for, hearing
the ship I went away in was cast away in Yarmouth Roads, it was a
great while before he had any assurance that I was not drowned.
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that nothing could
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 11
resist ; and though I had several times loud calls from my reason, and my
more composed judgment, to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I
know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret, overruling
decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction,
even though it be before us, and that we push upon it with our eyes open.
Certainly, nothing but some such decreed unavoidable misery attending,
and which it was impossible for me to escape, could have pushed me
forward against the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired
thoughts, and against two such visible instructions as I had met with in
my first attempt.
My comrade, who had helped to harden me before, and who was the
master's son, was now less forward than I : the first time he spoke to me
after we were at Yarmouth, which was not till two or three days, for we
were separated in the town to several quarters ; I say, the first time he
saw me, it appeared his tone was altered, and, looking very melancholy,
and shaking his head, he asked me how I did ? and telling his father who
I was, and how I had come this voyage only for a trial, in order to go
farther abroad, his father, turning to me with a very grave and concerned
tone, " Young man," says he, " you ought never to go to sea any more ; you
ought to take this for a plain and visible token that you are not to be a sea
faring man." " Why, sir ?" said I ; " will you go to sea no more ?" " That
is another case," said he ; "-it is my calling, and therefore my duty ; but as
you made this voyage for a trial, you see what a taste Heaven has given
you of what you are to expect if you persist. Perhaps this has all
befallen us on your account, like Jonah in the ship of Tarshish. Pray,"
continues he, "what are you, and on what account did you go to sea?"
Upon that I told him some of my story ; at the end of which he burst out
with a strange kind of passion. " What had I done," says he, " that such
an unhappy wretch should come into my ship ? I would not set my foot
in the same ship with thee again for a thousand pounds." This indeed
was, as I said, an excursion of his spirits, which were yet agitated by the
sense of his loss, and was farther than he could have authority to go.
However, he afterwards talked very gravely to me : exhorted me to go
back to my father, and not tempt Providence to my ruin; told me I
might see a visible hand of Heaven against me ; " And, young man," said
he, " depend upon it, if you do not go back, wherever you go you will
meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments till your father's
words are fulfilled upon you."
ADVENTURES OP
"We parted soon after, for I made him little answer, and I saw him no
more : which way he went, I know not. As for me, having some money
in my pocket, I travelled to London by land, and there, as well as on the
road, had many struggles with myself what course of life I should take,
and whether I should go home or go to sea. As to going home, shame
opposed the best motions that offered to my thoughts ; and it immediately
occurred to me how I should be laughed at among the neighbours, and
should be ashamed to see, not my father and mother only, but even every
body else : from whence I have since often observed, how incongruous
and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth, to
that reason which ought to guide them in such cases, viz., that they are
not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent ; nor ashamed of the
action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed
of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men.
In this state of life, however, I remained some time, uncertain what
measures to take, and what course of life to lead.' An irresistible
reluctance continued to going home ; and as I stayed awhile, the remem
brance of the distress I had been in wore off; and, as that abated, the
little motion I had in my desires to a return wore off with it, till at last
I quite laid aside the thoughts of it, and looked out for a voyage.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 13
CHAPTER II.
Crusoe makes the acquaintance of the captain of a merchant vessel bound for the African coast,
and embarks as a trading adventurer Takes a fever, learns how to navigate a ship, and returns
enriched On the death of the captain he makes a second voyage with the mate The ship is
taken by Turkish pirates, whose leader makes Crusoe his slave Fishing off the Morocco coast,
he contrives an escape The Moor is thrown overboard, and swims for his life Sets sail with the
Moresco boy Dangers of coasting An African Lion Steers for the south Falls in with
savages, who supply him with provisions Shoots a leopard, whereat the natives are astonished
and terrified Is picked up by a Portuguese merchantman Sells the Moresco boy, with a
reservation Arrives at the Brazils.
[HAT evil influence which carried me first away from my
father's house, that hurried me into the wild and indigested
notion of raising my fortune, and that impressed those con
ceits so forcibly upon me, as to make me deaf to all good
advice, and to the entreaties, and even the commands of my father; I
say, the same influence, whatever it was, presented the most unfortunate
of all enterprises to my view ; and I went on hoard a vessel bound to the
coast of Africa, or, as our sailors vulgarly call it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my great misfortune that in all these adventures I did not
ship myself as a sailor ; whereby, though I might indeed have worked a
little harder than ordinary, yet, at the same time, I had learned the duty
and office of a foremastman, and in time might have qualified myself for
a mate or lieutenant, if not for a master. But as it was always my fate
to choose for the worse, so I did here ; for, having money in my pocket
and good clothes upon my back, I would always go on board in the habit
of a gentleman; and so I neither had any business in the ship, nor
learned to do any.
It was my lot, first of all to fall into pretty good company in London ;
which does not always happen to such loose and unguided young fellows
as I then was, the devil generally not omitting to lay some snare for
them very early. But it was not so with me. I first fell acquainted
with the master of a ship who had been on the coast of Guinea, and who,
14 ADVENTURES OF
having had very good success there, was resolved to go again ; and who,
taking a fancy to my conversation, which was not at all disagreeable at
that time, and hearing me say I had a mind to see the world, told me, if
I would go the voyage with him, I should be at no expense I should be
his messmate and his companion ; and if I could carry any thing with me,
I should have all the advantage of it that the trade would admit ; and,
perhaps, I might meet with some encouragement. I embraced the offer,
and entering into a strict friendship with this captain, who was an honest
and plain-dealing man, I went the voyage with him, and carried a small
adventure with me, which, by the disinterested honesty of my friend the
captain, I increased very considerably ; for I carried about forty pounds
in such toys and trifles as the captain directed me to buy. This forty
pounds I had mustered together by the assistance of some of my relations
whom L corresponded with, and who I believe got my father, or, at
least, my mother, to contribute so much as that to my first adventure.
This was the only voyage which I may say was successful in all my
adventures, and which I owe to the integrity and honesty of my friend
the captain, under whom also I got a competent knowledge of the
mathematics and the rules of navigation, learned how to keep an account
of the ship's course, take an observation, and, in short, to understand
some things that were needful to be understood by a sailor : for, as he
took delight to instruct me, I took delight to learn; and, in a word,
this voyage made me both a sailor and a merchant : for I brought home
five pounds nine ounces of gold dust for my adventure, which yielded
me in London, at my return, almost three hundred pounds, and this
filled me with those aspiring thoughts which have since so completed
my ruin. Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too ; par
ticularly, that I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent calen
ture* by the excessive heat of the climate our principal trading being
upon the coast, from the latitude of fifteen degrees north, even to the
Line itself.
I was now set up for a Guinea trader: and my friend, to my great
misfortune, dying soon after his arrival, I resolved to go the same voyage
again ; and I embarked in the same vessel with one who was his mate
* A violent fever, incident to persons in hot climates, especially to natives of cookr
climates, and to which, therefore, European sailors are peculiarly liable. One of the
symptoms is peculiar : the person affected imagines the sea to he a green field, and
sometimes, attempting to walk on it, is lost.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 15
in the former voyage, and had now got the command of the ship. This
was the unhappiest voyage that ever man made ; for though I did not
carry quite a hundred pounds of my new-gained wealth so that I had
two hundred pounds left, and which I lodged with my friend's widow,
who was very just to me yet I fell into terrible misfortunes in this
voyage : and the first was this, viz. our ship, making her course to
wards the Canary Islands, or rather between those islands and the
African shore, was surprised, in the gray of the morning, by a Turkish
rover of Sallee, who gave chase to us with all the sails she could make.
We crowded also as much canvass as our yards would spread, or our masts
carry, to have got clear ; but finding the pirate gained upon us and would
certainly come up with us in a few hours, we prepared to fight, our
ship having twelve guns, and the rover eighteen. About three in the
afternoon he came up with us ; and bringing to, by mistake, just athwart
our quarter, instead of athwart our stern as he intended, we brought
eight of our guns to bear on that side, and poured in a broadside upon
him, which made him sheer off again, after returning our fire and pour
ing in also his small shot from near two hundred men which he had
on board. However, we had not a man touched, all our men keeping
close. He prepared to attack us again, and we to defend ourselves ;
but laying us on board the next time upon our other quarter, he entered
sixty men upon our decks, who immediately fell to cutting and hacking
the decks and rigging. We plied .them with small shot, half-pikes,
powder-chests, and such like, and cleared our deck of them twice. How
ever, to cut short this melancholy part of our story, our ship being dis
abled and three of our men killed and eight wounded, we were obliged
to yield, and were carried all prisoners into Sallee, a port belonging to
the Moors.
The usage I had there was . not so dreadful as at first I apprehended ;
nor was I carried up the country to the emperor's court, as the rest of
our men were, but was kept by the captain of the rover as his proper
prize, and made his slave, being young and nimble, and fit for his busi
ness. At this surprising change of my circumstances, from a merchant
to a miserable slave, I was perfectly overwhelmed ; and now I looked back
upon my father's prophetic discourse to me, that I should be miserable
and have none to relieve me, which I thought was now so effectually
brought to pass, that I could ndt be worse that now the hand of
Heaven had overtaken me, and I was undone, without redemption. But,
16 ADVENTURES OF
alas ! this was but a taste of the misery I was to go through, as will
appear in the sequel of this story.
As my new patron, or master, had taken me home to his house, so I
was in hopes that he would take me with him when he went to sea again,
believing that it would, some time or other, be his fate to be taken by
a Spanish or Portuguese man-of-war, and that then I should be set at
liberty. But this hope of mine was soon taken away, for when he went
to sea he left me on shore to look after his little garden, and do the
common drudgery of slaves about his house; and when he came home
again from his cruise, he ordered me to lie in the cabin, to look after
the ship.
Here I meditated nothing but my escape, and what method I might
take to effect it, but found no way that had the least probability in it.
Nothing presented to make the supposition of it rational ; for I had
nobody to communicate it to that would embark with me, no fellow-
slave, no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman there but myself : so that
for two years, though I often pleased myself with the imagination, yet I
never had the least encouraging prospect of putting it in practice.
After about two years, an odd circumstance presented itself, which put
the old thought of making some attempt for my liberty again in my
head. My patron lying at home longer than usual, without fitting out
his ship which, as I heard, was for want of money he used constantly,
once or twice a week, sometimes oftener, if the weather was fair, to take
the ship's pinnace, and go out into the road a-fishing ; and as he always
took me and a young Moresco with him to row the boat, we made him
very merry, and I proved very dexterous in catehing fish, insomuch that
sometimes he would send me with a Moor, one of his kinsmen, and the
youth, the Moresco, as they called him, Jto catch a dish of fish for him.
It happened one time that, going a-fishing in a stark calm morning, a
fog rose so thick that, though we were not half a league from the shore,
we lost sight of it ; and rowing we knew not whither, or which way, we
laboured all day and all the next night, and when the morning came, we
found we had pulled off to sea, instead of pulling in for the shore, and
that we were at least two leagues from the shore : however, we got well
in again, though with a great deal of labour, and some danger, for the
wind began to blow pretty fresh in the morning ; but, particularly, we
were all very hungry.
But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take more care of
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 17
himself for the future ; and having lying by him the longboat of our
English ship he had taken, he resolved he would not go a-fishing any
more without a compass and some provision ; so he ordered the carpenter
of his ship, who also was an English slave, to build a little state-room or
cabin in the middle of the longboat, like that of a barge, with a place to
stand behind it to steer and haul home the main sheet, and room before
for a hand or two to stand and work the sails. She sailed with that we
call a shoulder-of -mutton sail, and the boom jibbed over the top of the
cabin, which lay very snug and low, and had in it room for him to lie,
with a slave or two, and a table to eat on, with some small lockers to put
in some bottles of such liquor as he thought fit to drink, particularly his
bread, rice, and coffee.
We were frequently out with this boat a-fishing, and as I was most
dexterous to catch fish for him, he never went without me. It happened
that he had appointed to go out in this boat, either for pleasure or for
fish, with two or three Moors of some distinction in that place, and for
whom he had provided extraordinary, and had therefore sent on board
the boat, overnight, a larger store of provisions than ordinary, and had
ordered me to get ready three fusees, with powder and shot, which were
on board his ship, for that they designed some sport of fowling as well as
fishing.
I got all things ready as he had directed, and waited the next morning
with the boat washed clean, her ancient and pendants out, and everything
to accommodate his guests : when, by and by, my patron came on board
alone, and told me his guests had put off going, upon some business that
fell out, and ordered me with the man and boy, as usual, to go out with
the boat and catch them some fish, for that his friends were to sup at his
house ; and commanded that as soxm as I had got some fish, I should
bring it home to his house : all which I prepared to do.
This moment my former notions of deliverance darted into my
thoughts, for now I found I was like to have a little ship at my com
mand ; and my master being gone, I prepared to furnish myself not for
fishing business, but for a voyage; though I knew not, neither did I
so much as consider, whither I should steer ; for any where to get out of
that place was my way.
My first contrivance was to make a pretence to speak to tliis Moor,
to get something for our subsistence on board ; for I told him we must
not presume to eat of our patron's bread. He said, that was true ; so
2
18 ADVENTURES OF
he brought a large basket of rusk or biscuit of their kind, and three jars
with fresh water into the boat. I knew where my patron's case of bottles
stood, which it was evident by the make were taken out of some English
prize, and I conveyed them into the boat while the Moor was on shore, as
if they had been there before for our master. I conveyed also a great
lump of bees-wax into the boat, which weighed above half a hundred
weight, with a parcel of twine or thread, a hatchet, a saw, and a hammer,
all which were of great use to us afterwards, especially the wax, to make
candles. Another trick I tried upon him, which he innocently came into
also. His name was Ismael, whom they call Muley, or Moley ; so I called
to him : " Moley," said I, " our patron's guns are on board the boat, can
you not get a little powder and shot? it may be we may kill some
alcamies (a fowl like our curlews) for ourselves, for I know he keeps the
gunner's stores in the ship." " Yes," says he, " I will bring some ;" and
accordingly he brought a great leather pouch, which held about a pound
and a half of powder, or rather more, and another with shot, that had five
or six pounds, with some bullets, and put all into the boat : at the same
time I had found some powder of my master's in the great cabin, with
which I filled one of the large bottles in the case, which was almost empty,
pouring what was in it into another ; and thus furnished with every thing
needful, we sailed out of the port to fish. The castle, which is at the
entrance of the port, knew who we were, and took no notice of us ; and
we were not above a mile out of the port, before we hauled in our sail,
and set us down to fish. The wind blew from N.N.E., which was
contrary to my desire ; for, had it blown southerly, I had been sure to
have made the coast of Spain, and at least reached to the bay of Cadiz ;
but my resolutions were, blow which way it would, I would be gone from
that horrid place where I was, and leave the rest to fate.
After we had fished some time and catched nothing, for when I had
fish on my hook I would not pull them up that he might not see them, I
said to the Moor, " This will not do ; our master will not be thus served ;
we must stand farther off." He, thinking no harm, agreed, and being in
the head of the boat, set the sails ; and as I had the helm, I run the boat
out near a league farther, and then brought her to, as if I would fish. Then
giving the boy the helm, I stepped forward to where the Moor was, and
making as if I stooped for something behind him, I took him by surprise,
with my arm under his twist,* and tossed him clear overboard into the
* The hollow on the inside of the thigh.
BOBINSON CKUSOE. 19
sea. He rose immediately, for he swam like a cork, and called to me,
begged to be taken in, and told me lie would go all over the world with
me. He swam so strong after the boat that he would have reached me
very quickly, there being but little wind ; upon which I stepped into the
cabin, and fetching one of the fowling-pieces, I presented it at him, and
told him I had done him no hurt, and if he would be quiet I would do
him none. " But," said I, " you swim well enough to reach the shore, and
the sea is calm ; make the best of your way to shore and I will do you no
harm ; but if you come near the boat I will shoot you through the head ;
for I am resolved to have my liberty." So he turned himself about, and
swam for the shore, and I make no doubt but he reached it with ease, for
he was an excellent swimmer.
I could have been content to have taken this Moor with me, and have
drowned the boy, but there was no venturing to trust him. "When he
was gone I turned to the boy whom they called Xury, and said to him,
" Xury, if you will be faithful to me I will make you a great man ; but if
you will not stroke your face to be true to me (that is, swear by Mahomet
and his father's beard), I must throw you into the sea too." The boy
smiled in my face, and spoke so innocently, that I could not mistrust him ;
and swore to be faithful to me, and go all over the world with me.
While I was in view of the Moor that was swimming I stood out
directly to sea, with the boat rather stretching to windward, that they
might think me gone towards the Strait's mouth (as indeed any one that
had been in their wits must have been supposed to do) ; for who would
have supposed we were sailed on to the southward, to the truly Bar
barian coast, where whole nations of Negroes were sure to surround us
with their canoes and destroy uSj where we could never once go on shore
but we should be devoured by savage beasts, or nyxre merciless savages
of human kind ?
But as soon as it grew dusk in the evening I changed my course, and
steered directly south and by east, bending my course a little toward
the east, that I might keep in with the shore ; and having a fair fresh
gale of wind, and a smooth quiet sea, I made' such sail, that I believe by
the next day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, when I first made the land,
I could not be less than one hundred and fifty miles south of Sallee, quite
beyond the Emperor of Morocco's dominions, or indeed of any other king
thereabouts ; for we saw no people.
Yet such was the fright I had taken at the Moors, and the dreadful
20 ADVENTURES OP
apprehensions I had of falling into their hands, that I would not stop, or
go on shore, or come to an anchor, the wind continuing fair, till I had
sailed in that manner five days; and then the wind shifting to the
southward, I concluded also that if any of our vessels were in chase
of me, they also would now give over: so I ventured to make to the
coast, and came to an anchor in the mouth of a little river; I knew
not what or where, neither what latitude, what country, what nation, or
what river. I neither saw, nor desired to see, any people ; the principal
thing I wanted was fresh water. "We came into this creek in the evening,
resolving to swim on shore as soon as it was dark, and discover the country;
but as soon as it was quite dark, we heard such dreadful noises of the
barking, roaring, and howling of wild creatures, of we knew not what
kinds, that the poor boy was ready to die with fear, and begged of me not
to go on shore till day. " Well, Xury," said I, " then I won't ; but it may
be we may see men by day, who will be as bad to us as those lions."
"Then we may give them the shoot-gun," says Xury, laughing, "make
them run wey." Such English Xury spoke by conversing among us slaves.
However, I was glad to see the boy so cheerful, and I gave him a dram
out of our patron's case of bottles to cheer him up. After all, Xury's
advice was good, and I took it. We dropped our little anchor, and lay
still all night. I say still, for we slept none : for in two or three hours
we saw vast great creatures (we knew not what to call them), of many
sorts, come down to the seashore, and run unto the water, wallowing and
washing themselves, for the pleasure of cooling themselves; and they
made such hideous howlings and yellin.gs, that I never indeed heard
the like.
Xury was dreadfully frighted, and indeed so was I too ; but we were
both more frighted when we heard one of the mighty creatures come
swimming towards our boat : we could not see him, but we might hear
him by his blowing to be a monstrous huge and furious beast. Xury
said it was a lion, and it might be so for aught I know, but poor Xury
cried to me to weigh the anchor, and row away. "No," says I, "Xury,
we can slip our cable with a buoy to it, and go to sea ; they cannot follow
us far." I had no sooner said so, but I perceived the creature (whatever it
was) within two oars' length, which something surprised me ; however, I
immediately stepped to the cabin door, and taking up my gun, fired at
him, upon which he immediately turned about, and swam towards the
shore again.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 21
But it is impossible to describe the horrible noises, and hideous cries
and howlings that were raised, as well upon the edge of the shore as
higher within the country, upon the noise or report of the gun ; a thing, I
believe, those creatures had never heard before. This convinced me there
was no going on shore for us in the night upon that coast, and how to
venture on shore in the day, was another question too ; for to have fallen
into the hands of any of the savages, had been as bad as to have fallen
into the paws of lions and tigers : at least we were equally apprehensive
of the danger of it.
Be that as it would, we were obliged to go on shore somewhere or
other for water, for we had not a pint left in the boat : when or where
to get it was the point. Xury said, if I would let him go on shore with
one of the jars, he would find if there was any water, and bring some to
me. I asked him why he would go ; why I should not go, and he stay in
the boat? The boy answered with so much affection,. that he made me
love him ever after. Says he, "If wild mans come, they eat me, you go
away." "Well, Xury," said I, "we will both go ; and if the wild mans
come, we will kill them ; they shall eat neither of us." So I gave Xury
a piece of rusk bread to eat, and a dram out of our patron's case of bottles,
which I mentioned before ; and we hauled the boat in as near the shore as
we thought was proper, and waded to shore, carrying nothing but our arms
and two jars for water.
I did not care to go out of sight of the boat, fearing the coming of
canoes with savages down the river ; but the boy, seeing a low place
about a mile up the country, rambled to it ; and, by and by, I saw him
come running towards me. I thought he was pursued by some savage, or
frighted with some wild beast, and I therefore ran forwards to help him ;
but when I came nearer to him, I saw something hanging over his
shoulders, which was a creature that he had shot, like a hare, but
different in colour, and longer legs : however, we were very glad of it,
and it was very good meat : but the great joy that poor Xury came with,
was to tell me he had found good water, and seen no wild mans.
But we found afterwards that we need not take such pains for water ;
for a little higher up the creek where we were, we found the water fresh
when the tide was out, which flows but a little way up ; so we filled
our jars, and feasted on the hare we had killed; and prepared to go
on our way, having seen no footsteps of any human creature in that
part of the country.
22 ADVENTUKE8 OP
As I had been one voyage to this coast before, I knew very well that
the islands of the Canaries, and the Cape de Yerd Islands also, lay not far
from the coast. But as I had no instruments to take an observation, to
know what latitude we were in, and did not exactly know, or at least
remember, what latitude they were in, I knew not where to look for
them, or when to stand off to sea towards them, otherwise I might now
easily have found some of these islands. But my hope was, that if I
stood along this coast till I came to that part where the English traded, I
should find some of their vessels upon their usual design of trade, that
would relieve and take us in.
By the best of my calculation, the place where I now was must be
that country which, lying between the Emperor of Morocco's dominions
and the Negroes, lies waste and uninhabited, except by wild beasts ; the
Negroes having abandoned it, and gone farther south, for fear of the
Moors, and the Moors not thinking it worth inhabiting, by reason of its
barrenness ; and, indeed, both forsaking it because of the prodigious
numbers of tigers, lions, leopards, and other furious creatures which
harbour there : so that the Moors use it for their hunting only, where
they go like an army, two or three thousand men at a time ; and, indeed,
for near a hundred miles together upon this coast, we saw nothing but a
waste, uninhabited country by day, and heard nothing but howlings and
roaring of wild beasts by night.
Once or twice, in the daytime, I thought I saw the Pico of Teneriffe,
being the high top of the mountain Teneriffe, in the Canaries, and had a
great mind to venture out, in hopes of reaching thither ; but having tried
twice, I was forced in again by contrary winds, the sea also going too
high for my little vessel: so I resolved to pursue my first design, and
keep along the shore.
Several times I was obliged to land for fresh water, after we had left
this place ; and once, in particular, being early in the morning, we came
to an anchor under a little point of land which was pretty high ; and the
tide beginning to flow, we lay still, to go farther in. Xury, whose eyes
were more about him than, it seems, mine were, calls softly to me, and
tells/me that we had best go farther off the shore ; " For," says he, " look,
yonder lies a dreadful monster on the side of that hillock, fast asleep." I
looked where he pointed, and saw a dreadful monster indeed, for it was a
terrible great lion that lay on the side of the shore, under the shade of a
piece of the hill that hung, as it were, over him. "Xury," says I,
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
23
" you shall go on shore and kill him."
Xury looked frighted, and said, "Me
kill! he eat me at one mouth"
one mouthful he meant. However, I
said no more to the boy but bade him
be still ; and I took our biggest gun, which was almost musket bore,
and loaded it with a good charge of powder, and with two slugs, and
laid it down'; then I loaded another gun with two bullets ; and a third,
for we had three pieces, I loaded with five smaller bullets. I took
the best aim I could with the first piece, to have shot him into the
head; but he lay so, with his leg raised a little above his nose, that
the slugs hit his leg about the knee, and broke the bone. He started
up, growling at first, but finding his leg broke, fell down again, and
then got up upon three legs, and gave the most hideous roar that
ever I heard. I was a little surprised that I had not hit him on the
head ; however, I took up the second piece immediately, and though
he began to move off, fired again, and shot him into the head, and
had the pleasure to see him drop, and make but little noise, but lie
struggling for life. Then Xury took heart, and would have me let
m
24 ADVENTURES OB 1
\ .
him go on shore. ""Well, go," said I; so the boy jumped into the
water, and taking a, little gun in one hand, swam to shore with the
other hand, and coming close to the creature, put the muzzle of the
piece to his ear, and shot him into the head again, which dispatched
him quite.
This was game, indeed, to us, but it was no food ; and I was very sorry
to lose three charges of powder and shot upon a creature that was good
for nothing to us. However, Xury said he would have some of him ; so
he comes on board and asked me to give him the hatchet. " For what,
Xury ? " said I. " Me cut off his head," said he. However Xury could
not cut off his head ; but he cut off a foot, and brought it with him, and
it was a monstrous great one. I bethought myself, however, that per
haps the skin of him might, one way or other, be of some value to us;
and I resolved to take off his skin, if I could. So Xury and I went to
work with him : but Xury was much the better workman at it, for I
knew very ill how to do it. Indeed, it took us both up the whole day ;
but at last we got off the hide of him, and spreading it on the top of
our cabin, the sun effectually dried it in two days' time, and it afterwards
served me to lie upon.
After this stop, we made on to the southward continually, for ten or
twelve days, living very sparingly on our provisions, which began to
abate very much, and going no oftener into the shore than we were
obliged to for fresh water. My design in this, was to make the river
Gambia, or Senegal ; that is to say, any where about the Cape de Yerd,
where I was in hopes to meet with some European ship : and if I did
not, I knew not what course I had to take, but to seek for the islands,
or perish among the Negroes. I knew that all the ships from Europe,
which sailed either to the coast of Guinea, or to Brazil, or to the East
Indies, made this Cape, or those islands : and in a word I put the whole
of my fortune upon this single point, either that I must meet with some
ship, or must perish.
"When I had pursued this resolution about ten days longer, as I have
said, I began to see that the land was inhabited ; and in two or three
places, as we sailed by, we saw people stand upon the shore to look at
us : we could also perceive they were quite black and stark naked.
I was once inclined to have gone on shore to them ; but Xury was my
better counsellor, and said to me, " No go, no go." However, I hauled in
nearer the shore, that I might talk to them ; and I found they ran along
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 25
the shore by me a good way. I observed they had no weapons in their
hands, except one, who had a long slender stick, which Xury said was a
lance, and that they would throw them a great way with good aim ; so
I kept at a distance, but talked to them by signs, as well as I could, and
particularly made signs for something to eat. They beckoned to me to
stop my boat, and they would fetch me some meat : upon this I lowered
the top of my sail, and lay by, and two of them ran up into the country,
and in less than half-an-hour came back and brought with them two
pieces of dry flesh and some corn, such as is the produce of their country :
but we neither knew what the one or the other was ; however, we were
willing to accept it. But how to come at it was our next dispute, for
I was not for venturing on shore to them, and they were as much afraid
of us : but they took a safe way for us all, for they brought it to the
shore, and laid it down, and went and stood a great way off till we
fetched it on board, and then came close to us again.
We made signs of thanks to them, for we had nothing to make them
amends: but an opportunity offered that very instant to oblige them
wonderfully; for while we were lying by the shore, came two mighty
creatures, one pursuing the other (as we took it) with great fury, from
the mountains towards the sea : whether it was the male pursuing the
female, or whether they were in sport or in rage we could hot tell, any
more than we could tell whether it was usual or strange ; but I believe it
was the latter, because, in the first place, those ravenous creatures seldom
appear but in the night ; and, in the second place, we found the people
terribly frighted, especially the women. The man that had the lance,
or dart, did not fly from them, but the rest did ; however, as the two
creatures ran directly into the water, they did not seem to offer to fall
upon any of the Negroes, but plunged themselves into the sea, and swam
about, as if they had come for their diversion. At last, one of them began
to come nearer our boat than I at first expected ; but I lay ready for him,
for I had loaded my gun with all possible expedition, and bade Xury
load both the others. As soon as he came fairly within my reach, I fired,
and shot him directly into the head : immediately he sunk down into the
water, but rose instantly, and plunged up and down, as if he was struggling
for life, and so indeed he was : he immediately made to the shore ; but
between the wound which was his mortal hurt, and the strangling of the
water, he died just before he reached the shore.
It is impossible to express the astonishment of these poor creatures at
26 ADVENTURES OF
the noise and fire of my gun. Some of them were ready even to die
for fear, and fell down as dead with the very terror ; but when they saw
the creature dead, and sunk in the water, and that I made signs to them
to come to the shore, they took heart and came to the shore, and began to
search for the creature. I found him by his blood staining the water ;
and by the help of a rope, which I slung round him, and gave the
Negroes to haul, they dragged him on shore, and found that it was a
most curious leopard, spotted, and fine to an admirable degree ; and the
Negroes held up their hands with admiration, to think what it was I had
killed him with.
The other creature, frighted with the flash of fire and the noise of
the gun, swam on shore, and ran up directly to the mountains from
whence they came ; nor could I, at that distance, know what it was.
I found quickly the Negroes were for eating the flesh of this creature, so
I was willing to have them take it as a favour from me ; which, when I
made signs to them that they might take him, they were very thankful
for. Immediately they fell to work with him ; and though they had no
knife, yet with a sharpened piece of wood, they took off his skin as
readily, and much more readily than we could have done with a knife.
They offered me some of the flesh, which I declined, making as if I
would give 'it them, but made signs for the skin, which they gave me
very freely, and brought me a great deal more of their provisions, which,
though I did not understand, yet I accepted. Then I made signs to them
for some water, and held out one of my jars to them, turning it bottom
upwards, to show that it was empty, and that I wanted to have it filled.
They called immediately to some of their friends, and there came two
women, and brought a great vessel made of earth, and burnt, as I sup
pose, in the sun ; this they set down for me, as before, and I sent Xury
on shore with my jars, and filled them all three. The women were as
stark naked as the men.
I was now furnished with roots and corn, such as it was, and water ;
and, leaving my friendly Negroes, I made forward for about eleven days
more, without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run out a
great length into the sea at about the distance of four or five leagues
before me ; and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing, to make
this point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues from the
land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward : then I concluded,
as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape de Yerd, and those
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 27
the islands called, from thence, Cape de Yerd Islands. However, they
were at a great distance, and I could not well tell what I had best to do ;
for if I should be taken with a fresh of wind, I might neither reach one
nor the other.
In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the cabin ; and
sat me down, Xury having the helm ; when, on a sudden, the boy cried
out, " Master, master, a ship with a sail !" and the foolish boy was frighted
out of his wits, thinking it must needs be some of his master's ships
sent to pursue us, when I knew we were gotten far enough out of their
reach. I jumped out of the cabin, and immediately saw, not only the
ship, but what she was, viz., that it was a Portuguese ship, and, as I
thought, was bound to the Coast of Guinea for Negroes. But, when I
observed the course she steered, I was soon convinced they were bound
some other way, and did not design to come any nearer to the shore :
upon which I stretched out to sea as much as I could, resolving to speak
with them, if possible.
With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come
in their way, but that they would be gone by before I could make any
signal to them; but after I had crowded to the utmost, and began to
despair, they, it seems, saw me, by the help of their perspective glasses,
and that it was some European boat, which they supposed must belong
to some ship that was lost ; so they shortened sail to let me come up. I
was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron's ancient on board,
I made a waft of it to them, for a signal of distress, and fired a gun, both
which they saw ; for they told me they saw the smoke, though they did
not hear the gun. Upon these signals, they very kindly brought to,
and lay by for me ; and in about three hours' time I came up with
them.
They isked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in
French, out I understood none of them ; but, at last, a Scotch sailor, who
was o- 1 board, called to me, and I answered him, and told him I was an
Enp.Jishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors at
SpJ.ee : then they bade me come on board, and very kindly took me in,
and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will believe, that I
was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable, and almost
hopeless, condition as I was in ; and I immediately offered all I had to
the captain of the ship, as a return, for my deliverance ; but he generously
28 ADVENTUKES Off
told me he would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be
delivered safe to me when I came to the Brazils. " For," says he, " I have
saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be saved
myself; and it may, one time or other, be my lot to be taken up in the
same condition. Besides, said he, when I carry you to the Brazils, so
great a way from your own country, if I should take from you what you
have, you will be starved there, and then I only take away that life I
have given. No, no, Seignior Inglese" (Mr. Englishman), says lie, " I will
carry you thither in charity, and these things will help to buy your sub
sistence there, and your passage home again."
As he was charitable in this proposal, so he was just in the perform
ance, to a tittle: for he ordered the seamen, that none should offer to
touch any thing I had : then he took every thing into his own posses
sion, and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might have
them, even so much as my three earthen jars.
As to my boat, it was a very good one ; and that he saw, and told me
he would buy it of me for the ship's use, and asked me what I would
have for it ? I told him, he had been so generous to me in every thing,-
that I could not offer to make any price of the boat, but left it entirely to
him : upon which he told me he would give me a note of his hand to pay
me eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil ; and when it came there, if any
one offered to give more, he would make it up. He offered me also sixty
pieces of eight more for my boy Xury, which I was loth to take ; not
that I was not willing to let the captain have him, but I was very loth
to sell the poor boy's liberty, who Had assisted me so faithfully in pro
curing my own. However, when I let him know my reason, he owned
it to be just, and offered me this medium, that he would give the boy
an obligation to set him free in ten years, if he turned Christian. Upon
this, and Xury saying he was willing to go to him, I let ^he captain
have him.
"We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and arrived in the Bay de
Todos los Santos, or All Saints' Bay, in about twenty-two days after.
And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of .all
conditions of life; and what to do next with myself I was now to
consider.
The generous treatment the captain gave me, I can never enough
remember : he would take nothing of me for my passage, gave me twenty
ducats for the leopard's skin, and forty for the lion's skin, which I had
KOBINSON CRUSOE.
29
in the boat, and caused every thing I had in the ship to be punctually
delivered to me ; and what I was willing to sell he bought, such as the
case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of bees-wax,
for I had made candles of the rest : in a word, I made about two
hundred and twenty pieces of eight of all my cargo ; and with this stock,
I went on shore in the Brazils.
Tne Pico or Peak of Teneriffe.
30 ADVENTURES OP
CHAPTER III.
Crusoe buys land, and becomes a planter The Portuguese captain continues his good offices The
plantation succeeds, but prosperity does not bring contentment Becomes supercargo of a slaver
A hurricane The ship is driven westward, and strikes on a sandbank The crew take to their
boat, which is swamped All are drowned, except Crusoe, who is washed against a rock, and
succeeds in reaching the mainland He rejoices at his deliverance, reflects on his position, and
remembers that he has neither food for sustenance nor weapons for defence Sleeps in a tree.
HAD not been long here, but being recommended by the captain
to the house of a good honest man, like himself, who had an
ingenio as they call it that is, a plantation and a sugar-house,
I lived with him some time, and acquainted myself, by that
means, with the manner of planting and of making sugar : and seeing
how well the planters lived, and how they grew rich suddenly, I resolved,
if I could get licence to settle there, I would turn planter among
them ; resolving, in the meantime, to find out some way to get my
money, which I had left in London, remitted to me. To this purpose,
getting a kind of a letter of naturalization, I purchased as much land
that was uncured as my money would reach, and formed a plan for my
plantation and settlement, and such a one as might be suitable to the
stock which I proposed to myself to receive from England.
I had a neighbour, a Portuguese of Lisbon, but born of English
parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such circumstances as I
was. I call him neighbour, because his plantation lay next to mine,
and we went on very sociably together. My stock was but low as well
as his, and we rather planted for food than any thing else, for about two
years. However, we began to increase, and our land began to come
into order; so that the third year we planted some tobacco, and made
each of us a large piece of ground ready for planting canes in the year to
come ; but we both wanted help, and now I found, more than before, I
had done wrong in parting with my boy Xury.
But alas! for me to do wrong, that never did right, was no great
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 31
wonder. I had no remedy, but to go on : I was gotten into an employ
ment quite remote to my genius, and directly contrary to the life I
delighted in, and for which I forsook my father's house and "broke ,
through all his good advice : nay, I was coming into the very middle ** ^
station, or upper degree of low life, which my father advised me to
before; and which, if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have
staid at home, and never have fatigued myself in the world, as I had
done : and I used often to say to myself, I could have done this as well
in England, among my friends, as have gone five thousand miles off
to do it among strangers and savages, in a wilderness, and at such a
distance as never to hear from any part of the world that had the least
knowledge of me.
In this manner I used to look upon my condition with the utmost
regret. I had nobody to converse with, but now and then this neighbour;
no work to be done but by the labour of my hands ; and I used to say, I
lived just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had
nobody there but himself. But how just has it been! and how should
all men reflect that, when they compare their present conditions with
others that are worse, heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and
be convinced of their former felicity by their experience. I say, how just
has it been that the truly solitary life I reflected on, in an island of
mere desolation, should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compared
it with the life which I then led, in which, had I continued, I had, in
all probability, been exceeding prosperous and rich.
I was, in some degree, settled in my measures for carrying on the
plantation, before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that took me up
at sea, went back (for the ship remained there, in providing his loading,
and preparing for his voyage, near three months) when telling him what
little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this friendly and
sincere advice: " Seignior Inglese," says he (for so he always called me), " if
you will give me letters, and a procuration here in form to me, with
orders to the person who has your money in London to send your effects
to Lisbon to such persons as I shall direct, and in such goods as are
proper for this country, I will bring you the produce of them, God
willing, at my return ; but since human affairs are all subject to changes
and disasters, I would have you give orders but for one hundred pounds
sterling, which, you say, is half your stock, and let the hazard be run for
the first, so that, if it come safe, you may order the rest the same way ;
32 ADVENTURES OP
and, if it miscarry, you may have the other half to have recourse to for
your supply."
This was so wholesome advice, and looked so friendly, that I could
not hut he convinced it was the best course I could take ; so I accordingly
prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I had left my money, and
a procuration to the Portuguese captain, as he desired.
I wrote the English captain's widow a full account of all my adven
tures, my slavery, escape, and how I had met with the Portuguese
captain at sea, the humanity of his behaviour, and what condition I was
now in, with all other necessary directions for my supply : and when this
honest captain came to Lisbon, he found means, by some of the English
merchants there; to send over, not the order only, but a full account of
my story to a merchant at London, who represented it effectually to her :
whereupon she not only delivered the money, but, out of her own pocket,
sent the Portuguese captain a very handsome present for his humanity
and charity to me.
The merchant in London vested this hundred pounds in English
goods, such as the captain had writ for, sent them 'directly to him at
Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me at the Brazils : among which,
without my direction (for I was too young in my business to think of
them), he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, iron work, and utensils,
necessary for my plantation, and which were of great use to me.
"When this cargo arrived, I thought my fortune made, for I was
surprised with joy of it ; and my good steward, the captain, had laid
out the five pounds which my friend had sent him for a present for
himself, to purchase and bring me, over a servant under bond for six
years' service, and would not accept of any consideration, except a little
tobacco, which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.
Neither was this all : but my goods being all English manufactures,
such as cloths, stuffs, baize, and things particularly valuable and desirable
in the country, I found means to sell them to a very great advantage ; so
that I may say, I had more than four times the value of my first cargo,
and was now infinitely beyond my poor neighbour, I mean in the advance
ment of my plantation ; for the first thing I did, I bought me a Negro
slave, and a European servant also I mean another besides that which the
captain brought me from Lisbon.
But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our
greatest adversity, so was it with me. I went on the next year with great
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 33
success in my plantation : I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco on my own
ground, more than I had disposed of for necessaries among my neigh
bours ; and these fifty rolls, being each of above one hundred pounds
weight, were well cured, and laid by against the return of the fleet from
Lisbon. And now, increasing in business and in wealth, my head b,egan
to be full of projects and undertakings beyond my reach ; such as are,
indeed, often the ruin of the best heads in business.
Had I continued in the station I was now in, I had room for all the
happy things to have yet befallen me, for which my father so earnestly
recommended a quiet retired life, and which he had so sensibly described
the middle station of life to be full of : but other things attended me, and
I was still to be the wilful agent of all my own miseries; and, par
ticularly, to increase my fault, and double the reflections upon myself,
which in my future sorrows I should have leisure to make, all these
miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my^
foolish inclination of wandering abroad, and pursuing that inclination in
contradiction to the clearest views of doing myself good in a fair and
plain pursuit of those prospects, and those measures of life, which nature
and Providence concurred to present me with, and to make my duty.
As I had once done thus in breaking away from my parents, so I could
not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy view I had of
being a rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a
rash and immoderate desire pjjrising faster than the nature of the thing
admitted; and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulf of
human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent
with life and a state of health, in the world.
To come, then, by just degrees, to the particulars of this part of my
story : you may suppose, that having now lived almost four years in the
Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plan
tation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted ac
quaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among
the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port ; and that, in my
discourse among them, I had frequently given them an account of my
two voyages to the coast of Guinea, the manner of trading with the
Negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the coast, for trifles-
such as beads, toys, knives, scissdrs, hatchets, bits of glass, and the like
not only gold dust, Guinea grains, elephants'. teeth, etc., but Negroes, for
the service of the Brazils, in great numbers.
3
34 ADVENTURES OF
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads,
but especially to that part which related to the buying Negroes ; which
was a trade at that time not only not far entered into, but, as far as it
was, had been carried on by the assientos, or permission of the kings of
Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the public, so that few Negroes
were bought, and those excessive dear.
It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters
of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three
of them came to me the next morning, and told me they had been
musing very much upon what I had discoursed with them of the last
night, and they came to make a secret proposal to me : and, after en
joining me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a
ship to go to Guinea y that they had all plantations as well as I, and were
straitened for nothing so much as servants ; that, as it was a trade that
could not be carried on, because they could not publicly sell the Negroes
when they came home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring
the Negroes on shore privately, and divide them among their own planta
tions ; and, in a word, the question was whether I would go their super
cargo in the ship, to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea ?
and they offered me that I should have my equal share of the Negroes,
without providing any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to any
one that had not had a settlement and plantation of his own to look after,
which was in a fair way of coming to be very considerable, and with a
good stock upon it. But for me, that was thus entered and established, and
had nothing to do but go on as I had begun, for three or four years more,
and to have sent for the other hundred pounds from England, and who,
in that time, and with that little addition, could scarce have failed of
being worth three or four thousand pounds sterling, and that increasing
too, for me to think of such a voyage, was the most preposterous thing
that ever man, in such circumstances, could be guilty of.
Eut I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the
offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs, when my father's
good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I would go with
all my heart, if they would undertake to look after my plantation in my
absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct, if I miscarried.
This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings, or covenants, to do
so ; and I made a formal will, disposing of my plantation and eifects, in
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 35
case of my death, making the captain of the ship that had saved my life, as
before, my universal heir, but obliging him to dispose of my effects as I
had directed in my will, one half of the produce being to himself, and the
other to be shipped to England.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects, and to
keep up my plantation : had I used half as much prudence to have looked
into my own interest, and have made a judgment of what I ought to have
done and not to have done, I had certainly never gone away from so
prosperous an undertaking, leaving all the probable views of a thriving
circumstance, and gone upon a voyage to sea, attended with all its common
hazards, to say nothing of the reasons I had to expect particular mis
fortunes to myself.
But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my fancy,
rather than my reason ; and accordingly, the ship being fitted out and the
cargo furnished, and all things done as by agreement by my partners in
the voyage, I went on board in an evil hour again, the first of September,
1659, being the same day eight years that I went from my father and
mother at Hull, in order to act the rebel to their authority, and the fool
to my own interest.
Our ship was about one hundred and twenty tons burden, carried six
guns and fourteen men, besides the master, his boy, and myself : we had
on board no large cargo of goods, except of such toys as were fit for our
trade with the Negroes, such as beads, bits of glass, shells, and odd trifles,
especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissors, hatchets, and the like.
The same day I went on board, we set sail, standing away to the north
ward upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for the African
coast, when they came about ten or twelve degrees of northern latitude,
which, it seems, was the manner of their course in those days. We had
very good weather, only excessive hot, all the way upon our own coast,
till we came to the height of Cape St. Augustino ; from whence, keeping
farther off at sea, we lost sight of land, and steered as if we were bound
for the isle Fernando de Noronha, holding our course N. E. by IS", and
leaving those isles on the east. In this course we passed the Line in
about twelve days' time, and were, by our last observation, in seven
degrees twenty-two minutes northern latitude, when a violent tornado, or
hurricane, took us quite out of our knowledge : it began from the south
east, came about to the north-west, and then settled in the north-east,
Irom whence it blew in such a terrible manner, that for twelve days
36 ADVENTURES OP
together we could do nothing but drive, and, scudding away before it, let
it carry us whither ever fate and the fury of the winds directed ; and,
during these twelve days, I need not say that I expected every day to
be swallowed up, nor, indeed, did any in the ship expect to save their
lives.
In this distress, we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of our
men died of the calenture, and one man and a boy washed overboard.
About the twelfth day, the weather abating a little, the master made an
observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about eleven
degrees north latitude, but that he was twenty-two degrees of longitude
difference, west from Cape St. Augustino ; so that he found he was gotten
upon the coast of Guyana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river
Amazons, toward that of the river Oroonoque, commonly called the Great
River, and began to consult with me what course he should take, for the
ship was leaky and very much disabled, and he was going directly back
to the coast of Brazil.
I was positively against that ; and looking over the charts of the sea-
coast of America with him, we concluded there was no inhabited country
for us to have recourse to, till we came within the circle of the Caribbee
islands, and therefore resolved to stand away for Barbadoes, which, by
keeping off at sea to avoid the indraft of the bay or gulf of Mexico, we
might easily perform, as we hoped, in about fifteen days' sail, whereas
we could not possibly make our voyage to the coast of Africa without
some asistance, both to our ship and to ourselves.
With this design, we changed our course, and steered away N". "W. by
"W. in order to reach some of our English islands, where I hoped for
relief : but our voyage was otherwise determined, for being in the latitude
of twelve degrees eighteen minutes, a second storm came upon us, which
carried us away with the same impetuosity westward, and drove us so out
of the very way of all human commerce, that, had all our lives been saved
as 'to the sea, we were rather in danger of being devoured by savages than
ever returning to our own country.
In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men
early in the morning, cried out, Land ! and we had no sooner run out of
the cabin to look out, in hopes of seeing whereabouts in the world we
were, but the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment, her motion being
so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner that we expected we
should all have perished immediately ; and we were immediately driven
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 37
into our close quarters, to shelter us from the very foam and spray of
the sea.
It is not easy for any one who has not been in the like condition to
describe or conceive the consternation of men in such circumstances : we
knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was we were driven,
whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not inhabited ; and
as the rage of the wind was still great, though rather less than at first,
we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many minutes
without breaking in pieces, unless the winds, by a kind of miracle,
should turn immediately about. In a word, we sat looking one upon
another, and expecting death every moment, and every man acting
accordingly, as preparing for another world ; for there was little or nothing
more for us to do in this. That which was our present comfort, and all
the comfort we had, was that, contrary to our expectation, the ship did
not break yet, and that the master said the wind began to abate.
Now, though we thought that the wind did a little abate, yet the ship
having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to expect
her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and had nothing
to do, but to think of saving our lives as well as we could. We had a
boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was first staved by dashing
against the ship's rudder, and, in the next place, she broke away, and
either sunk, or was driven off to sea ; so there was no hope from her.
We had another boat on board, but how to get her off into the sea was a
doubtful thing ; however, there was no room to debate, for we fancied the
ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told us she was
actually broken already.
In this distress the mate of our vessel lays hold of the boat, and, with
the help of the rest of the men, they got her slung over the ship's side ;
and, getting all into her, let go, and committed ourselves, being eleven in
number, to God's mercy and the wild sea ; for though the storm was
abated considerably, yet the sea went dreadful high upon the shore,
and might well be called den wild zee, as the Dutch call the sea in a
storm.
And now our case was very dismal indeed ; for we all saw plainly
that the sea went so high that the boat could not live, and that we
should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none ; nor,
if we had, could we have done anything with it, so we worked at the oar
towards the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution ;
38 ADVENTURES OF
for we all knew that when the boat came nearer the shore, she would
be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we
committed our souls to God in the most earnest manner, and the wind
driving us towards the shore, we hastened our destruction with our own
hands, pulling as well as we could towards land.
What the shore was whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal
we knew not ; the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow
of expectation was, if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the
mouth of some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat
in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water.
But there was nothing of this appeared ; but as we made nearer and
nearer the shore, the land looked more frightful than the sea.
After we had rowed, or rather driven, about a league and a half,
as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of
us, and plainly bid us expect the coup de grace. In a word, it took us
with such fury, that it overset the boat at once ; and separating us, as
well from the boat as from one another, gave us not time hardly to say,
" God !" for we were all swallowed up in a moment.-
Kothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt, when
I sunk into the water ; for though I swam very well, yet I could not
deliver myself from the waves so as to draw breath, till that wave having
driven me, or rather carried me, a vast way on towards the shore, and
having spent itself, went back and left me upon the land almost dry, but
half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind,
as well as breath left, that, seeing myself nearer the main land than I
expected, I got upon my feet and endeavoured to make on towards the
land as fast as I could, before another wave should return and take me up
again ; but I soon found it was impossible to , avoid it, for I saw the sea
come after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy which
I had no means or strength to contend with : my business was to hold my
breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could, and so, by swimming,
to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself towards the shore, if possible ;
my greatest concern now being, th#t the sea, as it would carry me a great
way towards the shore when it came on, might not carry me back again
with it when it gave back towards the sea.
The wave that came upon me again buried me at once twenty or thirty
foot deep in its own body, and I could feel myself carried with a mighty
force and swiftness towards the shore, a very great way ; but I held my
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 39
breath, and assisted myself to swim still forward witli all my might. I
was ready to burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself rising
up, so, to my immediate relief, I found my head and hands shoot out
above the surface of the water ; and though it was not two seconds of
time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me greatly, gave me
breath and new courage. I was covered again with water a good while,
but not so long but I held it out; and finding the water had spent
itself and began to return, I struck forward against the return of the
waves, and felt ground again with my feet* I stood still a few moments,
to recover breath and till the water went from me, and then took to my
heels and ran with what strength I had farther towards the shore. But
neither would this deliver me from the fury of the sea, which came pour
ing in after me again ; and twice more I was lifted up by the waves and
carried forwards as before, the shore being very flat.
The last time of these two had well near been fatal to me ; for the
sea, having hurried me along, as before, landed me, or rather dashed me,
against a piece of a rock, and that with such force as it left me senseless,
and indeed helpless, as to my own deliverance ; for the blow, taking my
side and breast, beat the breath, as it were, quite out of my body, and
had it returned again immediately, I must have been strangled in the
water ; but I recovered a little before the return of the waves, and, seeing
I should be covered again with water, I resolved to hold fast by a piece
of the rock, and so to hold my breath, if possible, till the wave went back.
]S"ow as the waves were not so high as the first, being near land, I held
my hold till the wave abated, and then fetched another run, which brought
me so near the shore that the next wave, though it went over me, yet
did not so swallow me up as to carry me away ; and, the next run I took,
I got to the main land, where, to my great comfort, I clambered up the
cliffs of the shore, and sat me down upon the grass, free from danger and
. quite out of the reach of the water.
I was now landed and safe on shore, and began to look up and thank
God that my life was saved, in a case wherein there was, some minutes
before, scarce any room to hope. I believe it is impossible to express
to the life what the ecstacies and transports of the soul are, when it is
so saved, as I may say, out of the grave ; and I do not wonder now at that
custom, viz., that when a malefactor, who has the halter about his neck,
is tied up and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought
to him, I say, I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to
40
ADYENTURES OF
let him blood that very moment they tell him of it, that the surprise may
not drive the animal spirits from the heart, and overwhelm him :
" For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first."
I walked about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole
being, as I may say, wrappedjipjn the contemplation of my deliverance ;
making a thousand gestures and motions, which I cannot describe ; reflect
ing upon all my comrades that were drowned, and that there should not be
one soul saved but myself, for, as for them, I never saw them afterwards,
or any sign of them, except three of their hats, one cap, and two shoes
that were not fellows.
I cast my eyes to the stranded vessel, when, the breach and froth of
the sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far off, and con
sidered, Lord ! how was it possible I could get on shore ?
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 41
After I had solaced my mind with the comfortable part of my condi
tion, I began to look round me, to see what kind of a place I was in, and
what was next to be done ; and I soon found my comforts abate, and
that, in a word, I had a dreadful deliverance ; for I was wet, had no
clothes to shift me, nor anything either to eat or drink, to comfort me ;
neither did I see any prospect before me, but that of perishing with
hunger, or being devoured by wild beasts : and that which was parti
cularly afflicting to me was, that I had no weapon either to hunt and
kill any creature for my sustenance, or to defend myself against any other
creature that might desire to kill me for theirs. In a word, I had nothing
about me but a knife, a tobacco-pipe, and a little tobacco in a box. This
was all my provision ; and this threw me into terrible agonies of mind,
that, for a while, I run about like a madman. Night coming upon me, I
began, with a heavy heart, to consider what would be my lot if there
were any ravenous beasts in that country, seeing at night they always
come abroad for their prey.
All the remedy that offered to my thoughts, at that time, was to get
up into a thick bushy tree, like a fir, but thorny which grew near me,
and where I resolved to sit all night and consider the next day what
death I should die, for as yet I saw no prospect of life. I walked about
a furlong from the shore, to see if I could find any fresh water to drink,
which I did, to my great joy, and having drunk, and put a little tobacco
in my mouth to prevent hunger, I went to the tree, and getting up into
it, endeavoured to place myself so as that, if I should sleep, I might
not fall ; and having cut me a short stick like a truncheon, for my
defence, I took up my lodging, and, having been excessively fatigued,
I fell fast asleep, and stypt as comfortably as, I believe, few could have
done in my condition, and found myself the most refreshed with it that I
think I ever was on such an occasion.
42 ADVENTURES OF
CHAPTER IV.
Crusoe, on waking in the morning, sees the ship lying a-ground high out of the water He comes
down from the tree Swims to the ship Constructs a raft, which he loads with stores, and
guides with difficulty to the shore Surveys the country, and discovers that it is. an island and
uninhabited Shoots a hird, the flesh of which proves to be carrion Unloads the raft, and
erects a hut Swims to the ship again, and brings a second cargo ashore On his return is
confronted by a wild cat, which discovers a disposition to be friendly Makes a tent, which he
furnishes and fortifies Repeats his visits to the ship, which he strips of its contents Removes
his tent to a more advantageous site, and fences it strongly Kills a she-goat, and is grieved
thereat.
I waked it was broad day, the weather clear, and
the storm abated, so that the sea did not rage and swell
as before ; but that which surprised me most was, that
the ship was lifted off in the night from the sand where
she lay, by the swelling of the tide, and was driven up almost as far
as the rock which I first mentioned, where I had been so bruised by
the dashing me against it. This being within about a mile from the
shore where I was, and the ship seeming to stand upright still, I wished
myself on board, that at least I might save some necessary things for
my use.
When I came down from my apartment in the tree, I looked about
me again, and the first thing I found was the boat, which lay, as the wind
and the sea had tossed her up upon the land, about two miles on my right
hand. I walked as far as I could upon the shore to have got to her, but
found a neck, or inlet, of water between me and the boat, which was about
half a mile broad ; so I came back for the present, being more intent
upon getting at the ship, where I hoped to find something for my present
subsistence.
A little after noon I found the sea very calm, and the tide ebbed
so far out, that I could come within a quarter of a mile of the ship ; and
here I found a fresh renewing of my grief, for I saw evidently that, if
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 43
we had kept on board, we had all been safe that is to say, we had
all got safe on shore, and I had not been so miserable as to be left
entirely destitute of all comfort and company as I now was. This forced
tears from my eyes again, but as there was little relief in that, I resolved,
if possible, to get to the ship ; so I pulled off my clothes, for the weather
was hot to extremity, and took the water : but when I came to the ship,
my difficulty was still greater to know how to get on board, for as she
lay aground, and high out of the water, there was nothing within my
reach to lay hold of. I swam round her twice, and the second time I
spied a small piece of rope, which I wondered I did not see at first, hang
down by the fore-chains, so low as that with great difficulty I got hold of
it, and by the help of that rope got into the forecastle of the ship. Here
I found that the ship was bulged, and had a great deal of water in her
hold ; but that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or rather
earth, and her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low, almost
to the water. By this means all her quarter was free, and all that was in
that part was dry ; for you may be sure my first work was to search and
to see what was spoiled and what was free : and first I found that all the
ship's provisions were dry and untouched by the water ; and being very
well disposed to eat, I went to the bread-room, and filled my pockets with
biscuit, and eat it as I went about other things, for I had no time to lose.
I also found some rum in the great cabin, of which I took a large dram,
and which I had indeed need enough of, to spirit me for what was before
me. Now I wanted nothing but a boat, to furnish myself with many
things which I foresaw would be very necessary to me.
It was in vain to sit still and wish for what was not to be had, and
this extremity rpju5ejdjny_.s^plication ; we had several spare yards, and
two or three large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or two in the ship.
I resolved to fall to work with these, and flung as many of them overboard
as I could manage of their weight, tying every one with a rope, that
they might not drive away. When this was done, I went down the
ship's side, and, pulling them to me, I tied four of them fast together at
both ends, as well as I could, in the form of a raft, and laying two or
three short pieces of plank upon them crossways, I found I could walk
upon it very well, but that it was not able to bear any great weight, the
pieces being too light ; so I went to work, and with the carpenter's saw I
cut a spare topmast into three lengths, and added them to my raft, with a
great deal of labour and pains. But the hope of furnishing myself with
44 ADVENTURES OF
necessaries encouraged me to go beyond what I should have been able to
have done upon another occasion.
My raft was now strong enough to bear any reasonable weight. My
next care was what to load it with, and how to preserve what I laid
upon it from the surf of the sea. But I was not long considering this.
I first laid all the planks, or boards, upon it that I could get, and having
considered well what I most wanted, I first got three of the seamen's chests,
which I had broken open and emptied, and lowered them down upon my
raft. The first of these I filled with provisions, viz., bread, rice, three
Dutch cheeses, five pieces of dried goats' flesh (which we lived much
upon), and a little remainder of European corn which had been laid by
for some fowls' which we had brought to sea with us, but the fowls were
killed. There had been some barley and wheat together, but, to my
great disappointment, I found afterwards that the rats had eaten or
spoiled it all. As for liquors, I found several cases of bottles belonging
to our skipper, in which were some cordial waters, and, in all, about five
or six gallons of rack. These I stowed by themselves, there being no
need to put them into the chests, nor no room for them. "While I was
doing this I found the tide began to flow, though very calm, and I had
the mortification to see my coat, shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on
shore upon the sand, swim away ; as for my breeches, which were only
linen and open-kneed, I swam on board in them and my stockings.
However, this put me upon rummaging for clothes, of which I found
enough, but took no more than I wanted for present use, for I had
other things which my eye was more upon, as first, tools to work with on
shore ; and it was after long searching that I found out the carpenter's
chest, which was indeed a very useful prize to me, and much more
valuable than a ship loading of gold would have been at that time. I got
it down to my raft, even whole as it was, without losing time to look into
it, for I knew in general what it contained.
My next care was for some ammunition and arms. There were two
very good fowling-pieces in the great cabin, and two pistols; these I
secured first, with some powder-horns and a small bag of shot, and two
old rusty swords. I knew there were three barrels of powder in the ship,
but knew not where our gunner had stowed them, but with much search
I found them, two of them dry and good, the third had taken water.
Those two I got to my raft, with the arms. And now I thought myself
pretty well freighted, and began to think how I should get to shore with
CRUSOE STEERING HIS RAPT FROM THE WRECK.
BOBINSON CKUSOE. 45
/
them, having neither sail, oar, nor rudder ; and the least capful of wind
would have overset all my navigation.
I had three encouragements: 1. A smooth, calm sea. 2. The tide
rising, and setting in to the shore. 3. "What little wind there was
blew me tpwards the land. And thus, having found two or three
broken oars belonging to the boat, and, besides, the tools which were
in the chest, I found two saws, an axe, and a hammer ; and with this
cargo I put to sea. For a mile, or thereabouts, my raft went very well,
only that I found it drive a little distant from the place where I had
landed before, by which I perceived that there was some indraft of the
water, and consequently I hoped to find some creek or river there, which
I might make use of as a port to get to land with my cargo.
As I imagined, so it was : there appeared before me a little opening of
the land, and I found a strong current of the tide set into it ; so I guided
my raft as well as I could, to keep in the middle of the stream. But here
I had like to have suffered a second shipwreck, which, if I had, I think
verily would have broke my heart ; for, knowing nothing of the coast, my
raft ran aground at one end of it upon a shoal, and not being aground
at the other end, it wanted but a little that all my cargo had slipped off
towards that end that was afloat, and so fallen into the water. I did my
utmost, by setting my back against the chests, to keep them in their
places, but could not thrust off the raft with all my strength; neither
durst I stir from the posture I was in, but holding up the chests with all
my might, stood in that manner near half an hour, in which time the
rising of the water brought me a little more upon a level ; and a little
after, the water still rising, my raft floated again, and I thrust her off
with the oar I had into the channel, and then, driving up higher, I at
length found myself in the mouth of a little river, with land on both sides,
and a strong current or tide running up. I looked on both sides for
a proper place to get to shore, for I was not willing to be driven too high
up the river, hoping, in time, to see some ship at sea, and therefore
resolved to place myself as near the coast as I could.
At length I spied a little cove on the right shore of the creek, to which,
with great pain and difficulty, I guided my raft, and at last got so near
as that, reaching ground with my oar, I could thrust her directly in ; but
here I had like to have dipped all my cargo into the sea again, for that
shore lying pretty steep, that is to say, sloping, there was no place to land,
but where one end of my float, if it ran on shore, would lie so high, and
46 . ( ADVENTURES OP
the other sink lower, as before, that it would endanger my cargo again.
All that I could do was to wait till the tide was at the highest, keeping
the raft with my oar, like an anchor, to hold the side of it fast to the
shore, near a flat piece x of ground which I expected the water would flow
over ; and so it did. As soon as I found water enough, for my raft drew
about a foot of water, I thrust her upon that flat piece of ground, and
there fastened, or moored her, by sticking my two broken oars into the
ground, one on one side near one end, and one on the other side near the
other end ; and thus I lay till the water ebbed away, and left my raft and
all my cargo safe on shore.
My next work was to view the country, and seek a proper place for
my habitation, and where to stow my goods, to secure them from what
ever might happen. Where I was I yet knew not; whether on the
continent or on an island, whether inhabited or not inhabited, whether in
danger of wild beasts or not. There was a hill, not above a mile from
me, which rose up very steep and high, and which seemed to overtop
some other hills, which lay as in a ridge from it northward. I took out
one of the fowling-pieces, and one of the pistols, and a horn of powder,
and thus armed, I travelled for discovery up to the top of that hill, where,
after I had with great labour and difficulty got up to the top, I saw my
fate, to my great affliction, viz., that I was in an island environed every
way with the sea, no land to be seen, except some rocks which lay a
great way off, and two small islands, less than this, which lay about three
leagues to the west.
I found also that the island I was in was barren, and, as I saw good
reason to believe, uninhabited, except by wild beasts, of whom, however,
I saw none ; yet I saw abundance of fowls, but knew not their kinds,
neither when I killed them could I tell what was fit for food and what
not. At my coming back I shot at a great bird which I saw sitting upon
a tree on the side of a great wood. I believe it was the first gun that haft
been fired there since the creation of the world : I had no sooner fired,
but from all parts of the wood there arose an innumerable number of
fowls, of many sorts, making a confused screaming, and crying every
one according to his usual note ; but not one of them of any kind that I
knew. As for that creature I killed, I took it to be a kind of a hawk, its
colour and beak resembling it, but had no talons or claws more than
common. Its flesh was carrion and fit for nothing.
Contented with this discovery, I came back to my raft, and fell to
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 47
work to bring my. cargo on shore, which took me up the rest of that day ;
what to do with myself at night I knew not, nor indeed where to rest,
for I was afraid to lie down on the ground, not knowing but some wild
beast might devour me, though, as I afterwards found, there was really
no need for those fears.
However, as well as I could, I barricadoed myself round with the
chests and boards that I had brought on shore, and made a kind of a hut
for that night's lodging. As for food, I yet saw not which way to supply
myself, except that I had seen two or three creatures, like hares, run out
of the wood where I shot the fowl.
I now began to consider that I might yet get a great many things out
of the ship which would be useful to me, and particularly some of the
rigging and sails, and such other things as might come to land ; and I
resolved to make another voyage on board the vessel, if possible. And, as I
knew that the first storm that blew must necessarily break her all in pieces,
I resolved to set all other things apart till I got every thing out of the ship
that I could get. Then I called a council, that is to say, in my thoughts,
whether I should take back the raft, but this appeared impracticable ; so
I resolved to go, as before, when the tide was down, and I did so, only that
I stripped before I went from my hut, having nothing on but a chequered
shirt and a pair of linen drawers, and a pair of pumps on my feet.
I got on board the ship as before, and prepared a second raft ; and
having had experience of the first, I neither made this so unwieldy, nor
loaded it so hard, but yet I brought away several things very useful to
me : as, first, in the carpenter's stores, I found two or three bags full of nails
and spikes, a great screw-jack, a dozen or two of hatchets, and, above all,
that most useful thing called a grindstone. All these I secured together,
with several things belonging to the gunner, particularly two or three
iron crows, and two barrels of musket bullets, seven muskets, and another
fowling-piece, with some small quantity of powder more, a large bag full
of small shot, and a great roll of sheet lead ; but this last was so heavy I
could not hoist it up to get it over the ship's side.
Besides these things, I took all the men's clothes that I could find, and
a spare fore-topsail, hammock, and some bedding ; and with this I loaded
my second raft, and brought them all safe on shore to my very great
comfort.
I was under some apprehensions, during my absence from the land, that
at least my provisions might be devoured on shore ; but, when I came back,
48
ADVENTURES OF
I found no sign of any visitor, only there sat a creature like a wild cat
upon one of the chests, which, when I came towards it, ran away a little
distance and then stood still. She sat very composed and unconcerned,
and looked full in my face, as if she had a mind to he acquainted with
me. I presented my gun at her, hut, as she did not understand it she
was perfectly unconcerned at it, nor did she offer to stir away, upon
which I tossed her a bit of biscuit, though, by the way, I was not very
free of it, for my store was not great ; however, I spared her a bit, I say,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 49
and she went to it, smelled of it, -and eat it, and looked, as pleased, for
more ; but I thanked her, and could spare no more, so she marched off.
Having got my second cargo on shore though I was fain to open the
barrels of powder and bring them by parcels, for they were too heavy,
being large casks, I went to work to make me a little tent with the sail
and some poles which I cut for that purpose, and into this tent I brought
every thing that I knew would spoil, either with rain or sun ; and I piled
all the empty chests and casks up in a circle round the tent, to fortify it
from any sudden attempt either from man or beast.
When I had done this, I blocked up the door of the tent with some
boards within, and an empty chest set up on end without; and, spreading
one of the beds upon the ground, laying my two pistols just at my head,
and my gun at length by me, I went to bed for the first time, and slept
very quietly all night ; for I was very weary and heavy, for the night
before I had slept little, and had laboured very hard all day, as well to
fetch all those things from the ship as to get them on shore.
I had the biggest magazine of all kinds now that ever was laid up, I
believe, for one man ; but I was not satisfied still, for, while the ship sat
upright in that posture, I thought I ought to get every thing out of her
that I could : so every day, at low water, I went on board and brought
away something or other ; but particularly the third time I went, I
brought away as much of the rigging as I could, as also all the small
ropes and rope-twine I could get, with a piece of spare canvass, which
was to mend the sails upon occasion, and the barrel of wet gunpowder.
In a word, I brought away all the sails, first and last, only that I was
fain to cut them in pieces, and bring as much at a time as I could ; for
they were no more useful to be sails, but as mere canvass only.
But that which comforted me more still was, that, at last of all, after I
had made five or six such voyages as these, and thought I had nothing
more to expect from the ship that was worth my meddling with, I say,
after all this, I found a great hogshead of bread, and three large runlets of
rum or spirits, and a box of sugar and a barrel of fine flour ; this was
surprising to me, because I had given over expecting any more provisions,
except what was spoiled by the water. I soon emptied the hogshead of
that bread, and wrapped it up, parcel by parcel, in pieces of the sails,
which I cut out ; and, in a word, I got all this safe on shore also.
The next day I made another voyage, and now, having plundered the
ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables,
4
50 ADVENTURES OP
and cutting the great cable into pieces such as I could move, I got two
cables and a hawser on shore, with all the iron work I could get ; and,
having cut down the spritsail-yard and the mizen-yard, and every thing
I could, to make a large raft, I loaded it with all those heavy goods, and
came away : but my good luck began now to leave me ; for this raft was so
unwieldy and so overladen, that, after I was entered the little cove where I
had landed the rest of my goods, not being able to guide it so handily as I
did the other, it overset, and threw me and all my cargo into the water.
As for myself, it was no great harm, for I was near the shore ; but as to
my cargo, it was a great part of it lost, especially the iron, which I
expected would have been of great use to me. However, when the tide
was out, I got most of the pieces of cable ashore, and some of the iron,
though with infinite labour ; for I was fain to dip for it into the water, a
work which fatigued me very much. After this I went every day on
board, and brought away what I could get.
I had been now thirteen days on shore, and had been eleven times on
board the ship, in which time I had brought away all that one pair of
hands could well be supposed capable to bring ; though, I believe verily,
had the calm weather held, I should have brought away the whole ship,
piece by piece ; but, preparing the twelfth time to go on board, I found
the wind began to rise. However, at low water, I went on board, and
though I thought I had rummaged the cabin so effectually, as that
nothing more could be found, yet I discovered a locker with drawers in
it, in one of which I found two or three razors, and one pair of large
scissors, with some ten or a dozen of good knives and forks ; in another
I found about thirty-six pounds value in money, some European coin,
some Brazil, some pieces of eight, some gold, some silver.
I smiled to myself at the sight of this money. " drug ! " said I aloud,
" what art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no, not the taking
off the ground ; one of those knives is worth all this heap : I have no
manner of use for thee; e'en remain where thou art, and go to the
bottom, as a creature whose life is not worth saving." However, upon
second thoughts, I took it away ; and, wrapping all this in a piece of
canvass, I began to think of masting another raft ; but while I was pre
paring this, I found the sky overcast, and the wind began to rise, and
in a quarter of an hour it blew a fresh gale from the shore. It presently
occurred to me, that it was in vain to pretend to make a raft with the
wind off shore, and that it was my business to be gone before the tide of
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 51
flood began, otherwise I might not be able to reach the shore at all.
Accordingly I let myself down into the water, and swam across the
channel which lay between the ship and the sands, and even that with
difficulty enough, partly with the weight of the things I had about me,
and partly the roughness of the water ; for the wind rose very hastily,
and before it was quite high water it blew a storm.
But I was gotten home to my little tent, where I lay, mth_all_my
wealth about me very secure. It blew very hard all that night, and in
the morning, when I looked out, behold no more ship was to be seen !
I was a little surprised, but recovered myself with this satisfactory
reflection, viz., that I had lost no time, nor abated no diligence, to get
everything out of her that could be useful to me, and that, indeed, there
was little left in her that I was able to bring away, if I had had more
time.
I now gave over any more thoughts of the ship, or of anything out of
her, except what might drive on shore from her wreck, as, indeed,
divers pieces of her afterwards did ; but those things were of small use
to me.
My thoughts were now wholly employed about securing myself against
either savages, if any should appear, or wild beasts, if any were in the
island ; and I had many thoughts of the method how to do this, and
what kind of dwelling to make, whether I should make me a cave in tho
earth, or a tent upon the earth ; and, in short, I resolved upon both, the
manner and description of which it may not be improper to give an
account of.
I soon found the place I was in was not for my settlement, particularly
because it was upon a low, moorish ground, near the sea, and I believed
it would not be wholesome ; and more particularly because there was no
fresh water near it : so I resolved to find a more healthy and more con
venient spot of ground.
I consulted several things in my situation, which I found would be
proper for me: first, Health and fresh water I just now mentioned;
secondly, Shelter from the heat of the sun; thirdly, Security from
ravenous creatures, whether man or beast ; fourthly, A view to the sea,
that if God sent any ship in sight, I might not lose any advantage for my
deliverance, for which I was not willing to banish all my expectation yet-.
In search of a place proper for this, I found a little plain on the side
of a rising hill, whose front towards this little plain was steep as a house
52 ADVENTURES OF
side, so that nothing could come down upon me from the top. On the
side of this rock there was a hollow place, worn a little way in, like the
entrance or door of a cave, but there was not really any cave, or way
into the rock, at all.
On the flat of the green, just before this hollow place, I resolved to
pitch my tent. This plain was not above a hundred yards broad, and
about twice as long, and lay like a green before my door ; and, at the end
of it, descended irregularly every way down into the low grounds by the
seaside. It was on the north-north-west side of the hill, so that it was
sheltered from the heat every day, till it came to a west-and-by-south
gun, or thereabouts, which in those countries is near the setting.
Before I set up my tent, I drew a half-circle before the hollow-place,
which took in about ten yards in its semi-diameter from the rock, and
twenty yards in its diameter, from its beginning and ending.
In this half-circle I pitched two rows of strong stakes, driving them
into the ground till they stood very firm like piles, the biggest end being
out of the ground about five feet and a half, and sharpened on the top :
the two rows did not stand above six inches from one another.
Then I took the pieces of cable which I had cut in the ship, and laid
them in rows, one upon another, within the circle between these two
rows of stakes up to the top, placing other stakes in the inside, leaning
against them, about two feet and a half high, like a spur to a post ; and
this fence was so strong, that neither man nor beast could get into it or
over it. This cost me a great deal of time and labour, especially to cut
the piles in the woods, bring them to the place, and drive them into the
earth.
The entrance into this place I made to be not by a door, but by a
short ladder to go over the top ; which ladder, when I was in, I lifted
over after me, and so I was completely fenced in and fortified, as I
thought, from all the world, and consequently slept secure in the night,
which otherwise I could not have done ; though, as it appeared after
wards, there was no need of all this caution from the enemies that I
apprehended danger from.
Into this fence, or fortress, with infinite labour, I carried all my
riches, all my provisions, ammunition, and stores, of which you have the
account above ; and I made me a large tent, which, to preserve me from the
rains that in one part of the year are very violent there, I made double,
viz., one smaller tent within, and one larger tent above it, and covered
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 53
the uppermost with a large tarpaulin which I had saved among the
sails.
And now I lay no more, for a while, in the bed which I had brought
on shore, but in a hammock, which was indeed a very good one, and
belonged to the mate of the ship.
Into this tent I brought all my provisions, and every thing that would
spoil by the wet ; and having thus enclosed all my goods, I made up the
entrance, which, till now, I had left open, and so passed and repassed, as
I said, by a short ladder.
When I had done this, I began to work my way into the rock, and,
bringing all the earth and stones that I dug down out through my tent,
I laid them up within my fence in the nature of a terrace, so that it
raised the ground within about a foot and a half; and thus I made a cave,
just behind my tent, which served me like a cellar to my house.
It cost me much labour and many days, before all these things were
brought to perfection ; and therefore I must go back to some other things
which took up some of my thoughts. At the same time it happened,
after I had laid my scheme for the setting up my tent, and making the
cave, that a storm of rain falling from a thick, dark cloud, a sudden flash
of lightning happened, and after that a great clap of thunder, as is
naturally the effect of it. I was not so much surprised with the light
ning as I was with a thought which darted into my mind as swift as the
lightning itself: Oh, my powder ! My very heart sunk within me when I
thought, that at one blast, all my powder might be destroyed, on which,
not my defence only, but the providing me food, as I thought, entirely
depended. I was nothing near so anxious about my own danger, though,
had the powder took fire, I had never known who had hurt me.
Such impression did this make upon me, that after the storm was
over, I laid aside all my works, my building and fortifying, and applied
myself to make bags and boxes, to separate the powder, and to keep it a
little and a little in a parcel, in hope that whatever might come, it might
not all take fire at once ; and to keep it so apart, that it should not be
possible to make one part fire another. I finished this work in about a
fortnight, and I think my powder, which in all was about one hundred
and forty pounds weight, was divided in not less than one hundred
parcels. As to the barrel that had been wet, I did not apprehend any
danger from that ; so I placed it in my new cave, which, in my fancy,
I called my kitchen, and the rest I hid up and down in holes among the
54
ADVENTURES OP
rocks, so that no wet might come to it, marking very carefully where
I laid it.
In the interval of time while this was doing, I went out at least once
every day with my gun, as well to divert myself as to see if I could kill
any thing fit for food, and, as near as I could, to acquaint myself with
what the island produced. The first time I went out, I presently dis
covered that there were goats in the island, which was a great satisfac
tion to me ; but then it was attended with this misfortune to me, viz.,
that they were so shy, so subtle, and so swift of foot, that it was the
most difficult thing in the world to come at them : but I was not dis
couraged at this, not doubting but I might now and then shoot one, as it
soon happened ; for, after I had found their haunts a little, I laid wait in
this manner for them : I observed, if they saw me in the valleys, though
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 56
they were upon the rocks, they would run away as in a terrible fright ;
but if they were feeding in the valleys, and I was upon the rocks, they
took no notice of me ; from whence I concluded that, by the position of
their optics, their sight was so directed downward that they did not
readily see objects that were above them : so afterwards, I took this
method I always climbed the rocks first, to get above them, and then
had frequently a fair mark. The first shot I made among these creatures,
I killed a she- goat, which had a little kid by her, which she gave suck
to,' which grieved me heartily ; but when the old one fell, the kid stood
stock still by her, till I came and took her up ; and not only so, but when
I carried the old one with me, upon my shoulders, the kid followed me
quite to my enclosure, upon which I laid down the dam, and took the
kid in my arms and carried it over my pale, in hopes to have bred it up
tame ; but it would not eat, so I was forced to kill it and eat it myself.
These two supplied me with flesh a great while, for I eat sparingly and
saved my provisions, my bread especially, as much as possibly I could.
Having now fixed my habitation, I found it absolutely necessary to
provide a place to make a fire in, and fuel to burn ; and what I did for
that, as also how I enlarged my cave, and what conveniences I made, I
shall give a full account of it in its place : but I must first give some
little account of myself, and of my thoughts about living, which, it may
well be supposed, were not a few.
I had a dismal prospect of my condition ; for, as I was not cast away
upon that island without being driven, as is said, by a violent storm quite
out of the course of our intended voyage, and a great way, viz., some
hundreds of leagues, out of the ordinary course of the trade of mankind, I
had great reason to consider it as a determination of Heaven that, in this
desolate place, and in this desolate manner, I should end my life. The
tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these reflections,
and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why Providence should
thus completely ruin its creatures, and render them so absolutely miser
able, so without help abandoned, so entirely depressed, that it could
hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life.
But something always returned swift upon me to check these thoughts,
and to reprove me ; and, particularly, one day walking with my gun in
my hand by the seaside, I was very pensive upon the subject of my
present condition, when reason, as it were, expostulated with me the
other way, thus : " Well, you are in a desolate condition, it is true ;
56 ADVENTURES OF
but, pray remember, where are the rest of you? Did not you come
eleven of you into the boat? Where are the ten? Why were not
they saved, and you lost ? "Why were you singled out ? Is is better to
be here or there?" And then I pointed to the sea. All evils are to
be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse
attended them. |
Then it occurred to me again, how well I was furnished for my sub
sistence, and what would have been my case if it had not happened,
which was a hundred thousand to one, that the ship floated from the
place where she first struck, and was driven so near to the shore that
I had time to get all these things out of her : what would have been
my case, if I had been to have lived in the condition in which I at
first came on shore, without necessaries of life, or necessaries to supply and
procure them? " Particularly," said I aloud (though to myself), "what
should I have done without a gun, without ammunition, without any
tools to make any thing or to work with, without clothes, bedding, a
tent, or any manner of coverings?" and that now I had all these to a
sufficient quantity, and was in a fair way to provide myself in such
a manner as to live without my gun, when my ammunition was spent,
so that I had a tolerable view of subsisting, without any want, as long
as I lived ; for I considered, from the beginning, how I would provide
for the accidents that might happen, and for the time that was to come,
even not only after my ammunition should be spent, but even after my
health or strength should decay.
I confess, I had not entertained any notion of my ammunition being
destroyed at one blast, I mean my powder being blown up by lightning ;
and this made the thoughts of it so surprising to me, when it lightened
and thundered, as I observed just now.
And now, being to enter into a melancholy relation of a scene of silent
life, such, perhaps, as was never heard of in the world before, I shall
take it from its beginning, and continue it in its order.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 57
CHAPTER V.
Crusoe sets up a wooden cross, on which he inscribes the date of his landing, and keeps his
reckoning of time He seriously considers his position, and, balancing the good in it against the
evil, arrives at the conclusion that he is not altogether miserable Makes various articles of
furniture for his house, with the aid of the tools found in the ship Keeps a Journal.
! T was, by my account, the % 30th of September, when, in the
manner as above said, I first set foot upon this horrid island,
when the sun, being to us in its autumnal equinox, was
almost just over my head ; for I reckoned myself, by observa
tion, to be in the latitude of nine degrees twenty-two minutes north of
the Line.
After I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my
thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books,
and pen and ink, and should even forget the sabbath days from the
working days ; but, to prevent this, I cut it with my knife upon a
large post, in capital letters, and making it into a great cross, I set
it up on the shore where I first landed, viz., "I came on shore here
the 30th of September, 1659." Upon the sides of this square post I
cut every day a notch with my knife, and every seventh notch was
as long again as the rest, and every first day of the month as long again
as that long one; and thus I kept my calendar, or weekly, monthly,
and yearly reckoning of time.
In the next plaTe, we are to observe that among the many things
which I brought out of the ship, in the several voyages which, as above
mentioned, I made to it, I got several things of less value, but not at
all less useful to me, which I omitted setting down before, as, in -par
ticular, pens, ink, and paper; several parcels in the captain's, mate's,
gunner's, and carpenter's keeping ; three or four compasses, some mathe
matical instruments, dials, perspectives, charts, and books of navigation ;
all which I huddled together, whether I might want them or no : also
58 ADVENTURES OF
I found three very good Bibles, which came to me in my cargo from
England, and which I had packed up among my things ; some Portu
guese books also, and, among them, two or three Popish prayer books,
and several other books, all which I carefully secured. And I must
not forget that we had in the ship a dog and two cats, of whose eminent
history I may have occasion to say something in its place ; for I carried
both the cats with me, and, as for the dog, he jumped out of the ship
himself and swam on shore to me the day after I went on shore with
my first cargo, and was a trusty servant to me many years. I wanted
nothing that he could fetch me, nor any company that he could make
up to me ; I only wanted to have him talk to me, but that would not
do. As I observed before, I found pen, ink, and paper, and I husbanded
them to the utmost ; and I shall show that, while my ink lasted, I kept
things very exact, but, after that was gone, I could not, for I could
not make any ink by any means that I could devise.
And this put me in mind that I wanted many things, notwithstanding
all that I had amassed together ; and of these, this of ink was one, as
also spade, pickaxe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth ; needles,
pins, and thread. As for linen, I toon learned to want that without
much difficulty.
This want of tools made every work I did go on heavily, and it
was near a whole year before I had entirely finished my little pale,
or surrounded habitation. The piles, or stakes, which were as heavy
as I could well lift, were a long time in cutting and preparing in the
woods, and more by far in bringing home; so that I spent sometimes
two days in cutting and bringing home one of those posts, and a third
day in driving it into the ground; for which purpose, I got a heavy
piece of wood at first, but at last bethought myself of one of the iron
crows, which, however, though I found it, yet it made driving those
posts, or piles, very laborious and tedious work. But what need I have
been concerned at the tediousness of any thing I 'had to do, seeing I
had time enough to do it in ? ~Noi had I any other employment, if that
had been over, at least that I could foresee, except the ranging the
island to seek for food, which I did, more or less, every day.
I now began to consider seriously my condition, and the circumstance
I was reduced to; and I drew up the state of my affairs in writing,
not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me (for I
was like to have but few heirs), as to deliver my thoughts from daily
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 69
poring upon them, and afflicting my mind : and, as my reason began
now to master my despondency, I began to comfort myself as well as
I could, and to set the good against the evil, that I might have something
to distinguish my case from worse; and I stated it very impartially,
like_debtor_and creditor, the comforts I enjoyed against the miseries
I suffered, thus :
EVIL. GOOD.
I am cast upon a horrible, desolate island, But I am alive ; and am not drowned,
void of all hope of recovery. as all my ship's company was.
I am singled out and separated, as it But I am singled out, too, from all the
were, from all the world, to be miserable. ship's crew, to be spared from death ; and
He that miraculously saved me from death,
can deliver me from this condition.
I am divided from mankind, a solitaire, But I am not starved, and perishing on a
one banished from human society. barren place, affording no sustenance.
I have no clothes to cover me. But I am in a hot climate, where, if I
had clothes, I could hardly wear them.
I am without any defence, or means to But I am cast on an island, where I see
resist any violence of man or beast. no wild beast to hurt me, as I saw on the
coast of Africa ; and what if I had been
shipwrecked there ?
I have no soul to speak to, or relieve me. But God wonderfully sent the ship in
near enough to the shore, that I have
gotten out so many necessary things as will
either supply my wants, or enable me to
supply myself, even as long as I live.
Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was
scarce any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something
negative, or something positive, to be thankful for in it ; and let this
stand as a direction, from the experience of the most miserable of all
conditions in this world, that we may always find in it something to
comfort ourselves from, and to set, in the description of good and evil,
onjthe credit side of the account*
Having now brought my mind a little to relish my condition, and
given over looking out to sea, to see if I could spy a ship, I say, giving
over these things, I began to apply myself to accommodate my way
of living, and to make things as easy to me as I could.
I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under
the side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables;
but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up
60 ADVENTURES OP
against it of turfs, about two feet tliick on the outside, and after some
time (I think it was a year and half) I raised rafters from it, leaning
to the rock, and thatched, or covered, it with boughs of trees and such
tbings as I could get, to keep out the rain, which I found, at some
times of the year, very violent.
I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale,
and into the cave which I had made behind me. But I must observe,
too, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, which, as they lay in
no order, so they took up all my place : I had no room to turn myself, so
I set myself to enlarge my cave and works farther into the earth ; for it
was a loose sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed on
it : and so when I found I was pretty safe as to beasts of prey, I worked
sideways, to the right hand, into the rock, and then turning to the right
again, worked quite out, and made me a door to come out on the outside
of my pale or fortification.
This gave me not only egress and regress, as it were a back way to
my tent and to my storehouse, but gave me room to stow my goods.
And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things
as I found I most wanted, particularly a chair and a table ; for without
these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world,
I could not write, or eat, or do several things, with so much pleasure,
without a table.
So I went to work ; and here I must needs observe that, as reason
is the substance and original of the mathematics, so, by stating and
squaring every thing by reason, and by making the most rational judg
ment of things, every man may be, in time, master of every mechanic
art. I had never handled a tool in my life ; and yet, in time, by labour,
application, and contrivance, I found, at last, that I wanted nothing but
I could have made it, especially if I had had tools. However, I made
abundance of things, even without tools, and some with no more tools
than an adze and a hatchet, which, perhaps, were never made that way
before, and that with infinite labour. For example, if I wanted a board,
I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before me,
and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I had brought it to be as
thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze. It is true, by
this method I could make but one board out of a whole tree ; but this I
.had no remedy for but patience, any more than I had for the prodigious
deal of time and labour which it took me up to make a plank or board :
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 61
but my time or labour was little worth, and so it was as well employed
one way as another.
However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the
first place and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that I brought
on my raft from the ship. Eut when I had wrought out some boards, as
above, I made large shelves of the breadth of a foot and a half, one over
another, all along one side of my cave, to lay all my tools, nails, and
iron-work, and, in a word, to separate every thing at large in their
places, that I might easily come at them. I knocked pieces into the wall
of the rock, to hang my guns, and all things that would hang up.
So that, had my cave been to be seen, it looked like a general maga
zine of all necessary things ; and I had everything so ready at my hand,
that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order, and
especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great.
And now it was when I began to keep a journal of every day's
employment ; for, indeed, at first, I was in too much a hurry, and not
only hurry as to labour, but in too much discomposure of mind, and my
journal would have been full of many dull things ; for example, I must
have said thus "Sept. 30th. After I got to shore, and had escaped
drowning, instead of being thankful to God for my deliverance, having
first vomited with the great quantity of salt water which was gotten into
my stomach, and recovering myself a little, I ran about the shore, wring
ing my hands, and beating my head and face, exclaiming at my misery,
and crying out, I was undone, undone ! till, tired and faint, I was forced
to lie down on the ground to repose, but durst not sleep, for fear of
being devoured."
Some days after this, and after I had been on board the ship and got all
that I could out of her, yet I could not forbear getting up to the top of
a little mountain and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a ship ; then
fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail please myself with the hopes of
it, and then, after looking steadily, till I was almost blind, lose it quite,
and sit down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly.
Eut, having gotten over these things in some measure, and having
settled my household stuff and habitation, made me a table and a chair,
and all as handsome about me as I could, I began to keep my journal, of
which I shall here give you the copy (though in it will be told all these
particulars over again) as long as it lasted ; for, having no more ink, I
was forced to leave it off.
62 ADVENTURES OF
THE JOURNAL.
September 30, 1659. I, poor miserable Robinsoe Crusoe, being ship
wrecked during a dreadful storm in the offing, came on shore on this
dismal unfortunate island, which I called the ISLAND OF DESPAIR, all
the rest of the ship's company being drowned, and myself almost dead.
All the rest of the day I spent in afflicting myself at the dismal circum
stances I was brought to, viz., I had neither food, house, clothes, weapon,
nor place to fly to, and, in despair of any relief, saw nothing but death
before me, either that I should be devoured by wild beasts, murdered by
savages, or starved to death for want of food. At the approach of night
I slept in a tree, for fear of wild creatures, but slept soundly, though it
rained all night.
October I. In the morning I saw, to my great surprise, the ship
had floated with the high tide, and was driven on shore again much
nearer the island; which, as it was some comfort on one hand (for
seeing her sit upright, and not broken to pieces, I hoped, if the wind
abated, I might get on board, and get some food and necessaries out
of her for my relief), so, on the other hand, it renewed my grief at
the loss of my comrades, who, I imagined, if we had all staid on board,
might have saved the ship, or, at least, that they would not have been
all drowned, as they were ; and that, had the men been saved, we
might, perhaps, have built us a boat out of the ruins of the ship, to
have carried us to some other part of the world. I spent great part
of this day in perplexing myself on these things ;. but, at length, seeing
the ship almost dry, I went upon the sand as near as I could, and
then swam on board. This day also it continued raining, though with
no wind at all.
From the 1st of October to the 24th. All these days entirely spent in
many several voyages to get all I could out of the ship, which I brought
on shore, every tide of flood, upon rafts. Much rain also in these days,
though with some intervals of fair weather ; but it seems this was the
rainy season.
Oct. 20. I overset my raft and all the goods I had got upon it, but
being in shoal water, and the things being chiefly heavy, I recovered
many of them when the tide was out.
Oct. 25. It rained all night and all day, with some gusts of wind;
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 63
during which time the ship broke in pieces, the wind blowing a little
harder than before, and was no more to be seen, except the wreck of her,
and that only at low water. I spent this day in covering and securing
the goods which I had saved, that the rain might not spoil them.
Oct. 26. I walked about the shore almost all day, to find out a place
to fix my habitation, greatly concerned to secure myself from any attack
in the night, either from wild beasts or men. Towards night I fixed
upon a proper place, under a rock, and marked out a semicircle for my
encampment, which I resolve to strengthen with a work, wall, or fortifi
cation, made of double piles, lined within with cable, and without with
turf.
From the 26th to the 30th, I worked very hard in carrying all my
goods to my new habitation, though some part of the time it rained
exceeding hard.
The 31st, in the morning, I went out into the island with my gun,
to see for some food and discover the country, when I killed a she-goat,
and her kid followed me home, which I afterwards killed also, because it
would not feed.
November I. I set up my tent under a rock, and lay there for the
first night, making it as large as I could, with stakes driven in to swing
my hammock upon.
Nov. 2. I set up all my chests and boards, and the pieces of timber
which made my rafts ; and with them formed a fence round me, a little
within the place I had marked out for my fortification.
Nov. 3. I went out with my gun, and killed two fowls like ducks,
which were very good food. In the afternoon went to work to make me
a table.
Nov. 4. This morning I began to order my times of work, of going
out with my gun, time of sleep, and time of diversion ; viz., every morn
ing I walked out with my gun for two or three hours, if it did not rain ;
then employed myself to work till about eleven o'clock ; then eat what
I had to live on ; and from twelve to two I lay down to sleep, the weather
being excessive hot ; and then, in the evening, to work again. The
working part of this day and the next were wholly employed in making
my table, for I was yet but a very sorry workman, though time and
necessity made me a complete natural mechanic soon after, as I believe
it would do any one else.
Nov. 5. This day I went abroad with my gun and dog, and killed
64 ADVENTURES OP
a wild cat ; her skin pretty soft, but her flesh good for nothing : every
creature I killed, I took off the skins and preserved them. Coming back
by the seashore, I saw many sorts of sea-fowls which I did not under
stand, but was surprised, and almost frighted, with two or three seals,
which, while I was gazing at, not well knowing what they were, got into
the sea and escaped me for that time.
Nov. 6. After my morning walk, I went to work with my table
again, and finished it, though not to my liking ; nor was it long before
I learned to mend it.
Nov. 7. Now it began to be settled fair weather. The 7th, 8th, 9th,
10th, and part of the 12th (for the llth was Sunday, according to my
reckoning), I took wholly up to make me a chair, and with much ado
brought it to a tolerable shape, but never to please me ; and, even in the
making, I pulled it to pieces several times. Note. I soon neglected my
keeping Sundays ; for, omitting my mark for them on my post, I forgot
which was which.
Nov. 13. This day it rained, which refreshed me exceedingly, and
cooled the earth; but it was accompanied with terrible thunder and
lightning, which frighted me dreadfully, for fear of my powder. As
soon as it was over, I resolved to separate my stock of powder into as
many little parcels as possible, that it might not be in danger.
Nov. 14, 15, 16. These three days I spent in making little square
chests or boxes, which might hold about a pound, or two pounds at
most, of powder ; and so, putting the powder in, I stowed it in places
as secure and remote from one another as possible. On one of these
three days I killed a large bird that was good to eat, but I know not
what to call it.
Nov. 17. This day I began to dig behind my tent, into the rock, to
make room for my farther conveniency. Note. Three things I wanted
exceedingly for this work, viz., a pickaxe, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow,
or basket ; so I desisted from my work, and began to consider how to
supply that want, and make me some tools. As for a pickaxe, I made
use of the iron crows, which were proper enough, though heavy ; but the
next thing was a shovel or spade : this was so absolutely necessary, that,
indeed, I could do nothing effectually without it, but what kind of one
to make I knew not.
Nov. 18. The next day, in searching the woods, I found a tree of that
wood, or like it, which, in the Brazils, they call the iron tree, for its
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 65
exceeding hardness : of this, with great labour, and almost spoiling my
axe, I cut a piece, and brought it home, too, with difficulty enough, for
it was exceeding heavy. The excessive hardness of the wood, and having
no other way, made me a long while upon this machine ; for I worked it
effectually, by little and little, into the form of a shovel or spade, the
handle exactly shaped like ours in England, only that the broad part
having no iron shod upon it at bottom, it would not last me so long:
however, it served well enough for the uses which I had occasion to put
it to, but never was a shovel, I believe, made after that fashion, or so
long a-making.
I was still deficient; for I wanted a basket, or a wheelbarrow. A
basket I could not make by any means, having no such things as twigs
that would bend to make wicker- ware, at least none yet found out ; and
as to the wheelbarrow, I fancied I could make all but the wheel, but that
I had no notion of, neither did I know how to go about it ; besides, I had
no possible way to make iron gudgeons for the spindle or axes of the
wheel to run in ; so I gave it over : and so, for carrying away the earth
which I dug out of the cave, I made me a thing like a hod which the
labourers carry mortar in when they serve the bricklayers.
This was not so difficult to me as the making the shovel ; and yet
this and the shovel, and the attempt which I made in vain to make a
wheelbarrow, took me up no less than four days, I mean, always
excepting my morning walk with my gun, which I seldom failed, and
very seldom failed also of bringing home something fit to eat.
Nov. 23. My other work having now stood still, because of my
making these tools, when they were finished I went on, and working
every day, as my strength and time allowed, I spent eighteen days
entirely in widening and deepening my cave, that it might hold my
goods commodiously. Note. During all this time, I worked to make this
room, or cave, spacious enough to accommodate me as a warehouse, or
magazine, a kitchen, a dining-room, and a cellar. As for a lodging, I
kept to the tent ; except that sometimes, in the wet season of the year, it
rained so hard that I could not keep myself dry, which caused me after
wards to cover all my place within my pale with long poles in the form
of rafters, leaning against the rock, and load them with flags and large
leaves of trees, like a thatch.
December 10. I began now to think my cave or vault finished ; when
on a sudden (it seems I had made it too large) a great quantity of earth
5
66 ADVENTURES OF
fell down from the top and one side so much, that, in short, it frighted
me, and not without reason too ; for if I had been under it I had never
wanted a grave-digger. Upon this disaster, I had a great deal of work
to do over again, for I had the loose earth to cany out, and, which was
of more importance, I had the ceiling to prop up, so that I might he sure
no more would come down.
Deo. 1 1 . This day I went to work with it accordingly, and got two
shores, or posts, pitched upright to the top, with two pieces of board
across over each post : this I finished the next day, and, setting more
posts up with boards, in about a week more I had the roof secured ;
and the posts, standing in rows, served me for partitions to part off my
house.
Dec. 17. Prom this day to the 20th, I placed shelves, and knocked
up nails on the posts, to hang every thing up that could be hung up ;
and now I began to be in some order within doors.
Dec. 20. Now I carried every thing into the cave, and began to
furnish my house, and set up some pieces of boards, like a dresser, to
order my victuals upon ; but boards began to be very scarce with me :
also I made me another table.
Dec. 24. Much rain all night and all day : no stirring out.
Dec. 25. Eain all day.
Dec. 26. No rain, and the earth much cooler than before, and
pleasanter.
Dec. 27. Killed a young goat, and lamed another, so that I catched
it, and led it home in a string; when I had it home, I bound and
splintered up its leg, which was broke. N.B. I took such care of it
that it lived, and the leg grew well, and as strong as ever ; but, by
nursing it so long, it grew tame, and fed upon the little green at my
door, and would not go away. This was the first time that I entertained
a thought of breeding up some tame creatures, that I might have food
when my powder and shot was all spent.
Dec. 28, 29, 30. Great heats, and no breeze : so that there was no
stirring abroad, except in the evening, for food : this time I spent in
putting all my things in order within doors.
January I. Very hot still; but I went abroad early and late with
my gun, and lay still in the middle of the day. This evening, going
farther into the valleys which lay towards the centre of the island, I
found there was plenty of goats, though exceeding shy, and hard to come
CRUSOE AND HIS GOAT.
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
67
at : however, I resolved to try if I could not bring my dog to hunt them
down.
Jan. 2. Accordingly, the next day I went out with -my dog, and set
him upon the goats ; but I was mistaken, for they all faced about upon
the dog, and he knew his danger too well, for he would not come near
them.
Jan. 3. I began my fence, or wall, which, being still jealous of my
being attacked by somebody,. I resolved to make very thick and strong.
N.B. This wall being described before, I purposely omit what was said
in the journal : it is sufficient to observe, that I was no less time than
than from the 3rd of January to the 14th of April, working, finishing,
and perfecting this wall, though it was no more than about twenty-four
yards in length, being a half circle, from one place in the rock to another
place about eight yards from it, the door of the cave being in the centre
behind it.
68 ADVENTURES OP
CHAPTER VI.
Crusoe enlarges upon the circumstances noted in his Journal, and details his difficulties Is
surprised by the appearance of barley growing out of the ground At first supposes that
Providence has specially intervened on his behalf, but afterwards remembers that the barley
was accidentally sown Prudently preserves the grain for seed The Journal resumed Is
startled by an earthquake, which is followed by a hurricane Recovers various articles from
the wreck, which have been cast ashore in the storm Finds a turtle, and cooks it Falls ill,
and is alarmed by a terrible dream Reproaches himself on account of his past life, and reflects
upon his present miseries.
LL this time I worked very hard, the rains hindering me
many days, nay, sometimes weeks together ; but I thought
I should never be perfectly secure till this wall was
finished : and it is scarce credible what inexpressible
labour every thing was done with, especially the bringing piles out of
the woods, and driving them into the ground, for I made them much
bigger than I needed to have done.
When this wall was finished, and the outside double fenced with a
turf wall raised up close to it, I persuaded myself that if any people
were to come on shore there they would not perceive any thing like a
habitation ; and it was very well I did so, as may be observed hereafter,
upon a very remarkable occasion.
During this time, I made my rounds in the woods for game every
day, when the rain permitted me, and made frequent discoveries in these
walks, of something or other to my advantage ; particularly I found a
kind of wild pigeons, who built, not as wood-pigeons, in a tree, but
rather as house-pigeons, in the holes of the rocks: and, taking some
young ones, I endeavoured to breed them up tame, and did so ; but when
they grew older, they flew all away, which, perhaps, was at first for
want of feeding them, for I had nothing to give them. However, I fre
quently found their nests, and got their young ones, which were very
good meat.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 69
And now, in the managing my household affairs, I found myself
wanting in many things which I thought at first it was impossible for
me to make, as, indeed, as to some of them, it was for instance, I could
never make a cask to be hooped. I had a small runlet or two, as I
observed before, but I could never arrive to the capacity of making one
by them, though I spent many weeks, about it : I could neither put in
the heads, nor join the staves so true to one another as to make them
hold water ; so I gave that also over.
In the next place, I was at a great loss for candle, so that, as soon as
ever it was dark, which was generally by seven o'clock, I was obliged to
go to bed. I remembered the lump of bees-wax with which I made
candles in my African adventure, but I had none of that now. The only
remedy I had was, that, when I had killed a goat, I saved the tallow,
and with a little dish made of clay, which I baked in the sun, to which
I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a lamp ; and this gave me
light, though not a clear steady light like a candle. In the middle of all
my labours it happened, that, rummaging my things, I found a little
bag, which, as I hinted before, had been filled with corn for the feeding
of poultry, not for this voyage, but before, as I suppose, when the ship
came from Lisbon. "What little remainder of corn had been in the bag
was all devoured with the rats, and I saw nothing in the bag but husks
and dust ; and being willing to have the bag for some other use (I think
it was to put powder in, when I divided it for fear of the lightning, or
some such use), I shook the husks of corn out of it, on one side of my
fortification, under the rock.
It was a little before the great rains, just now mentioned, that I
threw this stuff away, taking no notice of any thing, and not so much as
.emembering that I had thrown any thing there; when about a month
after, or thereabouts, I saw some few stalks of something green shooting
out of the ground, which I fancied might be some plant I had not seen ;
but I was surprised and perfectly astonished when, after a little longer
time, I saw about ten or twelve ears come out, which were perfect green
barley of the same kind as our European, nay, as our English barley.
It is impossible to express the astonishment and confusion of my
thoughts on this occasion. I had hitherto acted upon no religious
foundation at all : indeed, I had very few notions of religion in my
head, nor had entertained any sense of any thing that had befallen me,
otherwise than as a chance, or, as we lightly say, what pleases God,
70 ADVENTURES OF
without so much, as inquiring into the end of Providence in these things,
or His order in governing events in the world. But after I saw barley
grow there, in a climate which I knew was not proper for corn, and
especially that I knew not how it came there, it startled me strangely,
and I began to suggest that God had miraculously caused this grain to
grow without any help of seed sown, and that it was so directed purely
for my sustenance on that wild miserable place.
This touched my heart a little, and brought tears out of my eyes, and
I began to bless myself that such a prodigy of nature should happen upon
my account : and this was the more strange to me, because I saw near it
still, all along by the side of the rock, some other straggling stalks, which
proved to be stalks of rice, and which I knew, because I had seen it
grow in Africa when I was ashore there.
I not only thought these the pure productions of Providence for my
support, but, not doubting but that there was more in the place, I went
all over that part of the island where I had been before, peering in every
corner, and under every rock, to see for more of it ; but I could not find any.
At last it occurred to my thoughts, that I had shook a bag of chicken' s-
meat out in that place, and then the wonder began to cease ; and I must
confess my religious thankfulness to God's providence began to abate too,
upon the discovering that all this was nothing but what was common,
though I ought to have been as thankful for so strange and unforeseen
providence, as if it had been miraculous ; for it was really the work of
Providence, as to me, that should order or appoint that ten or twelve
grains of corn should remain unspoiled, when the rats had destroyed all
the rest, as if it had been dropped from heaven, as also, that I should
throw it out in that particular place, where, it being in the shade of a
high rock, it sprang up immediately, whereas, if I had thrown it any
where else at that time, it would have been burnt up and destroyed.
I carefully saved the ears of this corn, you may be sure, in their
season, which was about the end of June; and, laying up every corn,
I resolved to sow them all again, hoping, in time, to have some quantity
sufficient to supply me with bread. But it was not till the fourth year
that I could allow myself the least grain of this corn to eat, and even
then but sparingly, as I shall say afterwards, in its order ; for I lost all
that I sowed the first season, by not observing the proper time, for I
sowed it just before the dry season, so that it never came up at all,
at least not as it would have done ; of which in its place.
BOBINSON CBUSOE. 71
Besides this barley there were, as above, twenty or thirty stalks
of rice, which I preserved with the same care, and whose use was of
the same kind, or to the same purpose, viz., to make me bread, or rather
food ; for I found ways to cook it up without baking, though I did that
also after some time. But to return to my Journal.
I worked excessive hard these three or four months to get my wall
done, and the 14th of April I closed it up, contriving to go into it, not
by a door, but over the wall, by a ladder, that there might be no sign
on the outside of my habitation.
April 16. I finished the ladder; so I went up with the ladder
to the top, and then pulled it up after me, and let it down on the
inside : this was a complete enclosure to me, for within I had room
enough, and nothing could come at me from without, unless it could
first mount my wall.
The very next day after this wall was finished, I had almost had all
my labour overthrown at once, and myself killed. The case was thus :
As I was busy in the inside of it, behind my tent, just in the entrance
into my cave, I was terribly frighted with a most dreadful surprising
thing indeed ; for, all on a sudden I found the earth come crumbling
down from the roof of my cave, and from, the edge of the hill over
my head, and two of the posts I had set up in the cave cracked in
a frightful manner. -I was heartily scared, but thought nothing of what
really was the cause, only thinking that the top of my cave was falling
in, as some of it had done before. And for fear I should be buried
in it, I ran forward to my ladder, and not thinking myself safe there
neither, I got over my wall for fear of the pieces of the hill which
I expected might roll down upon me. I was no sooner stepped down
upon the firm ground but I plainly saw it was a terrible earthquake ;
for the ground I stood on shook three times at about eight minutes
distance, with three such shocks as would have overturned the strongest
building that could be supposed to have stood on the earth, and a great
piece of the top of a rock which stood about half a mile from me,
next the sea, fell down with such a terrible noise as I never heard
in all my life. I perceived also the very sea was put into a violent
motion by it, and I believe the shocks were stronger under the water
than on the island.
I was so amazed with the thing itself, having never felt the like,
or discoursed with any one that had, that I was like one dead or
72 ADVENTURES OP
stupefied, and the motion of the earth made my stomach sick, like one
that was tossed at sea ; hut the noise of the falling of the rock awaked
me, as it were, and rousing me from the stupefied condition I was in,
filled me with horror, and I thought of nothing then hut the hill falling
upon my tent and all my household goods, and burying all at once :
this sunk my very soul within me a second time.
After the third shock was over, and I felt no more for some time,
I hegan to take courage, and yet I had not heart enough to get over
my wall again, for fear of being buried alive, but sat still upon the
ground, greatly cast down and disconsolate, not knowing what to do.
All this while, I had not the least serious religious thought, nothing
but the common Lord, have mercy upon me ! and when it was over,
that went away too.
While I sat thus, I found the air overcast, and grew cloudy, as
if it would rain: soon after that the wind rose by little and little, so
that in less than half an hour it blew a most dreadful hurricane. The
sea was, all on a sudden, covered over with foam and froth; the shore
was covered with the breach of the water, the trees were torn up by
the roots, and a terrible storm it was ; and this held about three hours
and then, began to abate, and in two hours more it was stark calm,
and began to rain very hard.
All this while I sat upon the ground, very much terrified and
dejected, when, on a sudden, it came into my thoughts that these
winds and rain being the consequence of the earthquake, the earth
quake itself was spent and over, and I might venture into my cave
again. "With this thought my spirits began to revive, and the rain
helping also to persuade me, I went in and sat down in my tent ; but
the rain was so violent that my tent was ready to be beaten down
with it, and I was forced to go into my cave, though very much afraid
and uneasy, for fear it should fall on my head.
This violent rain forced me to a new work, viz., to cut a hole through
my new fortification, like a sink, to let the water go out, which would
else have drowned my cave. After I had been in my cave some time, and
found still no more shocks of the earthquake follow, I began to be more
composed.- And now, to support my spirits, which indeed wanted it very
much, I went to my little store, and took a small sup of rum which,
however, I did then, and always, very sparingly, knowing I could have
no more when that was gone.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 73
It continued raining all that night and great part of the next day, so
that I could not stir abroad ; but my mind being more composed, I
began to think of what I had best do, concluding that, if the island
was subject to these earthquakes, there would be no living for me in
a cave, but I must consider of building me some little hut in an open
place, which I might surround with a wall, as I had done here, and
so make myself secure from wild. beasts or men: but concluded, if I
staid where I was, I should certainly, one time or other, be buried alive.
"With these thoughts, I resolved to remove my tent from the place
where it stood, which was just under the hanging precipice of the
hill, and which, if it should be shaken again, would certainly fall
upon my tent. And I spent the two next days, being the 19th and
20th of April, in contriving where and how to remove my habitation.
The fear of being swallowed up alive made me that I never slept
in quiet, and yet the apprehension of lying abroad, without any fence,
was almost equal to it : but still, when I looked about, and saw how
every thing was put in order, how pleasantly concealed I was, and
how safe from danger, it made me very loth to remove.
In the meantime, it occurred to me that it would require a vast
deal of time for me to do this, and that I must be contented to run
the venture where I was, till I had formed a camp for myself, and had
secured it so as to remove to it. So with this resolution I composed
myself for a time, and resolved that I would go to work with all speed to
build me a wall with piles and cables, etc., in a circle as before, and set
my tent up in it when it was finished ; but that I would venture to
stay where I was till it was finished and fit to remove to. This was
the 21st.
April 22. The next morning I began to consider of means to put
this resolve in execution, but I was at a great loss about my tools.
I had three large axes, and abundance of hatchets (for we carried the
hatchets for traffic with the Indians), but with much chopping and
cutting knotty hard wood, they were all full of notches, and dull;
and though I had a grindstone, I could not turn it and grind my tools
too. This caused me as much thought as a statesman would have
bestowed upon a grand point of politics, or a judge upon the life and
death of a man. At length I contrived a 'wheel with a string, to turn it
with my foot, that I might have both my hands at liberty. .ZVofo. I had
not seen any such thing in England, or at least not to take notice how it
74 ADVENTUBES OF
was done, though since I have observed it is very common there ; besides
that, my grindstone was very large and heavy. This machine cost me a
full week's work to bring it to perfection.
April 28, 29. These two whole days I took up in grinding my tools,
my machine for turning my grindstone performing very well.
April 30. Having perceived my bread had been low a great while, I
now took a survey of it, and reduced myself to one biscuit cake a day,
which made my heart very heavy.
May 1. In the morning, looking towards the seaside, the tide being
low, I saw something lie on the shore bigger than ordinary, and it looked
like a cask : when I came to it, I found a small barrel, and two or
three pieces of the wreck of the ship, which were driven on shore by the
late hurricane ; and looking towards the wreck itself, I thought it seemed
to lie higher out of the water than it used to do. I examined the barrel
which was driven on shore, and soon found it was a barrel of gunpowder,
but it had taken water, and the powder was caked as hard as a stone ;
however, I rolled it farther on shore for the present, and went on
upon the sands, as near as I could to the wreck of the ship, to look
for more.
When I came down to the ship, I found it strangely removed. The
forecastle, which lay before buried in sand, was heaved up at least
six feet, and the stern (which was broke to pieces, and parted from the
rest by the force of the sea, soon after I had left rummaging of her) was
tossed, as it were, up, and cast on one side, and the sand was thrown so
high on that side next her stern that, whereas there was a great piece
of water before, so that I could not come within a quarter of a mile of the
wreck without swimming, I could now walk quite up to her when the
tide was out. I was surprised with this at first, but soon concluded it must
be done by the earthquake ; and as by this violence the ship was more
broken open than formerly, so many things came daily on shore, which
the sea had loosened, and which the winds and water rolled by degrees to
the land.
This wholly diverted my thoughts from the design of removing my
habitation, and I busied myself mightily, that day especially, in searching
whether I could make any way into the. ship ; but I found nothing was
to be expected of that kind, for all the inside of the ship was choked up
with sand. However, as I had learned not to despair of anything, I
resolved to pull every thing to pieces that I could of the ship, con-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 75
eluding that everything I could get from her would be of some use or
other to me.
May 3. I began with my saw, and cut a piece of a beam through,
which I thought held some of the upper part or quarter-deck together ;
and when I had cut it through, I cleared away the sand as well as I
could from the side which lay highest ; but the tide coming in, I was
obliged to give over for that time.
May 4. I went a-fishing, but caught not one fish that I durst eat
of, till I was weary of my sport ; when, just going to leave off, I caught
a young dolphin. I had made me a long line of some rope-yarn, but
I had no hooks ; yet I frequently caught fish enough, as much as I cared
to eat, all which I dried in the sun, and eat them dry.
May 5. Worked on the wreck : cut another beam asunder, and
brought three great fir planks off from the decks, which I tied together,
and made swim on shore when the tide of flood came on.
May 6. "Worked on the wreck ; got several iron bolts out of her, and
other pieces of iron work ; worked very hard, and came home very much
tired, and had thoughts of giving it over.
May 7. Went to the wreck again, but with an intent not to work ;
but found the weight of the wreck had broke itself down, the beams
being cut, that several pieces of the ship seemed to lie loose, and the
inside of the hold lay so open that I could see into it, but almost full of
water and sand.
May 8. Went to the wreck, and carried an iron crow to wrench up
the deck, which lay now quite clear of the water or sand. I wrenched
open two planks, and brought them on shore also with the tide. I left
the iron crow in the wreck for next day.
May 9. -Went to the wreck, and with the crow made way into the
body of the wreck, and felt several casks, and loosened them with the
crow, but could not break them up. I felt also the roll of English lead,
and could stir it, but it was too heavy to move.
May 10, 11, 13, 14. Went every day to the wreck, and got a great
deal of pieces of timber, and boards, or plank, and two or three hundred
weight of iron.
May 15. I carried two hatchets, to try if I could not cut a piece off
the roll of lead, by placing the edge of one hatchet and driving it with
thje other, but as it lay about a foot and a half in the water I could not
make any blow to drive the hatchet.
76 ADVENTURES OP
May 16. It had blown hard in the night, and the wreck appeared
more broken by the force of the water, but I staid so long in the woods
to get pigeons for food, that the tide prevented me going to the wreck
that day.
May 17. I saw some pieces of the wreck blown on shore, at a great
distance, two miles off me, but resolved to see what they were, and found
it was a piece of the head, but too heavy for me to bring away.
May 24. Every day, to this day, I worked on the wreck, and with
hard labour I loosened some things so mu-ch with the crow, that the first
blowing tide several casks floated out, and two of the seamen's chests;
but the wind blowing from the shore, nothing came to land that day but
pieces of timber, and a hogshead which had some Brazil pork in it, but
the salt water and the sand had spoiled it. I continued this work every
day to the 15th of June, except the time necessary to get food, which I
always appointed, during this part of my employment, to be when the
tide was up, that I might be ready when it was ebbed out ; and by this
time I had gotten timber, and plank, and iron work, enough to have
built a good boat, if I had known how ; and also I got, at several times,
and in several pieces, near one hundred weight of the sheet lead.
June 16. Going down to the seaside, I found a large tortoise, or
turtle. This was the first I had seen, which, it seems, was only my mis
fortune, not any defect of the place, or scarcity ; for had I happened to
be on the other side of the island, I might have had hundreds of them
every day, as I found afterwards, but perhaps had paid dear enough for
them.
June 17 I spent in cooking the turtle. I found in her threescore
eggs, and her flesh was to me, at that time, the most savoury and pleasant
that ever I tasted in my life, having had no flesh, but of goats and fowls,
since I landed in this horrible place.
June 18. Rained all day, and I staid within. I thought at this
time the rain felt cold, and I was something chilly, which I knew was
not usual in that latitude.
June 19. Yery ill and shivering, as if the weather had been cold.
June 20. ISTo rest all night ; violent pains in my head, and feverish.
June 21. Yer^ ill; frighted almost to death with the apprehensions
of my sad condition, to be sick, and no help : prayed to God for the
first time since the storm off Hull ; but scarce knew what I said, or why,
my thoughts being all confused.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 77
June 22. A little better, but under dreadful apprehensions of
sickness.
June 23. Yery bad again ; cold and shivering, and then a violent
headache.
June 24. Much better.
June 25. An ague very violent : the fit held me seven hours, cold
fit, and hot, with faint sweats after it.
June 26. Better ; and, having no victuals to eat, took my gun, but
found myself very weak : however, I killed a she-goat, and with much
difficulty got it home, and broiled some of it, and eat. I would fain
have stewed it and made some broth, but had no pot.
June 27. The ague again so violent that I lay a-bed all day, and
neither eat nor drank. I was ready to perish for thirst, but so weak, I
had not strength to stand up, or to get myself any water to drink.
Prayed to God again, but was light-headed, and when I was not, I was so
ignorant that I knew not what to say, only I lay and cried, " Lord, look
upon me ! Lord, pity me ! Lord, have mercy upon me ! " I suppose I
did nothing else for two or three hours, till, the fit wearing off, I fell
asleep, and did not wake till far in the night. When I awaked, I found
myself much refreshed, but weak and exceeding thirsty : however, as. I
had no water in my whole habitation, I was forced to lie till morning,
and went to sleep again. In this second sleep I had this terrible dream :
I thought that I was sitting on the ground on the outside of my wall,
where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and that I saw
a man descend from a great black cloud, in a bright flame of fire, and
light upon the ground ; he was all over as bright as a flame, so that I
could but just bear to look towards him : his countenance was most inex
pressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe ; when he stepped
upon the ground with his feet, I thought the earth trembled, just as it
had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my appre
hension, as if it nad been filled with flashes of fire. He was no sooner
landed upon the earth, but he moved forward towards me, with a long
spear or weapon in his hand to kill me, and when he came to a rising
ground at some distance he spoke to me, or I heard a voice so terrible
that it is impossible to express the terror of it ; all that I can say I
understood, was this : " Seeing all these things have not brought thee to
repentance, now thou shalt die," at which words I thought he lifted up
the spear that was in his hand, to kill me.
78 ADVENTURES OF
No one that sh.aH ever read this account, will expect that I should be
able to describe the horrors of my soul at this terrible vision ; I mean,
that even while it was a dream, I even dreamed of those horrors ; nor is
it any more possible to describe the impression that remained upon my
mind when I awaked, and found it was but a dream.
I had, alas ! no divine knowledge ; what I had received by the good
instruction of my father was then worn out by an uninterrupted series,
for eight years, of seafaring wickedness, and a constant conversation with
nothing but such as were, like myself, wicked and profane to the last
degree. I do not remember that I had, in all that time, one thought
that so much as tended either to looking upwards towards God, or inwards
towards a reflection upon my own ways, but a certain stupidity of soul,
without desire of good, or conscience of evil, had entirely overwhelmed
me, and I was all that the most hardened, unthinking, wicked creature
among our common sailors can be supposed to be, not having the least
sense either of the fear of God, in danger, or of thankfulness to God, in
deliverance.
In the relating what is already past of my story, this will be the
more easily believed when I shall add, that, through all the variety of
miseries that had to this day befallen me, I never had so much as one
thought of it being the hand of God, or that it was a just punishment
for my sin my rebellious behaviour against my father, or my present
sins, which were great, or so much as a punishment for the general
course of my wicked life. When I was on the desperate expedition on
the desert shores of Africa, I never had so much as one thought of what
would become of me, or one wish to God to direct me whither I should
go, or to keep me from the danger which apparently surrounded me,
as well from voracious creatures as cruel savages ; but I was merely
thoughtless of God or a Providence, acted like a mere brute, from the
principles of nature, and by the dictates of common sense only, and
indeed hardly that.
When I was delivered and taken up at sea by the Portuguese captain,
well used and dealt justly and honourably with, as well as charitably,
I had not the least thankfulness in my thoughts. When, again, I was
shipwrecked, ruined, and in danger of drowning, on this island, I was
as far from remorse, or looking on it as a judgment : I only said to
myself often, that I was an unfortunate dog, and born to be always
miserable.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 79
It is true, when I got on shore first here, and found all my ship's
crew drowned, and myself spared, I was surprised with a kind of ecstasy,
and some transports of soul, which, had the grace of God assisted, might
have come up to true thankfulness ; but it ended where it began, in a
mere common flight of joy, or, as I may say, being glad I was alive,
without the least reflection upon the distinguishing goodness of the hand
which had preserved me, and had singled me out to be preserved when
all the rest were destroyed, or an inquiry why Providence had been thus
merciful to me, even just the same common sort of joy which seamen
generally have after they have got safe ashore from a shipwreck, which
they drown all in the next bowl of punch, and forget almost as soon as it
is over : and all the rest of my life was like it.
Even when I was afterwards, on due consideration, made sensible of
my condition, how I was cast on this dreadful place, out of the reach of
human kind, out of all hope of relief, or prospect of redemption, as soon
as I saw but a prospect of living, and that I should not starve and perish
for hunger, all the sense of my affliction wore off", and I began to be very
ea^v, applied myself to the works proper for my preservation and supply,
and was far enough from being afflicted at my condition, as a judgment
from Heaven, or as the hand of God against me : these were thoughts
which very seldom entered into my head.
The growing up of the corn, as is hinted in my Journal, had, at first,
some little influence upon me, and began to affect me with seriousness as
long as I thought it had something miraculous in it, but as soon ab ever
that part of the thought was removed, all the impression which was raised
from it wore off also, as I have noted already.
Even the earthquake, though nothing could be more terrible in its
nature, or more immediately directing to the invisible Power which alone
directs such things, yet no sooner was the first fright over, but the impres
sion it had made went off also. I had no more sense of God, or his judg
ments, much less of the present affliction of my circumstances being from
his hand, than if I had been in the most prosperous condition of life.
But now, when I began to be sick, and a leisurely view of the
miseries of death came to place itself before me, when my spirits began
to sink under the burden of a strong distemper, and nature was exhausted
with the violence of the fever, conscience, that had slept so long, began
to awake, and I began to reproach myself with my past life, in which I
had so evidently, by uncommon wickedness, provoked the justice of God
80 ADVENTURES OF
to lay me under uncommon strokes, and to deal with me in so vindictive
a manner.
These reflections oppressed me for the second or third day of my dis
temper, and in the violence, as well of the fever as of the dreadful
reproaches of my conscience, extorted some words from me like praying
to God, though I cannot say they were either a prayer attended with
desires or with hopes ; it was rather the voice of mere fright and distress.
My thoughts were confused, the convictions great upon my mind, and the
horror of dying in such a miserable condition raised vapours in my head
with the mere apprehensions ; and in these hurries of my soul I know not
what my tongue might express, but it was rather exclamation, such as,
"Lord, what a miserable creature am I! If I should be sick, I shall
certainly die for want of help ; and what will become of me ?" Then the
tears burst out of my eyes, and I could say no more for a good while.
In this interval, the good advice of my father came to my mind, and
presently his prediction, which I mentioned at the beginning of this
story, viz., that if I did take this foolish step God would not bless
me, and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected
his counsel, when there might be none to assist in my recovery. "Now,"
said I, aloud, "my dear father's words are come to pass: God's justice
has overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me. I rejected the
voice of Providence, which had mercifully put me in a posture or. station
of life wherein I might have been happy and easy, but I would neither
see it myself, nor learn to know the blessing of it from my parents. I
left them to mourn over my folly, and now I am left to mourn under the
consequences of it : I refused their help and assistance, who would have
lifted me into the world, and would have made every thing easy to me ;
and now I have difficulties to struggle with, too great for even nature
itself to support, and no assistance, no comfort, no advice." Then I cried
out, " Lord, be my help, for I am in great distress." This was the first
prayer, if I may call it so, that I had made for many years. But I
return to my Journal.
ROBINSON CRUSOE,
81
CHAPTER VII.
The Journal resumed Crusoe's thoughts during his illness His reflections on the dealings of
Providence with him Finds a Bible in a seaman's chest which is cast on shore, and is consoled
and encouraged by the reading of it Tobacco as a remedial agent His first prayer Finds
deliverance from sin a greater blessing than deliverance from affliction Convalescence
Takes a fresh survey of the Island, and discovers tobacco, aloes, lemons, melons, grapes, and
wild sugar-canes Gathers grapes, limes, and lemons to store up for the winter His lost cat
returns with a family of kittens.
TINE 28. Having been somewhat refreshed with the sleep I
had had, and the fit being entirely off, I got up, and though
the fright and terror of my dream was very great, yet I
considered that the fit of the ague would return again the
next day, and now was my time to get something to refresh
and support myself when I should be ill ; and the first thing
I did, I filled a large square case-bottle with water, and set
it upon my table, in reach of my bed, and to take off the chill or aguish
disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum into it,
6
82 ADVENTURES OF
and mixed them together. Then I got me a piece of the goat's flesh, and
broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little. I walked about, but was
very weak and withal very sad and heavy-hearted in the sense of my
miserable condition, dreading the return of my distemper the next day.
At night, I made my supper of three of the turtle's eggs, which I roasted
in the ashes, and eat, as we call it, in the shell ; and this was the first
bit of meat I had ever asked God's blessing to, even, as I could remem
ber, in my whole life. After I had eaten, I tried to walk, but found
myself so weak that I could hardly carry the gun (for I never went out
without that) ; so I went but a little way, and sat down upon the
ground, looking' out upon the sea, which was just before me, and very
calm and smooth. As I sat here, some such thoughts as these occurred
to me :
"What is this earth and sea, of which I have seen so much ? Whence
is it produced ? And what am I, and all the other creatures, wild and
tame, human and brutal ? "Whence are we ?
Sure we are all made by some secret power, who formed the earth
and sea, the air and sky And who is that? Then it followed most
naturally, It is God that has made it all. Well, but then it came on
strangely if God has made all these things, he guides and governs them
all, and all things that concern them ; for the Power that could make all
things must certainly have power to guide and direct them.
If so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of his works, either
without his knowledge or appointment.
And if nothing happens without his knowledge, he knows that I am
here, and am in this dreadful condition ; and if nothing happens without
his appointment, he has appointed all this to befal me.
Nothing occurred to my thought to contradict any of these conclu
sions, and therefore it rested upon me with the greater force, that it must
needs be that God had appointed all this to befal me that I was brought
to this miserable circumstance by his direction, he having the sole power,
not of me only, but of every thing that happened in the world. Imme
diately it followed
"Why has God done this to me ? WTiat have I done to be thus used ?
My conscience presently checked me in that inquiry, as if I had
blasphemed ; and methought it spoke to me like a voice : " Wretch ! dost
thou ask what thou hast done ? Look back upon a dreadful misspent life,
and ask thyself what thou hast not done ? Ask, why is it that thou wert
ROBINSON CRUBOii. 83
not long ago destroyed? Why wert thou not drowned in Yarmouth
Roads ; killed in the fight when the ship was taken by the Bailee man-
of-war ; devoured by the wild beasts on the coast of Africa ; or drowned
HERE, when all the crew perished but thyself? Dost thou ask, ' What
have I done?'"
I was struck dumb with these reflections, as one astonished, and had
not a word to say, no, not to answer to myself; but rose up pensive
and sad, walked back to my retreat, and went up over my wall, as if I had
been going to bed : but my thoughts were sadly disturbed, and I had no
inclination to sleep, so I sat down in my chair, and lighted my lamp, for
it began to be dark. ]STow, as the apprehension of the return of my
distemper terrified me very much, it occurred to my thought that the
Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for almost all distempers ; and
I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in one of the chests, which was quite
cured, and some also that was green, and not quite cured.
I went, directed by Heaven, no doubt, for in this chest I found a cure
both for soul and body. I opened the chest, and found what I looked
for, viz., the tobacco; and, as the few books I had saved lay there too,
I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before, and which, to this
time, I had not found leisure, or so much as inclination, to look into
I say, I took it out, and brought both that and the tobacco with me to
the table.
What use to make of the tobacco I knew not, as to my distemper, or
whether it was good for it or no ; but I tried several experiments with
it, as if I was resolved it should hit one way or other. I first took a
piece of a leaf, and chewed it in my mouth, which, indeed, at first, almost
stupefied my brain, the tobacco being green and strong, and that I had
not been much used to it. Then I took some and steeped it an hour or
two in some rum, and resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down ;
and, lastly, I burnt some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose close
over the smoke of it as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat, as
almost for suffocation.
i
In the interval of this operation, I took up the Bible and began to
read, but my head was too much disturbed with the tobacco to bear
reading, at least at that time ; only, having opened the book casually,
the first words that occurred to me were these : " Call on me in the day
of trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."
The words were very apt to my case, and made some impression
84 ADVENTURES OP
upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, though not so much as
they did afterwards ; for, as for being delivered, the word had no sound,
as I may say, to me the thing was so remote, so impossible in my
apprehension of things, that I began to say, as the children of Israel did,
when they were promised flesh to eat, " Can God spread a table in the
wilderness?" so I began to say, "Can God himself deliver me from
this place ? " And as it was not for many years that any hope appeared,
this prevailed very often upon my thoughts. But, however, the words
im?de a great impression upon me, and I mused upon them very often.
It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said, dozed my head so much
that I inclined to sleep ; so I left my lamp burning in the cave, lest I
should want any thing in the night, and went to bed. But before I lay
down, I did what I never had done in all my life I kneeled down, and
prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me, that if I called upon him in
the day of trouble, he would deliver me. After my broken and imperfect
prayer was over, I drank the rum in which I had steeped the tobacco,
which was so strong and rank of the tobacco, that, indeed, I could scarce
get it down. Immediately upon this I went to bed. I found presently
it flew up in my head violently, but I fell into a sound sleep, and
waked no more till, by the sun, it must necessarily be near three o'clock
in the afternoon the next day ; nay, to this hour, I am partly of the
opinion that I slept all the next day and night, and till almost three the
day after ; for otherwise I know not how I should lose a day out of my
reckoning in the days of the week, as it appeared some years after I had
done, for if I had lost it by crossing and recrossing the Line, I should
have lost more than one day, but certainly I lost a day in my account,
and never knew which way.
Be that, however, one way or other, when I awaked I found my
self exceedingly refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful : when
I got up, I was stronger than I was the day before, and my stomach
better, for I was hungry, and, in short, I had no fit the next day, but
continued much altered for the better. This was the 29th.
The 30th was my well day, of course, and I went abroad with my
gun, but did not care to travel too far. I killed a seafowl or two, some
thing like a brand goose, and brought them home, but was not very
forward to eat them, so I eat some more of the turtle's eggs, which were
very good. This evening I renewed the medicine which I had supposed
did me good the day before, viz., the tobacco steeped in rum, only I did
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
85
not take so nmcli as before, nor did I chew any of the leaf, or hold my
head over the smoke : however, I was not so well the next day, which
was the 1st of July, as I hoped I should have been, for I had a little
spice of the cold fit, but it was not much.
July 2. I renewed the medicine all the three ways, and dosed myself
with it as at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank.
July 3. I missed the fit for good and all, though I did not recover
my full strength for some weeks after. "While I was thus gathering
strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this Scripture, "I will
deliver thee," and the impossibility of my deliverance lay much upon my
mind, in bar of my ever expecting it ; but, as I was discouraging myself
86 ADVENTURES OF
with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind that I pored so much upon
my deliverance from the main affliction, that I disregarded the deliverance
I had received, and I was, as it were, made to ask myself such questions
as these, viz. : "Have I not heen delivered, and wonderfully, too, from
sickness, from the most distressed condition that could be, and that was
so frightful to me ? and what notice had I taken of it ? Had I done
my part ? God had delivered me, hut I had not glorified him, that is to
say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as a deliverance, and
how could I expect a greater deliverance ? " (
This touched my heart very much, and immediately I knelt down and
gave God thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.
Jyly 4. In the morning I took the Bible, and, beginning at the "New
Testament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself to read
a while every morning and every night, not tying myself to the number
of chapters, but as long as my thoughts should engage me. It was not
long after I set seriously to this work, but I found my heart more deeply
and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life. The impres
sion of my dream revived, and the words, "All these things have not
brought thee to repentance," ran seriously in my thoughts. I was
earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened pro
videntially, the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I came to these
words, "He is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance, and
to give remission." I threw down the book, and with my heart as well
as my hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out
aloud, "Jesus, thou son of David! Jesus, thou exalted Prince and
Saviour ! give me repentance ! "
f This was the first time that I could say, in the true sense of the
words, that I prayed in all my life ; for now I prayed with a sense of
my condition^ 1 and with a true Scripture view of hope, founded on the
encouragement of the word of God; and from this time, I may say,
I began to have hope that God would hear me.
Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, " Call on me in
the day of trouble : I will deliver thee," in a different sense from what I
had ever done before ; for then I had no notion of any thing being called
deliverance, Jbut my being delivered from the captivity I was in : for
though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly a
prison to me, and that in the worst sense in the world. But now I
learned to take it in another sense ; now I looked back upon my past life
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 87
with such, horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul sought
nothing of God bufr'deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all
my comfort. As for my solitary life, it was nothing ; I did not so much
as pray to be delivered from it, or think of it : it was all of no considera
tion, in comparison to this. And I added this part here, to hint to whoever
shall read it, that, whenever they come to a true sense of things, they
will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than deliverance
from affliction.
But, leaving this part, I return to my Journal.
My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my
way of living, yet much easier to my mind ; and my thoughts being
directed, by a constant reading the Scripture and praying to God, to
things of a higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within, which,
till now, I knew nothing of ; also, as my health and strength returned, I
bestirred myself to furnish myself with every thing that I wanted, and
make my way of living as regular as I could.
From the 4th of July to the 14th, I was chiefly employed in walking
about with my gun in my hand, a little and a little at a time, as a man
that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness : for it is hardly
to be imagined how low I was, and to what weakness I was reduced.
The application which I made use of was perfectly new, and perhaps
what had never cured an ague before, neither can I recommend it to
any one to practise, by this experiment ; and though it did carry off the
fit, yet it rather contributed to weakening me, for I had frequent convul
sions in my nerves and limbs for some time.
I learnt from it also this, in particular, that being abroad in the
rainy season was the most pernicious thing to my health that could be,
especially in those rains which came attended with storms and hurricanes
of wind ; for as the rain which came in a dry season was always most
accompanied with such storms, so I found that rain was much more
dangerous than the rain which fell in September and October.
I had now been in this unhappy island above ten months : all possi
bility of dsliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from
me, and I firmly believe that no human shape had ever set foot upon that
place. Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my
mind, I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the island,
and to see what other productions I might find, which yet I knew
nothing of
88 ADVENTURES OF
It was the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey
of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I
brought my rafts on shore. I found, after I came about two miles up,
that the tide did not flow any higher, and that it was no more than
a little brook of running water, and very fresh and good ; but this being
the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it ; at least,
not enough to run in any stream so as it could be perceived.
On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs or
meadows, plain, smooth, and covered with grass ; and on the rising parts
of them, next to the higher grounds (where the water, as it might be
supposed, never overflowed), I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and
growing to a great and very strong stalk : there were divers other plants
which I had no notion of, or understanding about, and that might, per
haps, have virtues of their own which I could not find out. I searched
for the cassava root, which the Indians in all that climate make their
bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of aloes, but did not
then understand them. I saw several sugar-canes, but wild, and, for
want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented myself with these discoveries
for this time, and came back musing with myself what course I might
take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the fruits or plants which
I should discover, but could bring it to no conclusion ; for, in short, I had
made so little observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little
of the plants in the field, at least, very little that might serve me to any
purpose now in my distress.
The next day, the 16th, I went up the same way again, and, after
going something farther than I had gone the day before, I found the
brook and the savannahs began to cease, and the country became more
woody than before. In this part I found different fruits, and particularly
I found melons upon the ground in great abundance, and grapes upon the
trees : the vines, indeed, had spread over the trees, and the clusters
- of grapes were just now in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was
a surprising discovery, and I was exceeding glad of them ; but I
was warned by my experience to eat sparingly of them, remember
ing that when I was ashore in Barbary, the eating of grapes killed
several of our Englishmen, who were slaves there, by throwing them
into fluxes and fevers. But I found an excellent use for these grapes,
and that was to cure or dry them in the sun, and keep them as dried
grapes or raisins are kept, which I thought would be (as indeed they
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 89
were) as wholesome and as agreeable to eat, when no grapes might
be had.
I spent all that evening there, and went not back to my habitation,
which, by the way, was the first night, as I might say, I had lain from
home. In the night I took my first contrivance and got up into a tree,
where I slept well, and the next morning proceeded upon my discovery,
travelling near four miles, as I might judge by the length of the valley,
keeping still due north, with a ridge of hills on the south and north sides
of me.
At the end of this march I came to an opening, where the country
seemed to descend to the west, and a little spring of fresh water, which
issued out of the side of the hill by me, ran the other way, that is, due
east ; and the country appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishing, every
thing being in a constant verdure, or flourish of spring, that it looked
like a planted garden.
I descended a little on the side of that delicious vale, surveying it
with a secret kind of pleasure (though mixed with my other afflicting
thoughts), to think that this was all my own ; that I was king and lord
of all this country indefeasibly, and had a right of possession, and, if I
could convey it, I might have it in inheritance as completely as any lord
of a manor in England. I saw here abundance of cocoa trees, orange,
and lemon, and citron trees, but all wild, and few bearing any fruit, at
least not then. However, the green limes that I gathered were not only
pleasant to eat, but very wholesome, and I mixed their juice afterwards
with water, which made it very wholesome and very cool and refreshing.
I found now I had business enough, to gather and carry home, and
I resolved to lay up a store, as well of grapes as limes and lemons, to
furnish myself for the wet season, which I knew was approaching.
In order to this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, and
a lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of limes and lemons in
another place ; and, taking a few of each with me, I travelled homeward,
and resolved to come again, and bring a bag or sack, or what I could
make, to carry the rest home.
Accordingly, having spent three days in this journey, I came home
(so I must now call my tent and my cave), but before I got thither the
grapes were spoiled : the richness of the fruits, and the weight of the
juice, having broken them and bruised them, they were good for little or
nothing ; as to the limes, they were good, but I could bring but a few.
90 ADVENTURES OF
The next day being the 19th, I went back, having made me two
small bags to bring home my harvest ; but I was surprised when, coming
to my heap of grapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them,
I found them all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some
here, some there, and abundance eaten and devoured. By this I con
cluded there were some wild creatures thereabouts, which had done this,
but what they were I knew not.
However, as I found that there was no laying them up on heaps, and
no carrying them away in a sack, but that one way they would be
destroyed, and the other way they would be crushed with their own
weight, I took another course ; for I gathered a large quantity of the
grapes, and hung them upon the out-branches of the trees, that they
might cure and dry in the sun : and as for the limes and lemons, I carried
as many back as I could well stand under.
When I came home from this journey, I contemplated with great
pleasure the fruitfulness of that valley and the pleasantness of the situa
tion, the security from storms on that side the water, and the wood ; and
concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode, which was by
far the worst part of the country. Upon the whole, I began to consider
of removing my habitation, and to look out for a place equally safe as
where I now was situate, if possible, in that pleasant fruitful part of
the island.
This thought ran long in my head, and I was exceeding fond of it for
some time, the pleasantness of the place tempting me ; but when I came
to a nearer view of it, and to consider that I was now by the seaside,
where it was at least possible that something might happen to my advan
tage, and, by the same ill-fate that brought me hither, might bring some
other unhappy wretches to the same place, and though it was scarce
' probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself
among the hills and woods in the centre of the island, was to anticipate
my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, but
impossible, and that therefore I ought not by any means to remove.
However, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spent much of my
time there for the whole remaining part of the month of July ; and
though, upon second thoughts, I resolved, as above, not to remove,
yet I built me a little kind of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance
with a strong fence, being a double hedge, as high as I could reach, well
staked, and filled between with brushwood ; and here I lay very secure,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 91
sometimes two or three nights together, always going over it with a
ladder, as before, so that I fancied now I had my country-house and my
sea-coast house. And this work took me up till the beginning of August.
I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labour,
but the rains came on and made me stick close to my first habitation ;
for, though I had made me a tent like the other with a piece of a sail, and
spread it very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me from
storms, nor a cave behind me to retreat into when the rains were extra
ordinary.
About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower,
and began to enjoy myself. The 3rd of August, I found the grapes I
had hung up were perfectly dried, and indeed were excellent good raisins
of the sun : so I began to take them down from the trees, and it was
very happy that I did so, for the rains which followed would have spoiled
them, and I had lost the best part of my winter food ; for I had above
two hundred large bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all
down, and earned most of them home to my cave, but it began to rain ;
and from hence, which was the 14th of August, it rained, more or less,
every day till the middle of October, and sometimes so violently that
could not stir out of my cave for several days.
In this season, I was much surprised with the increase of my family.- ^
I had been concerned for the loss of one of my cats who ran away from
me, or, as I thought, had been dead, and I heard no more tale or tidings
of her, till, to my astonishment, she came home, about the end of August,
with three kittens. This was the more strange to me, because, though
I had killed a wild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought it was
a quite differing kind from our European cats ; yet the young cats were
the same kind of house-breed like the old one, and both of my cats being
females, I thought it very strange ; but, from these three cats, I after
wards came to be so pestered with cats, that I was forced to kill them
like vermin, or wild beasts, and to drive them from my house as much
as possible.
From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain, so that I could
not stir, and was now very careful not to be much wet. In this confine
ment, I began to be straitened for food ; but, venturing out twice, I one
day killed a goat, and the last day, which was the 2Gth, found a very
large tortoise, which was a treat to me, and my food was regulated thus :
I eat a bunch of raisins for my breakfast, a piece of the goat's flesh, or of
92
ADVENTURES OP
the turtle, for my dinner, broiled (for, to my great misfortune, I had no
vessel to boil or stew anything), and two or three of the turtle's eggs for
my supper.
During this confinement in my cover, by the rain, I worked daily two
or three hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked it on towards
one side till I came to the outside of the hill and made a door, or way
out, which came beyond my fence or wall ; and so I came in and out this
way. But I was not perfectly easy at lying so open : for, as I had
managed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure, whereas now, I
thought I lay exposed; and yet I could not perceive that there was
any living thing to fear, the biggest creature that I had yet seen upon
the island being a goat.
THE ANNIVERSARY OF CRUSOE'S LANDING.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 93
CHAPTER VIII.
The Journal continued Crusoe celebrates the anniversary of his landing on the island by a solemn
fast Sets apart every seventh day for a Sabbath His ink beginning to fail, he only records
remarkable events in his Journal -Sows a portion of the grain he had saved at the wrong
season, and learns something worth knowing from the experiment A new division of the Seasons
Turns his early habit of observing to account, in making baskets Makes a journey through
the island, and comes to a spot where the shore is covered with turtles Loses his way in the
interior, and returns to the shore, from whence he reaches his home Catches and tames a
young kid The second anniversary of his landing Reflections Difficulties overcome by labour
and patience.
EPTEMBEB, THE .30TH I was now come to the unhappy
anniversary of my landing, I cast np the notches on my
post, and fonnd I had heen on shore three hundred and
sixty-five days. I kept this day as a solemn fast, setting
it apart for religious exercise, prostrating myself on the ground with the
most serious humiliation, confessing my sins to God, acknowledging his
righteous judgments upon me, and praying to him to have mercy on me
through Jesus Christ; and having not tasted the least refreshment for
twelve hours, even till the going down of the sun, I then eat a hiscuit
cake and a hunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day as I
began it.
I had all this time observed no sabbath-day ; for, as at first I had no
sense of religion upon my mind, I had, after some time, omitted to dis
tinguish the weeks, by making a longer notch than ordinary for the
sabbath-day, and so did not really know what any of the days were ; but
now having cast up the days, as above, I found I had been there a year,
so I divided it into weeks, and set apart every seventh day for a sabbath :
though I found, at the end of my account, I had lost a day or two in my
reckoning.
A little after this, my ink began to fail me, and so I contented myself
to use it more sparingly, and to write down only the most remarkable
94 ADVENTURES OF
events of my life, without continuing a daily memorandum of other
things.
The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear regular to
me, and I learned to divide them so as to provide for them accordingly ;
but I bought all my experience before I had it, and this I am going to
relate was one of the most discouraging experiments that I made at
all. I have mentioned that I had saved the few ears of barley and
rice, which I had so surprisingly found spring up, as I thought, of
themselves, and believe there were about thirty stalks of rice, and about
twenty of barley ; and now I thought it a proper time to sow it after the
rains, the sun being in its southern position, going from me.
Accordingly, I dug up a piece of ground, as well as I could with my
wooden spade, and, dividing it into two parts, I sowed my grain ; but, as
I was sowing, it casually occurred to my thoughts that I would not sow
it all at first, because I did not know when was the proper time for it ;
so I sowed about two-thirds of the seed, leaving about a handful of each.
It was a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one
grain of that I sawed this time came to anything ; for the dry months
following, the earth having had no rain after the seed was sown, it had
no moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at all till the wet
season had come again, and then it grew as if it had been but newly
sown.
Finding my first seed did not grow, which I easily imagined was by the
drought, I sought for a moister piece of ground to make another trial in,
and I dug up a piece of ground near my new bower, and sowed the rest
of my seed in February, a little before the vernal equinox ; and this,
having the rainy months of March and April to water it, sprung up very
pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop : but having part of the seed
left only, and not daring to sow all that I had, I had but a small quantity
at last, my whole crop not amounting to above half a peck of each kind.
But by this experiment I was made master of my business, and knew
exactly when the proper season was to sow, and that I might expect two
seed-times, and two harvests, every year.
While this corn was growing, I made a little discovery, which was
of use to me afterwards. As soon as the rains were over and the weather
began to settle, which was about the month of November, I made a visit
up the country to my bower, where, though I had not been some months,
yet I found all things just as I left them. The circle, or double hedge,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 95
that I had made, was not only firm and entire, but tlie stakes which I had
cut out of some trees that grew thereabouts, were all shot out and grown
with long branches, as much as a willow-tree usually shoots the first year
after lopping its head. I could not tell what tree to call it that these
stakes were cut from. I was surprised, and yet very well pleased, to see
the young trees grow, and I pruned them and led them up to grow as
much alike as I could ; and it is scarce credible how beautiful a figure
they grew into in three years, so that, though the hedge made a circle
of about twenty-five yards in diameter, yet the trees, for such I might
now call them, soon covered it, and it was a complete shade, sufficient to
lodge under all the dry season. This made me resolve to cut some more
stakes, and make me a hedge like this, in a semicircle round my wall
(I mean that of my first dwelling), which I did ; and placing the trees,
or stakes, in a double row, at about eight yards distance from my first
fence, they grew presently, and were at first a fine cover to my habitation,
and afterwards served for a defence also, as I shall observe in its order.
I found now that the seasons of the year might generally be divided,
not into summer and winter, as in Europe, but into the rainy seasons 'and
the dry seasons, which were generally thus :
"1
> Rainy,
J
Half February
March ^ Eainy, the sun being then on, or near, the equinox.
Half April
Half April
May
June ^ Dry, the sun being then to the north of the Line.
July
Half August
Half August
September }> Eain, the sun being then come back.
Half October
i Eain,
Half October ~]
November
December )> Dry, the sun being then to the south of the Line.
January
Half February J
The rainy season sometimes held longer or shorter, as the winds
happened to blow, but this was the general observation I made. After I
had found, by experience, the ill consequence of being abroad in the rain,
I took care to furnish myself with provisions beforehand, that I might not
be obliged to go out, and I sat within doors as much as possible during
the wet months.
96 ADVENTURES OP
In this time I found much employment, and very suitable also to the
time, for I found great occasion of many things which I had no way to
furnish myself with but by hard labour and constant application ; par
ticularly, I tried many ways to make myself a basket, but all the twigs I
could get for the purpose proved so brittle that they would do nothing.
It proved of excellent advantage to me now, that, when I was a boy, I
used to take great delight in standing at a basket-maker's, in the town
where my father lived, to see them make their wicker- ware ; and being,
as boys usually are, very officious to help, and a great observer of the
manner how they worked those things, and sometimes lending a hand, I
had by this means so full knowledge of the methods of it, that I wanted
nothing but the materials, when it came into my mind that the twigs of
that tree from whence I cut my stakes that grew, might possibly be as
tough as the sallows, and willows, and osiers, in England ; and I resolved
to try.
Accordingly, the next day, I went to my country-house, as I called
it, and cutting some of the smaller twigs, I found them to my purpose as
much as I could desire ; whereupon I came the next time prepared with
a hatchet to cut down a quantity, which I soon found, for there was
great plenty of them. These I set up to dry within my circle, or hedge,
and when they were fit for use, I carried them to my cave ; and here,
during the next season, I employed myself in making, as well as I could,
a great many baskets, both to carry earth, or to carry or lay up any thing
as I had occasion : and, though I did not finish them very handsomely,
yet I made them sufficiently serviceable for my purpose ; and thus, after
wards, I took care never to be without them, and as my wicker-ware
decayed, I made more, especially I made strong deep baskets to place my
corn in, instead of sacks, when I should come to have any quantity
of it.
Having mastered this difficulty, and employed a world of time about
it, I bestirred myself to see, if possible, how to supply two wants. I
had no vessels to hold anything that was liquid, except two runlets,
which were almost full of rum, and some glass bottles, some of the
common size and others, which were case-bottles, square, for the holding
of waters, spirits, etc. I had not so much as a pot to boil anything,
except a great kettle which I saved out of the ship, and which was too
big for such use as I desired it for, viz., to make broth and stew a bit of
meat by itself. The second thing I would fain have had, was a tobacco-
ROBINSON CRUSOfi.
97
pipe, but it was impossible for me to make one ; however, I found a
contrivance for that, too, at last.
I employed myself in planting my second rows of stakes or piles, and
in this wicker-work, all the summer, or dry season, when another business
took me up more time than it could be imagined I could spare.
I mentioned before that I had a great mind to see the whole island,
and that I had travelled up the brook, and so on to where I built my
bower, and where I had an opening quite to the sea, on the other side of
the island. I now resolved to travel quite across to the seashore, on that
side. So, taking my gun, and hatchet, and my dog, and a larger quantity
of powder and shot than usual, with two biscuit-cakes and a great bunch
of raisins in my pouch, for my store, I began my journey. "When I had
passed the vale where my bower stood, as above, I came within view of
7
98 ADVENTURES OF
the sea, to the west ; and it being a very clear day, I fairly descried land,
whether an island or continent I could not tell, but it lay very high,
extending from the west to the west-south-west, at a very great dis
tance : by my guess, it could not be less than fifteen or twenty leagues off.
I could not tell what part of the world this might be, otherwise than
that I knew it must be part of America, and, as I concluded by all my
observations, must be near the Spanish dominions, and perhaps was all
inhabited by savages, where, if I should have landed, I had been in a
worse condition than I was now ; and therefore I acquiesced in the dispo
sitions of Providence, which I began now to own and to believe ordered
every thing for the best, I say, I quieted my mind with this, and left
afflicting myself with fruitless wishes of being there.
Besides, after some pause upon this affair, I considered that, if this
land was the Spanish coast, I should certainly, one time or other, see
some vessel pass or repass one way or other ; but if not, then it was the
savage coast between the Spanish country and Brazil, the inhabitants of
which are indeed the worst of savages, for they are cannibals, or men-
eaters, and fail not to murder, and devour all the human bodies that fall
into their hands.
With these considerations I walked very leisurely forward. I found
that side of the island where I now was much pleasanter than mine, the
open or savannah fields sweet, adorned with flowers and grass, and full of
very fine woods. I saw abundance of parrots, and fain I would have
caught one, if possible, to have kept it to be tame, and taught it to speak
to me. * I did, after some painstaking, catch a young parrot, for I
knocked it down with a stick, and, having recovered it, I brought it
home ; but it was some years before I could make him speak : however, at
last I taught him to call me by my name very familiarly. But the
accident that followed, though it be a trifle, will be very diverting in
its place.
I was exceedingly diverted with this journey. I found, in the low
grounds, hares as I thought them to be and foxes, but they differed
greatly from all the other kinds I had met with, nor could I satisfy
myself to eat them, though I killed several. But I had no need to be
venturous, for I had no want of food, and of that which was very good
too, especially these three sorts, viz. goats, pigeons, and turtle, or tortoise,
which, added to my grapes, Leadenhall market could not have furnished
a table better than I, in proportion to the company ; and though my case
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 99
was deplorable enough, yet I had great cause for thankfulness that I was
not driven to any extremities for food, but had rather plenty, even to
dainties.
I never travelled, in this journey, above two miles outright in a day,
or thereabouts, but I took so many turns and returns, to see what dis
coveries I could make, that I came wearied enough to the place where
I resolved to sit down for all night, and then I either reposed myself in a
tree, or surrounded myself with a row of stakes, set upright in the
ground, either from one tree to another, or so as no wild creature could
come at me without waking me.
As soon as I came to the seashore, I was surprised to see that I had
taken up my lot on the worst side of the island; for here, indeed, the
shore was covered with innumerable turtles, whereas, on the other side,
I had found but three in a year and a half. Here was also an infinite
number of fowls of many kinds, some of which I had not seen before, and
many of them very good meat, but such as I knew not the names of,
except those called penguins.
I could have shot as many as I pleased, but was very sparing of my
powder and shot, and therefore had more mind to kill a she- goat, if I
could, which I could better feed on ; and though there were many goats
here, more than on the other side of the island, yet it was with much
more difficulty that I could come near them, the country being flat and
even, and they saw me much sooner than when I was on the hills.
I confess this side of the country was much pleasanter than mine ; but
yet I had not the least inclination to remove, for, as I was fixed in my
habitation, it became natural to me, and I seemed all the while I was here
to be as it were upon a journey, and from home. However, I travelled
along the shore of the sea towards the east, I suppose about twelve miles,
and then, setting up a great pole upon the shore for a mark, I concluded
I would go home again, and that the next journey I took should be on the
other side of the island, east from my dwelling, and so round till I came
to my post again ; of which in its place.
I took another way to come back than that I went, thinking I could
easily keep all the island so much in my view that I could not miss my first
dwelling by viewing the country ; but I found myself mistaken,, for being
come about two or three miles, I found myself descended into a very
large valley, but so surrounded with hills, and those hills covered with
woods, that I could not see which was my way by any direction but that
100 ADVENTURES OP
of the sun, nor even then, unless I knew very well the position of the
sun at that time of the day.
It happened, to my farther misfortune, that the weather proved hazy
for three or four days while I was in this valley, and, not being able to
see the sun, I wandered about very uncomfortably, and at last was
obliged to find out the seaside, look for my post, and come back the same
way I went; and then by easy journeys I turned homeward, the weather
being exceeding hot, and my gun, ammunition, hatchet, and other things
very heavy.
In this journey, my dog surprised a young kid, and seized upon it,
and I running in to take hold of it, caught it, and saved it alive from the
dog. I had a great mind to bring it home if I could, for I had often
been musing whether it might not be possible to get a kid or two, and so
raise a breed of tame goats, which might supply me when my powder
and shot should be all spent.
I made a collar for this little creature, and with a string which I
made out of some rope yarn, which I always carried about me, I led him
along, though with some difficulty, till I came to my bower, and there I
enclosed him and left him, for I was very impatient to be at home, from
whence I had been absent above a month.
I cannot express what a satisfaction it was to me to come into my old
hutch, and lie down in my hammock bed. This little wandering journey,
without settled place of abode, had been so unpleasant to me that my
own house, as I called it to myself, was a perfect settlement to me, com
pared to that ; and it rendered every thing about me so comfortable, that
I resolved I would never go a great way from it again, while it should
be my lot to stay on the island.
I reposed myself here a week, to rest and regale myself after my long
journey, during which most of the time was taken up in the weighty
affair of making a cage for my Poll, who began now to be a mere domestic,
and to be mighty well acquainted with me. Then I began to fhink of
the poor kid which I had pent in within my little circle, and resolved to go
and fetch it home, and give it some food : accordingly I went, and found it
where I left it, for indeed it could not get out, but was almost starved
for want of food. I went and cut boughs of trees, and branches of such
shrubs as I could find, and threw it over, and having fed it, I tied it as
I did before, to lead it away ; but it was so tame with being hungry, that
I had no need to have tied it, for it followed me like a dog, and, as I
ROBINSON CRUSOE. ^ 101
continually fed it, the creature became so loving, so gentle, and so fond,
that it became from that time one of my domestics also, and would never
leave me afterwards.
The rainy season of the autumnal equinox was now come, and I kept
the 30th of September in the same solemn manner as before, being the
anniversary of my landing on the island, having now been there two
years, and no more prospect of being delivered than the first day I came
there. I spent the whole day in humble and thankful acknowledgments
of the many wonderful mercies which my solitary condition was attended
with, and without which it might have been infinitely more miserable.
I gave humble and hearty thanks, that God had been pleased to discover
to me even that it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary
condition than I should have been in a liberty of society and in all the
pleasures of the world, that he could fully make up to me the defi
ciencies of my solitary state and the want of human society, by his
presence and the communications of his grace to my soul, supporting,
comforting, and encouraging me to depend upon his providence here, and
hope for his eternal presence hereafter.
It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy the
life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked,
cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days ; and now
I changed both my sorrows and my joys, my very desires altered, my
affections changed their gusts, and my delights were perfectly new from
what they were at my first coming, or indeed for the two years past.
Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting, or for viewing the
country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon
me on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me, to think of the
woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in, and how I was a prisoner
locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in an uninhabited
wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composures
of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and make me
wring my hands and weep like a child : sometimes it would take me in
the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and
look upon the ground for an hour or two together; and this was still
worse to me, for if I could burst out into tears, or vent myself by words,
it would go off, and the grief, having exhausted itself, would abate.
But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts. I daily read
the word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state.
102 ADVENTURES OF
One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon these words, " I
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Immediately it occurred that
these words were to me : why else should they be directed in such a
manner, just at the moment when I was mourning over my condition as
one forsaken of God and man? " Well, then," said I, "if God does not
forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though
the world should all forsake me, seeing, on the other hand, if I had all
the world and should lose the favour and blessing of God, there would be
no comparison in the loss?"
From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was pos
sible for me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition, than it
was probable I should have ever been in any other particular state of the
world, and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bring
ing me to this place.
I know not what it was, but something shocked my mind at that
thought, and I durst not speak the words. " How canst thou be such a
hypocrite," said I, even audibly, "to pretend to be thankful for a condi
tion which, however thou mayest endeavour to be contented with, thou
wouldest rather pray heartily to be delivered from?" So I stopped
there ; but, though I could not say I thanked God for being there, yet I
sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes, by whatever afflicting
providences^ to see the former condition of my life, and to mourn for my
wickedness, and repent. I never opened the Bible, or shut it, but my
very soul within me bldssed God for directing my friend in England,
without any order of mine, to pack it up among my goods, and for assist
ing me afterwards to save it out of the wreck of the ship.
Thus, and in this disposition of mind, I began my third year ; and,
though I have not given the reader the trouble of so particular an account
of my works this year as at the first, yet in general it may be observed
that I was very seldom idle, but having regularly divided my time accord
ing to the several daily employments that were before me, such as, first,
my duty to God and the reading the Scriptures, which I constantly set
apart some time for, thrice every day : secondly, the going abroad with my
gun for food, which generally took me up three hours every morning, when
it did not rain : thirdly, the ordering, curing, preserving, and cooking what
I had killed or catched for my supply : these took up great part of the
day. Also it is to be considered that, in the middle of the day, when the
sun was in the zenith, the violence of the heat was too great to stir out,
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 103
so that about four hours in the evening was all the time I could be sup
posed to work in, with this exception, that sometimes I changed my
hours of hunting and working, and went to work in the morning, and
abroad with my gun in the afternoon.
To this short time allowed for labour I desire may be added the
exceeding laboriousness of my work, the many hours which, for want of
tools, want of help, and want of skill, everything thaf I did took up out
of my time: for example, I was full two and forty days making me
a board for a long shelf, which I wanted in my cave, whereas, two
sawyers, with their tools and sawpit, would have cut six of them out of
the same tree in half a day.
My case was this it was to be a large tree which was to be cut down,
because my board was to be a broad one. This tree I was three days
cutting down, and two more cutting off the boughs and reducing it to a
log or piece of timber. With inexpressible hacking and hewing, I re
duced both the sides of it into chips, till it began to be light enough to
move ; then I turned it, and made one side of it smooth and flat as a
board from end to end ; then, turning that side downward, cut the other
side, till I brought the plank to be about three inches thick, and smooth
on both sides. Any one may judge the labour of my hands in such a
piece of work, but labour and patience carried me through that and many
other things : I only observe this in particular, to show the reason why
so much of my time went away with so little work, viz., that what might
be a little to be done with help and tools, was a vast labour, and required
a prodigious time to do alone, and by hand.
But notwithstanding this, with patience and labour I went through
many things, and, indeed, every thing that my circumstances made neces
sary for me to do, as will appear by what follows.
104
ADVENTURES OF
-JTZ-
CHAPTEB, IX.
Crusoe in trouble about his growing crops, which, are attacked by goats and birds He delivers
himself from these enemies, and reaps his corn Is perplexed how to make bread of it, and
determines to preserve the whole crop for seed Makes a spade In-door employment in
the rainy season Teaches his parrot to talk Makes pottery, and a mortar to grind his corn in
His first baking A new harvest Contemplates escaping from the island Constructs a
boat, but is unable to launch it Begins to cut a canal, but gives up the attempt in despair
Fresh reflections.
"WAS now, in the months of November and December, ex
pecting my crop of barley and rice. The ground I had manured
or dug up for them was not great, for, as I observed, my seed
of each was not above the quantity of half a peck, for I had
o st one whole crop by sowing in the dry season ; but now my crop
promised very well, when, on a sudden, I found I was in danger of
losing it all again by enemies of several sorts, which it was scarce pos
sible to keep from it; as, first, the goats and wild creatures which I
called hares, which, tasting the sweetness of the blade, lay in it night
and day, as soon as it came up, and eat it so close that it could get no
time to shoot up into stalk.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 105
This I saw no remedy for, but by making an enclosure about it with
a hedge, which I did with a great deal of toil, and the more because it
required a great deal of speed, the creatures daily spoiling my corn.
However, as my arable land was but small, suited to my crop, I got it
totally well fenced in about three weeks' time, and, shooting some of
the creatures in the daytime, I set my dog to guard it in the night, tying
him up to a stake at the gate, where he would stand and bark all night
long ; so in a little time the enemies forsook the place, and the corn grew
very strong and well, and began to ripen apace.
Eut as the beasts ruined me before, while my corn was in the blade,
so the birds were as likely to ruin me now, when it was in the ear;
for, going along by the place to see how it throve, I saw my little crop
surrounded with fowls, of I know not how many sorts, which stood, as it
were, watching till I should be gone. I immediately let fly among them
(for I always had my gun with me) : I had no sooner shot, but there rose
up a little cloud of fowls, which I had not seen at all, from among the
corn itself.
This touched me sensibly, for I foresaw that in a few days they would
devour all my hopes ; that I should be starved, and never be able to raise
a crop at all ; and what to do I could not tell : however, I resolved not
to lose my corn, if possible, though I should watch it night and day. In
the first place, I went among it, to see what damage was already done,'
and found they had spoiled a good deal of it ; but that, as it was yet too
green for them, the loss was not so great, but that the remainder was like
to be a good crop, if it could be saved.
I staid by it to load my gun, and then, coming away, I could easily
see the thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they only waited
till I was gone away ; and the event proved it to be so, for as I walked
off, as if I was gone, I was no sooner out of their sight, but they dropped
down one by one into the corn again. I was so provoked that I could
not have patience to stay till more came on, knowing that every grain
that they eat now was, as it might be said, a peck loaf to me in the con
sequence ; but, coming up to the hedge, I fired again, and killed three of
them. This was what I wished for ; so I took them up, and served them
as we serve notorious thieves in England, viz., hanged them in chains, for
a terror to others. It is impossible to imagine almost that this should
have such an effect as it had ; for the fowls would not only not come at
the corn, but, in short, they forsook all that part of the island, and I
106 ADVENTURES OP
could never see a bird near the place as long as my scarecrows hung
there.
This I was very glad of, you may be sure, and about the latter end of
December, which was our second harvest of the year, I reaped my corn.
I was sadly put to it for a scythe or sickle to cut it down : and all I
could do was to make one as well as I could out of one of the broad
swords, or cutlasses, which I saved among the arms out of the ship.
However, as my crop was but small, I had no great difficulty to cut it
down ; in short, I reaped it my way, for I cut nothing off but the ears,
and carried it away in a great basket which I had made, and so rubbed it
out with my hands, and at the end of all my harvesting, I found that out
of my half peck of seed I had near two bushels of rice, and above two
bushels and a half of barley ; that is to say, by my guess, for I had no
measure at that time.
However, this was great encouragement to me, and I foresaw that in
time it would please God to supply me with bread ; and yet here I was
perplexed again, for I neither knew how to grind nor make meal of my
corn, nor indeed how to clean it and part it ; nor, if made into meal, how
to make bread of it ; and, if how to make it, yet I knew not how to bake
it : these things being added to my desire of having a good quantity for
store, and to secure a constant supply, I resolved not to taste any of this
crop, but to preserve it all for seed against the next season, and, in the
mean time, to employ all my study and hours of working to accomplish
this great work of providing myself with corn and bread.
It might be truly said, that now I worked for my bread. It is a
little wonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon,
viz., the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing,
producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one article of bread.
I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to be my
daily discouragement, and was made more and more sensible of it every
hour, even after I had got the first handful of seed-corn, which, as I have
said, came up unexpectedly, and indeed to a surprise. , ,
First, I had no plough to turn up the earth, no spade or shovel to dig
it: well, this I conquered by making a wooden spade, as I observed before ;
but this did my work but in a wooden manner, and, though it cost me a
great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out
the sooner, but made my work the harder, and made it be performed
much worse.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 107
However, this I bore with, too, and was content to work it out with
patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When the corn
was sowed, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, and
drag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch the earth, as it may
be called, rather than rake or harrow it.
When it was growing and grown, I have observed already how many
things I wanted to fence it, secure it, mow or reap it, cure and carry it
home, thresh, part it from the chaff, and save it : then I wanted a mill to
grind it, sieves to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into bread, and an oven
to bake it ; and yet all these things I did without, as shall be observed :
and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and advantage to me, too.
But all this, as I said, made every thing laborious and tedious to me, but
that there was no help for ; neither was my time so much loss to me,
because, as I had divided it, a certain part of it was every day appointed
to these works ; and, as I resolved to use none of the corn for bread till
I had a greater quantity by me, I had the next six months to apply
myself wholly, by labour and invention, to furnish myself with utensils
proper for the performing all the operations necessary for the making
the corn, when I had it, fit for my use.
But first I was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough to
sow above an acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week's work, at
least, to make me a spade, which, when it was done, was but a sorry
one indeed, and very heavy, and required double labour to work with it :
however, I went through that, and sowed my seed in two large flat pieces
of ground, as near my house as I could find them to my mind, and fenced
them in with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all cut off that wood
which I had set before, which I knew would grow ; so that, in one year's
time, I knew I should have a quick, or living hedge, that would want
but little repair. This work was not so little as to take me up less than
three months, because great part of that time was in the wet season,
when I could not go abroad.
Within doors, that is, when it rained, and I could not go out, I found
employment on the following occasions, always observing that all the
while I was at work, I diverted myself with talking to my parrot, and
teaching him to speak ; and I quickly learnt him to know his own name,
and at last to speak it out pretty loud, " Poll," which was the first word
I ever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own. This,
therefore, was not my work, but an assistant to my work ; for now, as I
108 ADVENTURES OP
said, I had a great employment upon my hands, as follows : viz., I had
long studied, by some means or other, to make myself some earthen
vessels, which indeed I wanted sorely, but knew not where to come at
them : however, considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but,
if I could find out any suitable clay, I might botch up some such pot
as might, being dried by the sun, be hard enough and strong enough
to bear handling, and to hold any thing that was dry, and required to
be kept so ; and, as this was necessary in the preparing corn, meal, etc.,
which was the thing I was upon, I resolved to make some as large as I
could, and fit only to stand like jars, to hold what should be put into
them.
It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how
many awkward ways I took to raise this paste, what odd, misshapen,
ugly things I made, how many of them fell in, and how many fell out,
the clay not being stiff enough to bear its own weight ; how many cracked
by the over violent heat of the sun, being set out too hastily, and how
many fell to pieces with only removing, as well before as after they were
dried ; and, in a word, how, after having laboured hard to find the clay,
to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I could not make
above two large earthen ugly things (I cannot call them jars) in about
two months' labour.
However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them
very gently up, and set them down again in two great wicker baskets,
which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break ; and
as, between the pot and the basket, there was a little room to spare,
I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw, and these two pots being to
stand always dry, I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the
meal, when the corn was bruised.
Though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots, yet I made
several smaller things with better success, such as little round pots, flat
dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and anything my hand turned to, and the
heat of the sun baked them strangely hard.
But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen
pot to hold what was liquid, and bear the fire, which none of these could
do. It happened, after some time, making a pretty large fire for cooking
my meat, when I went to put it out after I had done with it, I found a
broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels in the fire, burnt as hard
as a stone, and red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it, and
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 109
said to myself, that certainly they might be made to burn whole, if they
would burn broken.
This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn me
some pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in, or of
glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but I
placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one upon
another, and placed my firewood all round it, with a great heap of embers
under them. I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside, and upon
the top, till I saw the pots in the inside red hot quite through, and observed
that they did not crack at all : when I saw them clear red, I let them
stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of them, though
it did not crack, did melt or run, for the sand which was mixed with the
clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would have run into glass if
I had gone on ; so I slacked my fire gradually, till my pots began to abate
of the red colour, and watching them all night, that I might not let the
fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three very good I will not say
handsome pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as hard burnt as could be
desired, and one of them perfectly glazed with the running of the sand.
After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort of earthen
ware for my use ; but I must needs say, as to the shapes of them, they
were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when I had no way of
making them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would
make pies that never learned to raise paste.
No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I
found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire, and I had
hardly patience to stay till they were cold, before I set one upon the fire
again, with some water in it, to boil me some meat, which it did admira
bly well ; and with a piece of a kid I made some very good broth, though
I wanted oatmeal and several other ingredients requisite to make it so
good as I would have had it.
My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some
corn in; for, as to the mill, there was no thought, of arriving to that per
fection of art with one pair of hands. To supply this want I was at a
great loss, for, of all trades in the world, I was as perfectly unqualified
for a stonecutter as for any whatever ; neither had I any tools to go about
it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stone big enough to cut
hollow, and make fit for a mortar, and could find none at all, except what
was in the solid rock, and which I had no way to dig or cut out ; nor,
110 ADVENTURES OF
indeed, were the rocks in the island of hardness sufficient, but were all
of a sandy crumbling stone, which would neither bear the weight of a
heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without filling it with sand : so,
after a great deal of time lost in searching for a stone, I gave it over, and
resolved to look out a great block of hard wood, which I found indeed
much easier, and getting one as big as I had strength to stir, I rounded
it, and formed it on the outside with my axe and hatchet, and then, with
the help of fire, and infinite labour, made a hollow place in it, as the
Indians in Brazil make their canoes. After this, I made a great heavy
pestle, or beater, of the wood called the ironwood, and this I prepared and
laid by against I had my next crop of corn, when I proposed to myself
to grind, or rather pound, my corn into meal to make my bread.
My next difficulty was to make a sieve, or scarce, to dress my meal
and to part it from the bran and the husk, without which I did not see
it possible I could have any bread. This was a most difficult thing, so
much as but to think on, for to be sure I had nothing like the necessary
things to make it with I mean fine thin canvass or stuff, to scarce the
meal through. And here I was at a full stop for many months, nor did I
really know what to do. Linen I had none left but what was mere rags ;
I had goats' -hair, but neither knew I how to weave it nor spin it ; and had
I known how, here were no tools to work it with. All the remedy that
I found for this was, that at last I did remember I had, among the sea
men's clothes which were saved out of the ship, some neckcloths of calico
or muslin, and with some pieces of these I made three small sieves, but
proper enough for the work ; and thus I made shift for some years. How
I did afterwards, I shall show in its place.
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,
EOBINSON CEUSOE. Ill
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 emhers, I set down my loaf, or loaves, and whelming down the
earthen pot upon them, drew the emhers all round the outside of the pot,
to keep in and add to the heat ; and thus, as well as in the hest oven in
the world, I haked my harley loaves, and became, in a little time, a good
pastrycook 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 thresh it on, or instrument to thresh
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 main land 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 con
dition, 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 of
more than a thousand to one of being killed, and perhaps of being eaten,
112 ADVENTURES OP
for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coast were cannibals, or
men-eaters, and I knew, by the latitude, that I conld 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 have 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 up none of my apprehensions at first ; and
my head ran mightily upon the thought of getting over to that shore.
Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long-boat with the shoulder-
of-mutton sail with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of
Africa ; but this was in vain : then I thought I would go and look on our
ship's boat, which, as I have said, was blown up upon the shore a great
way, in the storm when we were first cast away. She lay almost where
she did at first, but not quite, and was turned by the force of the waves
and the winds almost bottom upward against the high ridge of beachy
rough sands, but no water about her, as before.
If I had had hands to have refitted her, and to have launched her into
the water, the boat would have done very well, and I might have gone
back into the Brazils with her easy enough ; but I might have easily fore
seen that I could no more turn her and set her upright upon her bottom,
than I could remove the island. However, I went to the wood, and cut
levers and rollers, and brought them to the boat, resolving to try what I
could do, suggesting to myself, that if I could but turn her down, I
might easily repair the damage she had received, and she would be a very
good boat, and I might go to sea in her very easily.
I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent, I
think, three or four weeks about it : 'at last, finding it impossible to heave
it up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the sand, to under
mine it, and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of wood to thrust
and guide it right in the fall.
But when I had done this, I was unable to stir it up again, or to get
under it, much less to move it forwards towards the water ; so I was
forced to give it over, and yet, though I gave over the hopes of the boat,
my desire to venture over for the main increased, rather than decreased,
as the means for it seemed impossible.
This at length set me upon thinking whether it was not possible to
make myself a canoe, or periagua, such as the natives of those climates
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 113
make, even without tools, or, as I might say, without hands, viz., of the
trunk of a great tree. This I not only thought possible, but easy, and
pleased' myself extremely with the thoughts of making it, and with my
having much more convenience for it than any of the Negroes or Indians ;
but not at all considering the particular inconveniences which I lay under
more than the. Indians did, viz., want of hands to move it, when it was
made, into the water a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than all
the consequences of want of tools could be to them ; for what was it to me
that, when I had chosen a vast tree in the woods, I might with great trouble
cut it down, if after I might be able with my tools to hew and dub the
outside into a proper shape of a boat, and burn or cut out the inside to
make it hollow, so to make a boat of it if, after all this, I must leave it
just there where I found it, and was not able to launch it into the water?
One would have thought I could not have had the least reflection
upon my mind of my circumstance, while I was making this boat, but I
should have immediately thought how I should get it into the sea ; but
my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it, that I
never once considered how I should get it off the land ; and it was really,
in its own nature, more easy for me to guide it over forty-five miles of sea,
than about forty-five fathoms of land, where it lay, to set it afloat in the
water.
I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man did,
who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design,
without determining whether I was ever able to undertake it ; not but that
the difficulty of launching my boat came often into my head, but I put a
stop to my own inquiries into it, by this foolish answer which I gave
myself: " Let me first make it, I'll warrant I'll find some way or other
to get it along when it is done."
This was a most preposterous method ; but the eagerness of my fancy
prevailed, and to work I went and felled a cedar tree I question much
whether Solomon ever had such a one for the building of the Temple at
Jerusalem ; it was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part next
the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two
feet, after which it lessened for a while, and then parted into branches.
It was not without infinite labour that I felled this tree ; I was twenty
days hacking and hewing at it at the bottom ; I was fourteen more
getting the branches and limbs, and the vast spreading head of it, cut off,
which I hacked and hewed through with my axe and hatchet, with inex-
8
114 ADVENTURES OF
pressible labour : after this, it cost me a month to shape it and dub it to
a proportion, and to something like the bottom of a boat, that it "might
swim upright as it ought to do. It cost me near three months more to
clear the inside, and work it out so as to make an exact boat of it : this I
did, indeed, without fire, by mere mallet and chisel, and by the dint of
hard labour, till I had brought it to be a very handsome periagua, and
big enough to have carried six-and-twenty men, and consequently big
enough to have carried me and all my cargo.
"When I had gone through this work, I was extremely delighted with
it. The boat was really much bigger than I ever saw a canoe, or
periagua, that was made of one tree, in my life. Many a weary stroke
it had cost, you may be sure, for there remained nothing but to get it into
the water ; and had I gotten it into the water, I make no question but I
should have begun the maddest voyage, and the most unlikely to be per
formed, that ever was undertaken.
But all my devices to get it into the water failed me, though they cost
me infinite labour, too. It lay about one hundred yards from the water,
and not more ; but the first inconvenience was, it was up hill towards the
creek. Well, to take away this discouragement, I resolved to dig into
the surface of the earth, and so make a declivity : this I began, and it
cost me a prodigious deal of pains but who grudge pains that have their
deliverance in view ? but when this was worked through, and this diffi-
culty managed, it was still much at one, for I could no more stir the
canoe than I could the other boat.
Then I measured the distance of ground, and resolved to cut a dock
or canal, to bring water up to the canoe, seeing I could not bring the
canoe down to the water. Well, I began this work, and when I began
to enter upon it, and calculated how deep it was to be dug, how broad,
how the stuff was to be thrown out, I found that by the number of hands
I had, being none but my own, it must have been ten or twelve years
before I should have gone through with it ; for the shore lay high, so that
at the upper end, it must have been at least twenty feet deep : so at
length, though with great reluctance, I gave this attempt over also.
This grieved me heartily, and now I saw, though too late, the folly
of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge
rightly of our own strength to go through with it.
In the middle of this work, I finished my fourth year in this place,
and kept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as much com-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 115
fort as ever before ; for, by a constant study and serious application of the
word of God, and by the assistance of his grace, I gained a different
knowledge from what I had before. I entertained different notions of
things. I looked now upon the world as a thing remote, which I had
rioSEmg to do with, no expectation from, and, indeed, no desires about :
in a word, I had nothing, indeed, to do with it, nor was ever like to
have ; so I thought it looked, as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter,
viz., as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it, and well might I
say, as father Abraham to Dives, " Between me and you there is a great
gulf fixed."
In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the world
here : I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, nor the pride
of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all that I was now capable of
enjoying : I was lord of the whole manor ; or, if I pleased, I might
call myself king or emperor over the whole country which I had posses
sion of. There were no rivals ; I had no competitor, none to dispute
sovereignty or command with me : I might have raised ship-loadings of
corn, but I had no use for it ; so I let as little grow as I thought enough
for my occasion. I had tortoises or turtles enough, but now and then one
was as much as I could put to any use. I had timber enough to have
built a fleet of ships ; I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to have
cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when they had been built.
But all I could make use of was all that was valuable. I had enough
to eat and to supply my wants, and what was the rest to me ? If I killed
more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or the vermin; if I
sowed more corn than I -could eat, it must be spoiled : the trees that I
cut down were lying to rot on the ground, I could make no more use of
them than for fuel, and that I had no occasion for but to dress my food.
In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon
just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good
to us than as they are for our use, and that whatever we may heap
up to give others, we enjoy as much as we can use, and no more.
The most covetous griping miser in the world would have been cured of
the vice of covetousness, if he had been in my case, for I possessed infi
nitely more than I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire,
except it was of things which I had not, and they were but trifles,
though indeed of great use to me. I had, as I hinted before, a parcel of
money, as well gold as silver, above thirty- six pounds sterling. Alas !
116 ADVENTURES OP
there the nasty, sorry, useless stuff lay : I had no manner of business for
it, and I often thought with myself, that I would have given a handful
of it for a gross of tobacco-pipes, or for a hand-mill to grind my corn ;
nay, I would have given it all for sixpenny- worth of turnip and carrot
seed out of England, or for a handful of peas and beans, and a bottle of
ink. As it was, I had not the least advantage by it, or benefit from
it, but there it lay in a drawer, and grew mouldy with the damp of
the cave in the wet season ; and if I had had the drawer full of diamonds
it had been the same case, and they had been of no manner of value
to me, because of no use.
I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself than it
was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. I
frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of
God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness.
I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less
upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what
I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I
cannot express them, and which I take notice of here, to put those
discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what
God has given them, because they see and covet something that he
has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared
to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be
so to any one that should fall into such distress as mine was ; and this
was, to compare my present condition with what I at first expected
it should be, nay, with what it would certainly have been, if the
good providence of God had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be
cast up near to the shore, where I not only could come at her, but
could bring what I got out of her to the shore, for my relief and comfort ;
without which, I had wanted for tools to work, weapons for defence, or
gunpowder and shot for getting my food.
I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to myself
in the most lively colours how I must have acted if I had got nothing out
of the ship ; how I could not have so much as got any food, except fish
and turtles, and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I must
have perished first ; that I should have lived, if I had not perished, like
a mere savage ; that, if I had killed a goat or a fowl by any contrivance,
I had no way to flay or open it, or part the flesh from the skin and the
BOBINSON CKUSOE. 117
bowels, or to cut it up, but must gnaw it with my teeth, and pull it with
my claws like a beast.
These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence
to me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardships
and misfortunes ; and this part also I cannot but recommend to the reflec
tion of those who are apt, in their misery, to say, " Is any affliction like
mine ?" Let them consider how much worse the cases of some people are,
and their case might have been, if Providence had thought fit.
I had another reflection which assisted me also to comfort my mind
with hopes, and this was comparing my present condition with what I
had deserved, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Pro
vidence. I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the knowledge
and fear of God. I had been well instructed by father and mother, neither
had they been wanting to me, in their early endeavours to infuse a
religious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty, and of what the
nature and end of my being required of me. But, alas ! falling early into
the seafaring life, which, of all lives, is the most destitute of the fear of
God, though His terrors are always before them, I say, falling early
into the seafaring life, and into seafaring company, all that little sense of
religion which I had entertained was laughed out of ,me by my messmates,
by a hardened despising of dangers, and the views of death, which
grew habitual to me, by my long absence from all manner of oppor
tunities to converse with any thing but was like myself, or to hear any
thing of what was good, or tended towards it.
So void was I of every thing that was good, or of the least sense of
what I was, or was to be, that, in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed
(such as my escape from Sallee, my being taken up by the Portuguese
master of a ship, my being planted so well in Brazil, my receiving the
cargo from England, and the like), I never had once the words, " Thank
God," so much as on my mind, or in my mouth ; nor, in the greatest dis
tress, had I so much as a thought to pray to Him/ or as much as to say,
"Lord, have mercy upon me!" no, not to mention the name of God,
unless it was to swear by, and blaspheme it.
I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months, as I have
already observed, on the account of my wicked and hardened life past ;
and when I looked about me, and considered what particular providences
had attended me since my coming into this place, and how God had dealt
bountifully with me, had not only punished me less than nfy iniquity
118 ADVENTURES OF
had deserved, but had so plentifully provided for me, this gave me great
hopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercies in
store for me.
"With these reflections, I worked my mind up, not only to resignation
to the will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but
even to a sincere thankfulness for my condition, and that I, who was yet
a living man, ought not to complain, seeing I had not the due punish
ment of my sins ; that I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason
to have expected in that place, that I ought never more to repine at my
condition, but to rejoice, and to give daily thanks for that daily bread
which nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought ; that I ought
to consider I had been fed even by a miracle as great as that of feeding
Elijah by ravens, nay, by a long series of miracles ; and that I could
hardly have named a place in the uninhabited part of the world where I
could have been cast more to my advantage, a place where, as I had no
society, which was my affliction on one hand, so I found no ravenous
beasts, no furious wolves or tigers, to threaten my life, no venomous
creatures, or poisonous, which I might have fed on to my hurt, no
savages, to murder and devour me.
In a word, as my life was a life of sorrow one way, so it was a life of
mercy another, and I wanted nothing to make it a life of comfort, but to
be able to make my sense of God's goodness to me, and care over me, in
this condition, be my daily consolation ; and after I made a just improve
ment of these things I went away and was no more sad.
I had now been here so long, that many things which I brought on
shore for my help were either quite gone, or very much wasted, and near
spent.
My ink, as I observed, had been gone for some time, all but a very
little, which I eked out with water, a little and a little, till it was so
pale, it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long as
it lasted, I made use of it to minute down the days of the month on
which any remarkable thing happened to me; and first, by casting up
times past, I remembered that there was a strange concurrence of days in
the various providences which befel me, and which, if I had been super-
stitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I might have had
reason to have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity.
First, I had observed that the same day that I broke away from my
} ather and my friends, and ran away to Hull, in order to go to sea, the
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 119
same day afterwards I was taken by the Sallee man-of-war,- and made a
slave ; the same day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of the
ship in Yarmouth Roads, that same day of the year afterwards I made
my escape from Sallee in the boat ; the same day of the year I was born
on, viz. the 30th of September, the same day I had my life so mira
culously saved twenty-six years after, when I was cast on shore in this
island, so that my wicked life, and my solitary life, began both on
a day.
The next thing to my ink being wasted, was that of my bread, I
mean the biscuit which I brought out of the ship : this I had husbanded
to the last degree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a day for above
a year ; and yet I was quite without bread for near a year before I got
any corn of my own, and great reason I had to be thankful that I had
any at all, the getting it being, as it has been already observed, next to
miraculous.
My clothes, too, began to decay mightily: as to linen, I had none
a good while, except some chequered shirts which I found in the chests
of the other seamen, and which I carefully preserved, because many times
I could bear no clothes on but a shirt, and it was a very great help to me
that I had, among all the men's clothes of the ship, almost three dozen
of shirts. There were also several thick watch-coats of the seamen, which
were left, indeed, but they were too hot to wear, and though it is true
that the weather was so violently hot that there was no need of clothes,
yet I could not go quite naked, no, though I had been inclined to it,
which I was not, nor could I abide the thought of it, though I was all
alone.
One reason why I could not go quite naked was I could not bear the
heat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on ; nay,
the very heat frequently blistered my skin, whereas, with a shirt on, the
air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, was twofold
cooler than without it. ~No more could I ever bring myself to go out in
the heat of the sun without a cap or hat : the heat of the sun beating
with such violence as it does in that place, would give me the headache
presently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap or hat on, so
that I could not bear it, whereas, if I put on my hat, it would presently
go away.
Upon these views, I began to consider about putting the few rags I
had, which I called clothes, into some order. I had worn out all the
120 ADVENTURES OP
waistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not make
jackets out of the great watch-coats which I had by me, and with such
other materials as I had ; so I set to work a-tailoring, or rather, indeed,
a-botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift
to make two or three waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a great
while: as for breeches, or drawers, I made but very sorry shift, indeed,
till afterwards.
I have mentioned that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I
killed, I mean four-footed ones ; and I had hung them up, stretched out
with sticks, in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and
hard that they were fit for little, but others, it seems, were very useful.
The first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the
hair on the outside, to shoot off the rain ; and this I performed so well
that, after this, I made me a suit of clothes wholly of those skins, that is
to say, a waistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both loose, for they
were rather wanted to keep me cool than to keep me warm. I must not
omit to acknowledge that they were wretchedly made, for, if I was a bad
carpenter, I was a worse tailor ; however, they were such as I made
very good shift with, and when I was abroad, if it happened to rain, the
hair of the waistcoat and cap being outmost, I was kept very dry.
After this, I spent a great deal of time and pains to make me an
umbrella. I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to
make one. I had seen them made in the Brazils, where they are very
useful in the great heats which are there, and I felt the heats every jot as
great here, and greater, too, being nearer the equinox ; besides, as I was
obliged to be much abroad, it was a most useful thing to me, as well
for the rains as the heats. I took a world of pains at it, and was a great
while before I could make any thing likely to hold, nay, after I thought
I had hit the way, I spoiled two or three before I made one to my mind ;
but at last I made one that answered indifferently well. The main
difficulty I found was to make it to let down : I could make it to spread,
but if it did not let down too, and draw in, it would not be portable for
me any way but just over my head, which would not do. However, at
last, as I said, I made one to answer ; I covered it with skins, the hair
upwards, so that it cast off the rain like a pent-house, and kept off the
sun so effectually that I could walk out in the hottest of the weather, with
greater advantage than I could before in the coolest ; and, when I had no
need of it, I could close it, and carry it under my arm.
BOBINSON CRUSOE.
121
Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed
by resigning to the will of God, and throwing myself wholly upon the
disposal of his providence. This made my life better than sociable ; for
when I began to regret the want of conversation, I would ask myself
whether thus conversing mutually with my own thoughts and, as I
hope I may say, even with my Maker, by ejaculations and petitions was
not better than the utmost enjoyment of human society in the world ?
122 ADVENTURES OP
CHAPTER X.
Crusoe makes and launches a boat Leaves the island in search of the main land, and encounters
unexpected dangers He despairs of getting back again Heturns to the island, and on reaching
home is startled by the greeting of his parrot Perfects himself in the making of earthenware and
baskets His contrivances to snare the goats which devour his corn He catches and tames them
At home with his family He describes his personal appearance Sets out on a new journey
through the island.
CANNOT say that, after this, for five years, any extraordinary
thing happened to me, but I lived on in the same course, in the
same posture and place, just as before ; the chief thing I was
employed in, besides my yearly planting my barley and rice and
curing my raisins, of both which I always kept up just enough to have a
sufficient stock of the year's provisions beforehand, I say, besides this
yearly labour, and my daily labour of going out with my gun, I had one
labour to make me a canoe, which at last I finished ; so that by digging
a canal to it of six feet wide and four feet deep, I brought it into the
creek, almost half a mile. As for the first, that was so vastly big, as I
made it without considering beforehand, as I ought to do, how I should
be able to launch it so, never being able to bring it to the water, or
bring the water to it, I was obliged to let it lie where it was, as
memorandum to teach me to be wiser next time. Indeed, the next time,
though I could not get a tree proper for it, and was in a place where I
could not get the water to it at any less distance than, as I have said, of
near half a mile, yet as I saw it was practicable at last, I never gave it
over ; and though I was near two years about it, yet I never grudged my
labour, in hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last.
However, though my little periagua was finished, yet the size of it
was not at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I
made the first, I mean, of venturing over to the terra firma, where
it was above forty miles broad ; accordingly, the smallness of the boat
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 123
assisted to put an end to that design, and now I thought no more of
it. But, as I had a boat, my next design was to make a tour round
the island ; for, as I had been on the other side in one place, crossing,
as I have already described it, over the land, so the discoveries I made in
that journey made me very eager to see the other parts of the coast : and
now I had a boat, I thought of nothing but sailing round the island.
For this purpose, and that I might do every thing with discretion and
consideration, I fitted up a little mast to my boat, and made a sail to it
out of some of the pieces of the ship's sails which lay in store, and of
which I had a great store by me.
Having fitted my mast and sail, and tried the boat, I found she would
sail very well : then I made little lockers, or boxes, at either end of my
boat, to put provisions, necessaries, and ammunition, etc. into, to be kept
dry, either from rain or the spray of the sea; and a little long hollow
place I cut in the inside of the boat where I could lay my gun, making
a flap to hang down over it to keep it dry.
I fixed my umbrella also in a step at the stern, like a mast, to stand
over my head, and keep the heat of the sun off me, like an awning ; and
thus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but never
went far out, nor far from the little creek. But at last, being eager
to view the circumference of my little kingdom, I resolved upon my tour ;
and accordingly I victualled my ship for the voyage, putting in two
dozen of my loaves (cakes I should rather call them) of barley bread, an
earthen pot full of parched rice (a food I eat a great deal of), a little
bottle of rum, half a goat, and powder and shot for killing more, and two
large watch-coats of those which, as I mentioned before, I had saved out
of the seamen's chests ; these I took, one to lie upon, and the other to
cover me in the night.
It was the sixth of November, in the sixth year of my reign, or
my captivity which you please that I set out on this voyage, and
I found it much longer than I expected; for, though the island itself
was not very large, yet, when I came to the east side of it, I found
a great ledge of rocks lie out about two leagues into the sea, some above
water, some under it, and beyond this a shoal of sand, lying dry half
a league more, so that I was obliged to go a great way out to sea
to double that point.
When I first discovered them, I was going to give over my enterprise,
and come back again, not knowing how far it might oblige me to go out
124 ADVENTURES OP
to sea, and, above all, doubting how I should get back again ; so I came
to an anchor, for I had made me a kind of an anchor with a piece of
broken grappling which I got out of the ship.
Having secured my boat, I took my gun and went on shore, climbing
up a hill which seemed to overlook that point, where I saw the full
extent of it, and resolved to venture.
In my viewing the sea from that hill where I stood, I perceived
a strong, and indeed a most furious current, which ran to the east,
and even came close to the point ; and I took the more notice of it,
because I saw there might be some danger that, when I came into it,
I might be carried out to sea by the strength of it, and not be able
to make the island again: and, indeed, had I not gotten first upon
this hill, I believe it would have been so, for there was the same
current on the other side of the island, only that it set off at a farther dis
tance, and I saw there was a strong eddy under the shore, so I had
nothing to do but to get out of the first current, and I should presently
be in an eddy.
I lay here, however, two days, because the wind blowing pretty
fresh (at east-south-east, and that being just contrary to the said current)
made a great breach of the sea upon the point, so that it was not safe for
me to keep too close to the shore, for the breach, nor to go too far off,
because of the stream.
The third day, in the morning, the wind having abated over night,
the sea was calm, and I ventured ; but I am a warning piece again to all
rash and ignorant pilots, for no sooner was I come to the point, when I
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 125
was not my boat's length from the shore, but I found myself in a great
depth of water, and a current like the sluice of a mill ; it carried my boat
along with it with such violence, that all I could do could not keep her
so much as on the edge of it; but I found it hurried me farther and
farther out from the eddy, which was on the left hand. There was no
wind stirring to help me, and all that I could do with my paddles
signified nothing. And now I began to give myself over for lost ; for
as the current was on both sides of the island, I knew in a few leagues*
distance they must join again, and then I was irrecoverably gone, nor did
I see any possibility of avoiding it : so that I had no prospect before me
but of perishing, not by the sea, for that was calm enough, but of
starving for hunger. I had indeed found a tortoise on the shore, as big
almost as I could lift, and had tossed it into the boat ; and I had a great
jar of fresh water, that is to say, one of my earthen pots ; but what was
all this to being driven into the vast ocean, where, to be sure, there was
no shore, no main land or island, for a thousand leagues at least ?
And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make
the most miserable condition that mankind could be in, worse. Now,
I looked back upon my desolate, solitary island as the most pleasant place
in the world, and all the happiness my heart could wish for was to be
there again. I stretched out my hands to it, with eager wishes. "
happy desert !" said I, " I shall never see thee more. miserable
creature!" said I, " whither am I going!" Then I reproached myself
with my unthankful temper, and how I had repined at my solitary condi
tion ; and now what would I give to be on shore there again ! Thus we
never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its
contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.
It is scarce possible to imagine the consternation I was in, being driven
from my beloved island (for so it appeared to me now to be) into the
wide ocean, almost two leagues, and in the utmost despair of ever re
covering it again. However, I worked hard, till indeed my strength was
almost exhausted, and kept my boat as much to the northward that is,
towards the side of the current which the eddy lay on as possibly I
could, when about noon, as the sun passed the meridian, I thought I felt
a little breeze of wind in my face, springing up from the south-south-east.
This cheered my heart a little, and especially when, in about half an
hour more, it blew a pretty small gentle gale. By this time I was gotten
at a frightful distance from the island, and had the least cloud or hazy
126 ADVENTURES OF
weather intervened, I had been undone another way too, for I had no
compass] on board, and should never have known how to have steered
towards the island, if I had but once lost sight of it ; but the weather
continuing clear, I applied myself to get up my mast again, and spread
my sail, standing away to the north as much as possible, to get out of the
current.
Just as I had set my mast and sail, and the boat began to stretch
away, I saw, even by the clearness of the water, some alteration of the
current was near ; for where the current was so strong the water was
foul, but perceiving the water clear, I found the current abate, and
presently I found, to the east, at about half a mile, a breach of the sea
upon some rocks : these rocks, I found, caused the current to part again,
and as the main stress of it ran away more southerly, leaving the rocks to
the north-east, so the other returned by the repulse of the rocks, and
made a strong eddy, which ran back again to the north-west with a very
sharp stream.
They who know what it is to have a reprieve brought to them upon
the ladder, or to be rescued from thieves just going to murder them, or
who have been in such like extremities, may guess what my present
surprise of joy was, and how gladly I put my boat into the stream of this
eddy, and, the wind also freshening, how gladly I spread my sail to it, run
ning cheerfully before the wind, and with a strong tide or eddy under foot.
This eddy carried me about a league in my way back again directly
towards the island, but about two leagues more to the northward than the
current lay which carried me away at first, so that when I came near
the island, I found myself open to the northern shore of it, that is to say,
the other end of the island, opposite" to that which I went out from.
When I had made something more than a league of way by the help
of this current or eddy, I found it was spent, and served me no farther.
However, I found that being between the two great currents, viz. that on
the south side, which had hurried me away, and that on the north, which
lay about two leagues on the other side, I say, between these two, in the
wake of the island, I found the water at least still, and running no way ;
and having still a breeze of wind fair for me, I kept on steering directly
for the island, though not making such fresh way as I did before.
About four o'clock in the evening, being then within about a league
of the island, I found the point of the rocks which occasioned this dis
tance stretching out, as is described before, to the southward, and casting
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 127
off the current more southwardly, had, of course, made another eddy to
the north" ; and this I found very strong, but not directly setting the way
my course lay, which was due west, but almost full north. However,
having a fresh gale, I stretched across this eddy, slanting north-west;
and, in about an hour, came within about a mile of the shore, where, it
being smooth water, I soon got to land.
"When I was on shore, I fell on my knees, and gave God thanks for my
deliverance, resolving to lay aside all thoughts of my deliverance by my
boat ; and refreshing myself with such things as I had, I brought my boat
close to the shore, in a little cove that I had spied under some trees, and
laid me down to sleep, being quite spent with the labour and fatigue of
the voyage.
I was now at a great loss which way to get home with my boat:
I had run so much hazard, and knew too much the cause, to think of
attempting it by the way I went out ; and what might be at the other
side (I mean the west side) I knew not, nor had I any mind to run any
more ventures : so I only resolved in the morning to make my way west
ward along the shore, and to see if there was no creek where I might lay
up my frigate in safety, so as to have her again if I wanted her. In
about three miles, or thereabouts, coasting the shore, I came to a very
good inlet, or bay, about a mile over, which narrowed till it came to
a very little rivulet or brook, where I found a convenient harbour for my
boat, and where she lay as if she had been in a little dock made on pur
pose for her. Here I put in, and having stowed my boat very safe, I
went on shore to look about me and see where I was.
I soon found I had but a little passed by the place where I had been
before when I travelled on foot to that shore, so taking nothing out of my
boat but my gun and my umbrella, for it was exceeding hot, I began my
march. The way was comfortable enough after such a voyage as I had
been upon, and I reached my old bower in the evening, where I found
every thing standing as I left it, for I always kept it in good order, being,
as I said before, my country house.
I got over the fence, and laid me down in the shade, to rest my limbs,
for I was very weary, and fell asleep ; but judge, if you can you that
read my story what a surprise I must be in, when I was awaked out of
my sleep by a voice, calling me by my name several times, " Robin,
Robin, Robin Crusoe, poor Robin Crusoe ! Where are you, Robin Crusoe ?
Where are you ? Where have you been ?"
128
ADVENTURES OP
I was so dead asleep at first, being fatigued with rowing, or paddling,
as it is called, the first part of the day, and walking the latter 'part, that
I did not awake thoroughly, and dozing between sleeping and waking,
thought I dreamed that somebody spoke to me ; but, as the voice con
tinued to repeat, " Robin Crusoe, Robin Crusoe," at last I began to awake
more perfectly, and was at first dreadfully frighted, and started up in the
utmost consternation : but no sooner were my eyes open, but I saw my
Poll sitting on the top of the hedge, and immediately knew that this was
he that spoke to me, for just in such bemoaning language I had used to
talk to him and teach him, and he had learned it so perfectly, that he
would sit upon my finger and lay his bill close to my face and cry, " Poor
Robin Crusoe ! Where are you ? Where have you been ? How came
you here ?" and such things as I had taught him.
However, even though I knew it was the parrot, and that indeed it
could be nobody else, it was a good while before I could compose myself.
First, I was amazed how the creature got thither; and then, how ho
should just keep about the place, and nowhere else : but, as I was well
satisfied it could be nobody but honest Poll, I got over it, and holding
out my hand, and calling him by his name, " Poll," the sociable creature
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 129
came to me and sat upon my thumb, as he used to do, and continued
talking to me, "Poor Robin Crusoe!" and how did I come here? and
where had I been ? just as if he had been overjoyed to see me again : and
so I carried him home along with me.
I had now had enough of rambling to sea for some time, and had enough
to do for many days, to sit still and reflect upon the danger I had been in.
I would have been very glad to have had my boat again on my side of
the island, but I knew not how it was practicable to get it about. As to
the east side of the island, which I had gone round, I knew well enough
there was no venturing that way ; my very heart would shrink, and my
very blood run chill, but to think of it ; and as to the other side of the
island, I did not know how it might be there, but, supposing the current
ran with the same force against the shore at the east as it passed by it on
the other, I might run the same risk of being driven down the stream
and carried by the island, as I had been before of being carried away
from it. So, with these thoughts, I contented myself to be without any
boat, though it had been the product of so many months' labour to make
it, and of so many more to get it into the sea.
In this government of my temper I remained near a year, lived a very
sedate, retired life, as you may well suppose ; and my thoughts being
very much composed, as to my condition, and fully comforted in resigning
myself to the dispositions of Providence, I thought I lived really very
happily in all things, except that of society. I improved myself in this
time in all the mechanic exercises which my necessities put me upon
applying myself to, and I believe could, upon occasion, have made a very
good carpenter, especially considering how few tools I had.
Besides this, I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my earthen
ware, and contrived well enough to make them with a wheel, which
I found infinitely easier and better, because I made things round and
shapeable, which before were filthy things indeed to look upon. Eut
I think I never was more vain of my own performance, or more joyful
for anything I found out, than for my being able to make a tobacco-pipe ;
and though it was a very ugly clumsy thing when it was done, and only
burnt red like other earthenware, yet as it was hard and firm and would
draw the smoke, I was exceedingly comforted with it, for I had been
always used to smoke : and there were pipes in the ship, but I forgot
them at first, not knowing there was tobacco in the island ; and afterwards,
when I searched the ship again, I could not come at any pipes at all.
130 ADVENTURES OP
In my wickerware also I improved much, and made abundance of
necessary baskets, as well as my invention showed me, though, not very
handsome, yet convenient for my laying things up in, or fetching things
home in. For example, if I killed a go'at abroad, I could hang it up in
a tree, flay it and dress it, and cut it in pieces, and bring it home in a
basket ; and the like by a turtle I could cut it up, take out the eggs,
and a piece or two of the flesh, which was enough for me, and bring them
home in a basket, and leave the rest behind me. Also, large deep baskets
were my receivers for my corn, which I always rubbed out as soon as it
was dry, and cured, and kept it in great baskets instead of a granary.
I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably, and this was
a want which it was impossible for me to supply, and I began seriously
to consider what I must do when I should have no more powder, that is
to say, how I should do to kill any goats. I had, as I "observed, in the
third year of my being here, kept a young kid, and bred her tame : I was
in hopes of getting a he-kid, but I could not by any means bring it to
pass, till my kid grew an old goat, and I could never find in my heart to
kill her, till she died at last of mere age.
But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I have
said, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to trap
and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of them alive ;
and particularly I wished to possess a she-goat great with young.
For 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 I always found them broken, and my bait devoured.
At length I resolved to try a pitfall, 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, for I could see the marks 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 traps ; 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 bring him away
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 131
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 even let him out, and
he ran away, as if he had been frighted out of his wits. But I did not
then know, what I afterwards learned, that hunger will 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 sagacious and
tractable creatures, where they are well used.
However, for the present I let him go, knowing no better at that time :
then I went to the three kids, and taking them one by one, I tied them
with strings together, and with considerable difficulty brought them home.
It was a good while before they would feed ; but throwing them some
sweet corn, it tempted them, and they began to be tame. And now I
found that if I expected to supply myself with goat's flesh when I had no .
powder or shot left, breeding some up tame was my only way ; .when,
perhaps, I might have them about my house like a flock of sheep.
But then it presently occurred to me that I must keep the tame from
the wild, or else they would always run wild when they grew up ; and
the only way for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground, well
fenced, either with hedge or pale, to keep them in so effectually that those
within might not break out, or those without break in.
This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands ; yet, as I saw
there was an absolute necessity for doing it, my first piece of work was to
find out a proper piece of ground, where there was likely to be herbage for
them to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep them from the sun.
Those who understand such enclosures will think I had very little
contrivance, when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these (being
a plain open piece of meadow land, or savannah, as our people call it in
the western colonies), which had two or three drills of fresh water in it,
and at one end was very woody, I say they will smile at my forecast,
when I shall tell them I began my enclosing of this piece of ground in
such a manner that my hedge or pale must have been at least two miles
about. Nor was the madness of it so great as to the compass, for if it
was ten miles about' I was like to have time enough to do it in ; but I
did not consider that my goats would be as wild in so much compass as
if they had had the whole island, and I should have so much room to
chase them in, that I should never catch them.
My hedge was begun and carried on, I believe about fifty yards, when
132 ADVENTURES OF
this thought occurred to me ; so I presently stopped short, and for the
first beginning, I resolved to enclose a piece of about one hundred and
fifty yards in length, and one hundred yards in breadth, which, as it
would maintain as many as I should have in any reasonable time, so, as
my flock increased, I could add more ground to my enclosure.
This was acting with some prudence, and I went to work with
courage. I was about three months hedging in the first piece, and, till
I had done it, I tethered the three kids in the best part of it, and used
them to feed as near me as possible, to make them familiar ; and very
often I would go and carry them some ears of barley, or a handful of rice,
and feed them out of my hand, so that, after my enclosure was finished
and I let them loose, they would follow me up and down, bleating after
me for a handful of corn.
This answered my end, and in about a year and a half I had a flock
of about twelve goats, kids and all ; and in two years more, I had three
and forty, besides several that I took and killed for my food. And after
that I enclosed five several pieces of ground to feed them in, with little
pens to drive them into, to take them as I wanted, and gates out of one
piece of ground into another.
But this was not all ; for now I not only had goat's flesh to feed on
when I pleased, but milk too, a thing which, indeed, in my beginning,
I did not so much as think of, and which, when it came into my thoughts,
was really an agreeable surprise : for now I set up my dairy, and had
sometimes a gallon or two of milk in a day. And as Nature, who gives sup
plies of food to every creature, dictates even naturally how to make use of
it, so I that had never milked a cow, much less a goat, or seen butter or
cheese made, very readily and handily, though after many miscarriages,
made me both butter 'and cheese at last, and never wanted it afterwards.
How mercifully can our great Creator treat his creatures, even in
those conditions in which they seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction.
How can he sweeten the bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise
him for dungeons and prisons. ^JWhat a table was here spread for me in a
wilderness where I saw nothing at first, but to perish for hunger.^)
It would have made a stoic smile to have seen me and my little family
_... sit down to dinner. There was my majesty, the prince and lord of the
whole island : I had the lives of all my subjects at my absolute command;
. I could hang, draw, give liberty, and take it away, and no rebels among
my subjects. Then to see how like a king I dined too, all alone; attended
CRUSOE'S FAMILY.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 133
by my servants ! Poll, as if he had been my favourite, was the only per
son permitted to talk to me. My dog, who was now grown very old and
crazy, and had found no species to multiply his kind upon, sat always at my
right hand, and two cats, one on one side of the table, and one on the other,
expecting now and then a bit from my hand, as a mark of special favour.
But these were not the two cats which I brought on shore at first, for
they were both of them dead, and had been interred near my habitation
by my own hand; but one of them having multiplied by I know not
what kind of creature, these were two which I had preserved tame ;
whereas the rest ran wild in the woods, and became indeed troublesome
to me at last, for they would often come into my house, and plunder me
too, till at last I was obliged to shoot them, and did kill a great many :
at length they left me. "With this attendance, and in this plentiful
manner, I lived ; neither could I be said to want anything but society,
and of that in some time after this, I was like to have too much.
I was something impatient, as I have observed, to have the use of my
boat, though very loth to run any more hazards, and therefore sometimes
I sat contriving ways to get her about the island, and at other times I sat
myself down contented enough without her. But I had a strange
uneasiness in my mind to go down to the point of the island where, as I
have said, in my last ramble, I went up to the hill to see how the shore
lay, and how the current set, that I might see what I had to do. This
inclination increased upon me every day, and at length I resolved to
travel thither by land, following the edge of the shore. I did so ; but had
any one in England been to meet such a man as I was, it must either have
frighted him or raised a great deal of laughter ; and, as I frequently
stood still to look at myself, I could not but smile at the notion of my
travelling through Yorkshire, with such an equipage and in such a dress.
I had a great high shapeless cap, made of a goat's skin, with a flap
hanging down behind, as well to keep the sun from me as to shoot the
rain off from running into my neck ; nothing being so hurtful in these
climates as the rain upon the flesh, under the clothes. I had a short jacket
of goat's skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of my thighs,
and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same, made of the skin of an old
he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side, that, like
pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs. Stockings and shoes I had
none, but I had made me a pair of something I scarce know what to call
them like buskins, to flap over my legs, and lace on either side like spat-
134 ADVENTURES OP
terdashes, but of a most barbarous shape, as were all the rest of my clothes.
I had on a broad belt of goat's skin dried, which I drew together with
two thongs of the same, instead of buckles ; and in a kind of a frog on
either side of this, instead of a sword and a dagger, hung a little saw and
a hatchet one on one side, and one on the other. I had another belt,
not so broad, and fastened in the same manner, which hung over my
shoulder ; and at the end of it, under my left arm, hung two pouches,
both made of goat's skin too, in one of which hung my powder, in the
other my shot. At my back I carried my basket, on my shoulder my
gun, and over my head a great clumsy ugly goat's skin umbrella, but
which, after all, was the most necessary thing I had about me, next to
my gun. As for my face, the colour of it was really not so mulatto-like
as one might expect from a man not at all careful of it, and living within
nine or ten degrees of the equinox. My beard I had once suffered to
grow till it was about a quarter of a yard long ; but as I had both scissors
and razors sufficient, I had cut it pretty short, except what grew on my
upper lip, which I had trimmed into a large pair of Mahometan whiskers,
such as I had seen worn by some Turks at Bailee for the Moors did not
wear such, though the Turks did : I will not say they were long enough
to hang my hat upon them, but they were of a length and shape monstrous
enough, and such as, in England, would have passed for frightful.
But all this is by the bye; for, as to my figure, I had so few to
observe me that it was of no manner of consequence, so I say no more to
that part. In this kind of figure I went my new journey, and was out
five or six days. I travelled first along the seashore, directly to the place
where I first brought my boat to an anchor, to get upon the rocks, and
having no boat now to take care of, I went over the land a nearer way
to the same height that I was upon before, when looking forward to the
point of the rocks which lay out, and which I was obliged to double with
my boat, as I said above, I was surprised to see the sea smooth and quiet,
no rippling, no motion, no current, any more there than in other places.
I was at a strange loss to understand this, and resolved to spend some
time in the observing it, to see if nothing from the sets of the tide had
occasioned it : but I was presently convinced how it was, viz., that the
tide of ebb setting from the west, and joining with the current of waters
from some great river on the shore, must be the occasion of this current ;
and that, according as the wind blew more forcibly from the west, or from
the north, this current came nearer, or went farther from the shore : for
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 135
waiting thereabouts till the evening, I went up to the rock again, and
then the tide of ebb being made, I plainly saw the current again as before,
only that it ran farther off, being near half a league from the shore,
whereas, in my case, it set close from the shore, and hurried me and my
canoe along with it, which at another time it would not have done.
This observation convinced me that I had nothing to do but to observe
the ebbing and flowing of the tide, and I might very easily bring my boat
about the island again : but when I began to think of putting it in
practice, I had such a terror upon my spirits at the remembrance of the
danger I had been in, that I could not think of it again with any
patience; but, on the contrary, I took up another resolution, and this
was, that I would build, or rather make me another periagua or canoe,
and so have one for one side of the island, and one for the other.
You are to understand that now I had, as I may call it, two planta
tions in the island ; one, my little fortification or tent, with the wall
about it under the rock, and with the cave behind me, which by this,
time I had enlarged into several apartments or caves, one within another.
One of these, which was the driest and largest, and had "a door out beyond
my wall or fortification that is to say, beyond where my wall joined to
the rock was all filled up with the large earthen pots of which I have
given an account, and with fourteen or fifteen great baskets, which would
hold five or six bushels each, where I laid up my stores of provision,
especially my corn, some in the ear, cut off short from the straw, and the
other rubbed out with my hand. As for my wall, made, as before, with
long stakes or piles, those piles grew all like trees, and were by this time
grown so big and spread so very much, that there was not the least
appearance, to any one's view, of any habitation behind them.
Near this dwelling of mine, but a little farther within the land, and
upon lower ground, lay my two pieces of corn ground, which I kept culti
vated, and which duly yielded me their harvest in its season ; and when
ever I had occasion for more corn, I had more land adjoining as fit as that.
Besides this I had my country seat, and I had now a tolerable planta
tion there also ; for first, I had my little bower, as I called it, which I
kept in repair, that is to say, I kept the hedge which circled it in con
stantly fitted up to its usual height, the ladder standing always in the
inside : I kept the trees, which at first were no more than my stakes, but
were now grown very firm and tall, I kept them always so cut, that
they might spread, and grow thick and wild, and make the more agree-
136 ADVENTURES 0#
able shade, which they did effectually to my mind. In the middle of this
I had my tent always standing, being a piece of a sail spread over poles,
set up for that purpose, and which never wanted any repair or renewing ;
and under this I had made me a couch, with the skins of the creatures I
had killed, and with other soft things, and a blanket laid on them, such as
belonged to our sea bedding, and a great watch-coat to cover me ; and here,
whenever absent from my chief seat, I took up my country habitation.
Adjoining to this I had my enclosures for my cattle, that is to say,
my goats ; and as I had taken an inconceivable deal of pains to fence and
enclose this ground, so I was so uneasy to see it kept entire, lest the goats
should break through, that I never left off till, with infinite labour, I had
stuck the outside of the hedge so full of small stakes, and so near to one
another, that it was rather a pale than a hedge, and there was scarce
room to put a hand through between them; which afterwards, when
those stakes grew, as they all did in the next rainy season, made the
enclosure strong like a wall, indeed, stronger than any wall.
This will testify for me that I was not idle, and that I spared no
pains to bring to pass whatever appeared necessary for my comfortable
support ; for I considered the keeping up a breed of tame creatures thus
at my hand would be a living magazine of flesh, milk, butter, and cheese
for me as long as I lived in the place, if it were to be forty years ; and
that keeping them in my reach depended entirely upon my perfecting my
enclosures to such a degree that I might be sure of keeping them together.
In this place also I had my grapes growing, which I principally
depended on for my winter store of raisins, and which I never failed
to preserve very carefully, as the best and most agreeable dainty of my
whole diet ; and, indeed, they were not agreeable only, but physical,
wholesome, nourishing, and refreshing to the last degree.
As this was also about half-way between my other habitation and the
place where I had laid up my boat, I generally staid and lay here in my
way thither ; for I used frequently to visit my boat, and I kept all things
about, or belonging to her, in very good order. Sometimes I went out in
her to divert myself, but no more hazardous voyages would I go, nor
scarce ever above a stone's cast or two from the shore, I was so apprehen
sive of being hurried out of my knowledge again by the currents, or winds,
or any other accident. But now I come to a new scene of my life.
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
137
CHAPTER XI.
Crusoe is surprised by the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, and fears an attack from savages
Erects a second fortification round his dwelling Discovers the remains of a feast of cannibals.
' T happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was
exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on
the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood
like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition : I
listened, I looked round me ; I could hear nothing, nor see anything. I
138 ADVENTURES OP
went up to a rising ground, to look farther I went up the shore, and
down the shore ; but it was all one, I could see no other impression but
that one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe
if it might not be my fancy ; but there was no room for that, for there
was exactly the very print of a foot toes, heel, and every part of a
foot : how it came thither I know not, nor could in the least imagine ;
but, after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused
and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say,
the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree looking behind me
at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying
every stump at a distance to be a man. !N"or is it possible to describe how
many various shapes affrighted imagination represented things to me in,
how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what
strange unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.
"When I came to my castle (for so I think I called it ever after this),
I fled into it like one pursued ; whether I went over by the ladder, as
first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock, which I called a door,
I cannot remember: no, nor could I remember the next morning; for
never frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of
mind than I to this retreat.
I slept none that night: the farther I was from the occasion of my
fright, the greater my apprehensions were, which is something contrary
to the nature of such things, and especially to the usual practice of all
creatures in fear ; but I was so embarrassed with my own frightful ideas
of the thing, that I formed nothing but dismal imaginations to myself,
even though I was now a great way off it. Sometimes I fancied it must
be the devil, and reason joined in with me upon this supposition ; for how
should any other thing in human shape come into the place? Where
was the vessel that brought them ? What marks were there of any other
footsteps ? And how was it possible a man should come there ? But then
to think that Satan should take human shape upon him in such a place,
where there could be no manner of occasion for it, but to leave the print
of his foot behind him, and that even for no purpose too, for he could not
be sure I should see it, this was an amusement the other way. I con
sidered that the devil might have found out abundance of other ways to
have terrified me, than this of the single print of a foot ; that, as I lived
quite on the other side of the island, he would never have been so simple
as to leave a mark in a place where 1 it was ten thousand to one whether I
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 139
should ever see it or not, and in the sand too, which the first surge of the
sea, upon a high wind, would have defaced entirely : all this seemed
inconsistent with the thing itself, and with all the notions we usually
entertain of the subtilty of the devil.
Abundance of such things as these assisted to argue me out of all
apprehensions of its being the devil; and I presently concluded, then,
that it must be some more dangerous creature, viz., that it must be some
of the savages of the main land over against me, who had wandered out
to sea in their canoes, and, either driven by the currents or by contrary
winds, had made the island, and had been on shore, but were gone away
again to sea ; being as loth, perhaps, to have staid in this desolate island
as I would have been to have had them.
While these reflections were rolling upon my mind, I was very thank
ful in my thoughts that I was so happy as not to be thereabouts at that
time, or that they did not see my boat, by which they would have con
cluded that some inhabitants had been in the place, and perhaps have
searched farther for me : then terrible thoughts racked my imagination
about their having found my boat, and that there were people here ; and
that if so, I should certainly have them come again in greater numbers,
and devour me : that if it should happen so that they should not find me,
yet they would find my enclosure, destroy all my corn, carry away all my
flock of tame goats, and I should perish at last for mere want.
Thus my fear banished all my religious hope : all that former confi
dence in God, which was founded upon such wonderful experience as I
had had of his goodness, now vanished, as if He that had fed me by
miracle hitherto, could not preserve by his power the provision which he
had made for me by his goodness. I reproached myself with my easiness,
that would not sow any more corn one year than would just serve me
till the next season, as if no accident could intervene to prevent my
enjoying the crop that was upon the ground ; and this I thought so just
a reproof that I resolved for the future to have two or three years' corn
beforehand, so that whatever might come, I might not perish for want of
bread.
How strange a chequer- work of Providence is the life of man ! and by
what secret differing springs are the affections hurried about, as differing
circumstances present ! To-day we love what to-morrow we hate ;
to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what to
morrow we fear, nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of: this was
140 ADVENTURES OP
exemplified in me at this time, in the most lively manner imaginable ;
for I, whose only affliction was that I seemed banished from human
society, that I was alone, circumscribed by the boundless ocean, cut off
from mankind, and condemned to what I called silent life ; that I was as
one whom Heaven thought not worthy to be numbered among the living,
or to appear among the rest of his creatures ; that to have seen one of my
own species would have seemed to me a raising me from death to life, and
the greatest blessing that Heaven itself, next to the supreme blessing of
salvation, could bestow I say, that I should now tremble at the very
apprehensions of seeing a man, and was ready to sink into the ground at
but the shadow, or silent appearance, of a man's having set his foot on
the island.
Such is the uneven state of human life ; and it afforded me a great
many curious speculations afterwards, when I had a little recovered my
first surprise. I considered that this was the station of life the infinitely
wise and good providence of God had determined for me ; that as I could not
foresee what the ends of divine wisdom might be in all this, so I was not
to dispute His sovereignty, who, as I was his creature, had an undoubted
right, by creation, to govern and dispose of me absolutely as he thought
fit ; and who, as I was a creature who had offended him, had likewise a
judicial right to condemn me to what punishment he thought fit, and
that it was my part to submit to bear his indignation, because I had
sinned against him. [l then reflected that God, who was not only
righteous but omnipotent, as he had thought fit thus to punish and afflict
me, so he was able to deliver me ; that, if he did not think fit to do it, it
was my unquestioned duty to resign myself absolutely and entirely to his
will ; and, on the other hand, it was my duty also to hope in him, pray
to him, and quietly to attend to the dictates and directions of his daily
providencejl
These thoughts took me up many hours, days, nay, I may say weeks
and months ; and one particular effect of my cogitations on this occasion I
cannot omit, viz., one morning early, lying in my bed, and filled with
thoughts about my danger from the appearance of savages, I found it dis
composed me very much ; upon which these words of the Scripture came
into my thoughts, " Call upon me in the day of trouble : I will deliver
thee, and thou shalt glorify me." Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my
bed, my heart was not only comforted, but I was guided and encouraged
to pray earnestly to God for deliverance : when I had done praying, I
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 141
took up my Bible, and opening it to read, the first words that presented
to me were, ""Wait on the Lord, and be of good cheer, and he shall
strengthen thy heart ; wait, I say, on the Lord." It is impossible to
express the comfort this gave me. In answer, I thankfully laid down the
book, and was no more sad, at least, not on that occasion.
In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflections, it
came into my thought one day, that all this might be a mere chimera of
my own, and that this foot might be the print of my own foot, when I
came on shore from my boat : this cheered me up a little too, and I began
to persuade myself it was all a delusion ; that it was nothing else but my
own foot ; and why might I not come that way from the boat, as well as
I was going that way to the boat ? Again, I considered also, that I could
by no means tell, for certain, where I had trod, and where I had not ;
and that if, at last, this was only the print of my own foot, I had played
the part of those fools who strive to make stories of spectres and appari
tions, and then are frighted at them more than any body.
Now I began to take courage, and to peep abroad again, for I had not
stirred out of my castle for three days and nights, so that I began to
starve for provision ; for I had little or nothing within doors but some
barley cakes and water. Then I knew that my goats wanted to be
milked too, which usually was my evening diversion, and the poor crea
tures were in great pain and inconvenience for want of it ; and, indeed, it
almost spoiled some of them, and almost dried up their milk.
Heartening myself, therefore, with the belief that this was nothing
but the print of one of my own feet, and so I might be truly said to start
at my own shadow, I began to go abroad again, and went to my country
house to milk my flock ; but to see with what fear I went forward, how
often I looked behind me, how I was ready every now and then to lay
down my basket and run for my life, it would have made any one have
thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or that I had been
lately most terribly frighted ; and so, indeed, I had.
However, as I went down thus two or three days, and having seen
nothing, I began to be a little bolder, and to think there was really
nothing in it but my own imagination ; but I could not persuade myself
fully of this till I should go down to the shore again, and see this print
of a foot, and measure it by my own, and see if there was any similitude
or fitness, that I might be assured it was my own foot : but when I came
to the place, first, it appeared evidently to me, that when I laid up my
142 ADVENTURES OF
boat, I could not possibly be on shore anywhere thereabout ; secondly,
when I came to measure the mark with my own foot, I found my foot
not so large by a great deal. Both these things filled my head with new
imaginations, and gave me the vapours again to the highest degree, so
that I shook with cold like one in an ague, and I went home again, filled
with the belief that some man or men had been on shore there; or,
in short, that the island was inhabited, and I might be surprised before I
was aware, and what course to take for my security I knew not.
Oh, what ridiculous resolutions men take when possessed with fear !
It deprives them of the use of those means which reason offers for their
relief. The first thing I proposed to myself was, to throw down my
encloures and turn all my tame cattle wild into the woods, that the
enemy might not find them, and then frequent the island in prospect of
the same or the like booty ; then to the simple thing of digging up my
two corn fields, that they might not find such a grain there, and still be
prompted to frequent the island ; then to demolish my bower and tent,
that they might not see any vestiges of habitation, and be prompted to
look farther, in order to find out the persons inhabiting.
These were the subject of the first night's cogitations after I was come
home again, while the apprehensions which had so overrun my mind were
fresh upon me, and my head was full of vapours, as above. Thus fear of
danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself, when
apparent to the eyes; and we find the burden of anxiety greater, by
much, than the evil which we are anxious about : and, which was worse
than all this, I had not that relief in this trouble from the resignation I
used to practise, that I hoped to have. I looked, I thought, like Saul,
who complained not only that the Philistines were upon him, but that
God had forsaken him ; for I did not now take due ways to compose my
mind, by crying to God in my distress, and resting upon his providence,
as I had done before, for my defence and deliverance ; which, if I had
done, I had at least been more cheerfully supported under this new sur
prise, and perhaps carried through it with more resolution.
This confusion of my thoughts kept me waking all night ; but in the
morning I fell asleep, and having, by the amusement of my mind, been,
as it were tired, and my spirits exhausted, I slept very soundly, and
waked much better composed than I had ever been before. And now I
began to think sedately ; and, upon the utmost debate with myself, I con
cluded that this island, which was so exceeding pleasant, fruitful, and no
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 143
farther from the main land than as I had seen, was not so entirely aban
doned as I might imagine ; that, although there were no stated inhabitants
who lived on the spot, yet, that there might sometimes come boats off
from the shore, who, either with design, or, perhaps, never but when they
were driven by cross winds, might come to this place ; that I had
lived here fifteen years now, and had not met with the least shadow or
figure of any people yet ; and that, if at any time they should be driven
here, it was probable they went away again as soon as ever they
could, seeing they had never thought fit to fix there upon any oc
casion to this time : that the most I could suggest any danger from, was
from any such casual accidental landing of straggling people from the
main, who, as it was likely, if they were driven hither, were here against
their wills, so they made no stay here, but went off again with all
possible speed seldom staying one night on shore, lest they should not
have the help of the tides and daylight back again ; and that, therefore,
I had nothing to do but to consider of some safe retreat, in case I should
see any savages land upon the spot.
JSow I began sorely to repent that I had dug my cave so large as to
bring a door through again, which door, as I said, came out beyond
where my fortification joined to the rock. Upon maturely considering'
this, therefore, I resolved to draw me a second fortification, in the same
manner of a semicircle, at a distance from my wall, just where I had
planted a double row of trees about twelve years before, of which I made
mention : these trees having been planted so thick before, there wanted
but a few piles to be driven between them, that they should be thicker
and stronger, and my wall would be soon finished.
So that I had now a double wall, and my outer wall was thickened with
pieces of timber, old cables, and every thing I could think of to make it
strong, having in it seven little holes, about as big as I might put my
arm out at. In the inside of this, I thickened my wall to about ten feet
thick, with continually bringing earth out of my cave, and laying it at
the foot of the wall, and walking upon it ; and through the seven holes
I contrived to plant the muskets, of which I took notice that I got
seven on shore out of the ship : these I say I planted like my cannon and
fitted them into frames, that held them like a carriage, that so I could fire
all the seven guns in two minutes' time. This wall I was many a weary
month in finishing, and yet never thought myself safe till it was done.
When this was done, I stuck, all the ground without my wall, for a
144 ADVENTURES OP
great way every way, as full with stakes, or sticks, of the osier-like
wood, which I found so apt to grow, as they could well stand ; insomuch,
that I believe I might set 'in near twenty thousand of them, leaving a
pretty large space between them and my wall, that I might have room
to see an enemy, and they might have no shelter from the young trees, if
they attempted to approach my outer wall.
Thus in two years' time, I had a thick grove, and in five or six years'
time I had a wood before my dwelling, growing so monstrous thick and
strong, that it was indeed perfectly impassable; and no man, of what
kind soever, would ever imagine that there was anything beyond it, much
less a habitation. As for the way which I proposed to myself to go in
and out (for I left no avenue), it was by setting two ladders, one to a
part of the rock which was low, and then broke in, and left room to place
another ladder upon that : so, when the two ladders were taken down, no
man living could come down to me without mischiefing himself, and if
they had come down, they were still on the outside of my outer wall.
Thus I took all the measures human prudence could suggest for my
own preservation; and it will be seen, at length, that they were not
altogether without just reason, though I foresaw nothing at that time
more than my mere fear suggested to me.
While this was doing, I was not altogether careless of my other
affairs ; for I had a great concern upon me for my little herd of goats :
they were not only a present supply to me on every occasion, and began to
be sufficient for me, without the expense of powder and shot, but also
without the fatigue of hunting after the wild ones ; and I was loth to
lose the advantage of them, and to have them all to nurse up over again.
To this purpose, after long consideration, I could think of but two
ways to preserve them ; one was, to find another convenient place to dig a
cave under ground, and to drive them into it every night ; and the other
was, to enclose two or three little bits of land, remote from one another, and
as much concealed as I could, where I might keep about half a dozen
young goats in each place, so that if any disaster happened to the flock in
general, I might be able to raise them again with little trouble and time ;
and this, though it would require a great deal of time and labour, I
thought was the most rational design.
Accordingly, I spent some time to find out the most retired parts of
the island ; and I pitched upon one, which was as private, indeed, as my
heart could wish for : it was a little damp piece of ground, in the middle
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 145
of the hollow and thick woods, where, as is observed, I almost lost myself
once before, endeavouring to come back that way from the eastern part of
the island. Here I found a clear piece of land, near three acres, so sur
rounded with woods that it was almost an enclosure by nature ; at least,
it did not want near so much labour to make it so as the other pieces of
ground I had worked so hard at.
I immediately went to work with 'this piece of ground, and in less
than a month's time I had so fenced it round, that my flock, or herd,
call it which you please, who were not so wild now as at first they might
be supposed to be, were well enough secured in it. So, without any
farther delay, I removed ten she-goats and two he-goats to this piece ;
and when they were there, I continued to perfect the fence, till I had
made it as secure as the other, which, however, I did at more leisure, and
it took me up more time by a great deal.
All this labour I was at the expense of, purely from my apprehen
sions on the account of the print of a man's foot which I had seen ; for,
as yet, I never saw any human creature come near the island, and I had
now lived two years under these uneasinesses, which, indeed, made my
life much less comfortable than it was before, as may well be imagined by
any who know what it is to live in the constant snare of the fear of man.
And this I must observe, with grief too, that the discomposure of my
mind had too great impressions also upon the religious part of my
thoughts ; for the dread and terror of falling into the hands of savages
and cannibals lay so upon my spirits, that I seldom found myself in >a
due temper for application to my Maker, at least not with the sedate
calmness and resignation of soul which I was wont to do. I rather
prayed to God as under great affliction and pressure of mind, surrounded
with danger, and in expectation every night of being murdered and
devoured before morning ; and I must testify from my experience, that a
temper of peace, thankfulness, love, and affection, is much the more
proper frame for prayer than that of terror and discomposure; and* that,
under the dread of mischief impending, a man is no more fit for a
comforting performance of the duty of praying to God, than he is for a
repentance on a sick bed ; for these discomposures affect the mind as
the others do the body, and the discomposure of the mind must necessarily
be as great a disability as that of the body, and much greater, praying to
God being properly an act of the mind, not of the body.
But to go on : After I had thus secured one part of my little living
10
146 ADVENTURES OP
stock, I went about the whole island searching for another private place
to make such another deposit ; when, wandering more to the west point
of the island than I had ever done yet, and looking out to sea, I thought
I saw a boat upon the sea, at a great distance. I had found a perspective
glass or two in one of the seamen's chests which I saved out of our ship ;
but I had it not about me, and this was so remote that I could not tell
what to make of it, though I looked at it till my eyes were not able to
hold to look any longer : whether it was a boat or not, I do not know ;
but as I descended from the hill I could see no more of it, so I gave it
over, only I resolved to go no more out without a perspective glass in my
pocket.
When I was come down the hill to the end of the island, where
indeed I had never been before, I was presently convinced that the
seeing the print of a man's foot was not such a strange thing in the
island as I imagined ; and, but that it was a special providence that I
was cast upon the side of the island /where the savages never came, I
should easily have known that nothing'^as more frequent than for the
canoes from the main, when they happened to be a little too far out at
sea, to shoot over to that side of the island for harbour : likewise, as they
often met and fought in their canoes, the victors, having taken any
prisoners, would bring them over to this shore, where, according to their
dreadful customs, being all cannibals, they would kill and eat them, of
which hereafter.
When I was come* down the hill to the shore, as I said above, being
the south-west point of the island, I was perfectly confounded and
amazed; nor is it possible for me to express the horror of my mind at
seeing the shore spread with skulls, hands, feet, and other bones of
human bodies ; and, particularly, I observed a place where there had
been a fire made, and a circle dug in the earth, like a cockpit, where I
supposed the savage wretches had sat down to their inhuman feastings
upon the bodies of their fellow-creatures.
I was so astonished with the sight of these things, that I entertained
no notions of any danger to myself from it for a long while ; all my
apprehensions were buried in the thoughts of such a pitch of inhuman,
hellish brutality, and the horror of the degeneracy of human nature,
which, though I had heard of often, yet I never had so near a view of
before : in short, I turned away my face from the horrid spectacle ; my
stomach grew sick, and I was just at the point of fainting, when nature
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 147
discharged the disorder from my stomach, and having vomited with an
uncommon violence, I was a little relieved, but could not bear to stay in
the place a moment. So I got me up the hill again with all the speed I
could, and walked on towards my own habitation.
"When I came a little out of that part of the island, I stood still
awhile as amazed, and then recovering myself, I looked up with the
utmost affection of my soul, and, with a flood of tears in my eyes, gave
God thanks, that had cast my first lot in a part of the world where I was
distinguished from such dreadful creatures as these ; and that, though
I had esteemed my present condition very miserable, had yet given me
so many comforts in it, that I had still more to give thanks for than to
complain of; and this, above all, that I had, even in this miserable
condition, been comforted with the knowledge of Himself, and the hope
of His blessing, which was a felicity more than sufficiently equivalent to
all the misery which I had suffered or could suffer.
In this frame of thankfulness, I went home to my castle, and began
to be much easier now, as to the safety of my circumstances, than ever I
was before ; for I observed that these wretches never came to this island
in search of what they could get, perhaps not seeking, not wanting, or
not expecting any thing here, and having often, no doubt, been up in
the covered woody part of it, without finding any thing to their purpose.
I knew I had been here now almost eighteen years, and never saw the
least footsteps of human creature there before ; and I might be eighteen
more as entirely concealed as I was now, if I did not discover myself to
them, which t l had no manner of occasion to do, it being my only
business to keep myself entirely concealed where I was, unless I found a
better sort of creatures than cannibals to make myself known to.
Yet I entertained such an abhorrence of the savage wretches that I
have been speaking of, and of the wretched inhuman custom of their
devouring and eating one another up, that I continued pensive and sad,
and kept close within my own circle for almost two years after this :
when I say my own circle, I mean by it my three plantations, viz., my
castle, my country seat which I called my bower, and my enclosure
in the woods : nor did I look after this for any other use than as an
enclosure for my goats ; for the aversion which nature gave me to these
hellish wretches was such, that I was fearful of seeing them as of seeing
the devil himself. Nor did I so much as go to look after my boat in all
this time, but began rather to think of making me another ; for I could
148
ADVENTURES OP
not think of ever making any more attempts to bring the other boat round
the island to me, lest I should meet with some of these creatures at sea,
in which, if I had happened to have fallen into their hands, I knew what
would have been my lot.
Time, however, and the satisfaction I had that I was in no danger of
being discovered by these people, began to wear off my uneasiness about
them, and I began to live just in the same composed manner as before,
only with this difference, that I used more caution, and kept my eyes
more about me than I did before, lest I should happen to be seen by any
of them ; and particularly, I was more cautious of firing my gun, lest any
of them, being on the island, should happen to hear it. And it was there
fore a very good providence to me that I had furnished myself with a tame
breed of goats, and that I needed not hunt any more about the woods,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 149
or shoot at them, and if I did catch any of them after this, it was by
traps and snares, as I had done before : so that for two years after this,
I believe I never fired my gun once oif, though I never went out without
it ; and, which was more, as I had saved three pistols out of the ship, I
always carried them out with me, or at least two of them, sticking them
in my goafs-skin belt. I also furbished up one of the great cutlasses
that I had out of the ship, and made me a belt to put it in also ; so that
I was now a most formidable fellow to look at when I went abroad, if
you add to the former description of myself, the particular of two pistols,
and a great broadsword hanging at my side in a belt, but without a
scabbard.
Things going on thus, as I have said, for some time, I seemed, except
ing these cautions, to be reduced to my former calm sedate way of living.
All these things tended to show me, more and more, how far my condi
tion was from being miserable, compared to some others nay, to many
other particulars of life, which it might have pleased God to have made
my lot. It put me upon reflecting how little repining there would be
among mankind at any condition of life, if people would rather compare
their condition with those that are worse, in order to be thankful, than
be always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their
murmurings and complainings.
As in my present condition there were not really many things which
I wanted, so, indeed, I thought that the frights I had been in about
these savage wretches, and the concern I had been in for my own preser
vation, had taken off the edge of my invention for my own conveniences,
and I had dropped a good design, which I had once bent my thoughts too
much upon, and that was, to try if I could not make some of my barley
into malt, and then try to brew myself some beer. This was really a
whimsical thought, and I reproved myself often for the simplicity of it ;
for I presently saw there would be the want* of several things necessary
to the making my beer, that it would be impossible for me to supply,
as, first, casks to preserve it in, which was a thing that, as I have
observed already, I could never compass no, though I spent not only
many days, but weeks, nay, months, in attempting it, but to no purpose.
In the next place, I had no hops to make it keep, no yeast to make it
work, no copper or kettle to make it boil ; and yet, all these things not
withstanding, I verily believe, had not these things intervened I mean
the frights and terrors I was in about the savages I had undertaken it,
150 ADVENTURES OP
and perhaps brought it to pass too ; for I seldom gave any thing over
without accomplishing it, when I once had it in my head enough to
begin it.
But my invention now ran quite another way ; for, night and day I
could think of nothing but how I might destroy some of these monsters in
their cruel, bloody entertainment, and, if possible, save the victim they
should bring hither to destroy. It would take up a larger volume than
this whole work is intended to be, to set down all the contrivances I
hatched, or rather brooded upon in my thoughts, for the destroying these
creatures, or at least frightening them, so as to prevent their coming
hither any more ; but all was abortive, nothing could be possible to take
effect, unless I was to be there to do it myself ; and what could one man
do among them, when perhaps there might be twenty or thirty of them
together, with their darts, or their bows and arrows, with which they
could shoot as true to a mark as I ceuld with my gun ?
Sometimes I contrived to dig a hole under the place where they made
their fire, and put in five or six pounds of gunpowder, which, when they
kindled their fire, would consequently take fire, and blow up all that was
near it ; but as, in the first place, I should be very loth to waste so much
powder upon them, my store being now within the quantity of one barrel,
so neither could I be sure of its going off at any certain time, when it might
surprise them, and, at best, that it would do little more than just blow
the fire about their ears and fright them, but not sufficient to make them
forsake the place : so I laid it aside, and then proposed that I would
place myself in ambush in some convenient place, with my three guns all
double-loaded, and, in the middle of their bloody ceremony, let fly at
them, when I should be sure to kill or wound perhaps two or three at
every shot ; and then falling in upon them with my three pistols, and my
sword, I made no doubt but that, if there were twenty, I should kill them
all. This fancy pleased my thoughts for some weeks, and I was so full of
it that I often dreamt of it, and sometimes that I was just going to let fly
at them in my sleep.
I went so far with it in my imagination, that I employed myself
several days to find out proper places to put myself in ambuscade, as I
said, to watch for them ; and I went frequently to the place itself, which
was now grown more familiar to me : and especially while my mind was
thus filled with thoughts of revenge, and of a bloody putting twenty or
thirty of them to the sword, as I may call it, the horror I had at the
KOBINSON CRTJSOE. 151
place, and at the signals of the harharous wretches devouring one another,
abetted my malice.
"Well, at length I found a place in the side of the hill, where I was
satisfied I might securely wait till I saw any of their boats coming ; and
might then, even before they would be ready to come on shore, convey
myself, unseen, into thickets of trees, in one of which there was a hollow
large enough to conceal me entirely, and where I might sit and observe
all their bloody doings, and take my full aim at their heads, when they
were so close together as that it would be next to impossible that I should
miss my shot, or that I could fail wounding three or four of them at the
first shot.
In this place, then, I resolved to fix my design ; and, accordingly, I
prepared two muskets and my ordinary fowling-piece. The two muskets
I loaded with a brace of slugs each, and four or five smaller bullets, about
the size of pistol bullets; and the fowling piece I loaded with near a
handful of swan-shot, of the largest size ; I also loaded my pistols with
about four bullets each : and in this posture, well provided with ammuni
tion for a second and third charge, I prepared myself for my expedition.
After I had thus laid the scheme of my design, and, in my imagina
tion, put it in practice, I continually made my tour every morning, up to
the top of the hill, which was from my castle, as I called it, about three
miles, or more, to see if I could observe any boats upon the sea, coming
near the island, or standing over towards it ; but I began to tire of this
hard duty, after I had for two or three months constantly kept my watch,
but came always back without any discovery, there having not in all that
time been the least appearance, not only on or near the shore, but not on
the whole ocean, so far as my eyes or glasses could reach every way.
As long as I kept up my daily tour to the hill to look out, so long also
I kept up the vigour of my design, and my spirits seemed to be all the
while in a suitable form for so outrageous an execution as the killing-
twenty or thirty naked savages, for an offence which I had not at all
entered into a discussion of in my thoughts, any further than my passions
were at first fired by the horror I conceived at the unnatural custom of
the people of that country, who, it seems, had been suffered by Providence,
in his wise disposition of the world, to have no other guide than that
of their own abominable and vitiated passions ; and, consequently, were
left, and perhaps had been so for some ages, to act such horrid things, and
receive such dreadful customs, as nothing but nature, entirely abandoned
152 ADVENTURES OF
of Heaven, and actuated by some hellish degeneracy, could have run them
into. But now, when, as I have said, I began to be weary of the fruit
less excursion, which I had made so long and so far every morning in
vain, so my opinion of the action itself began to alter ; and I began, with
cooler and calmer thoughts, to consider what it was I was going to engage
in what authority, or call, I had to pretend to be judge and executioner
upon these men as criminals, whom Heaven had thought fit, for so many
ages, to suffer, unpunished, to go on, and to be, as it were, the execu
tioners of his judgments one upon another ; also how far these people
were offenders against me, and what right I had to engage in the quarrel
of that blood which they shed promiscuously one upon another. I debated
this very often with myself, thus : " How do I know what God himself
judges in this particular case ? It is certain these people do not commit
this as a crime ; it is not against their own consciences reproving, or their
light reproaching them. They do not know it to be an offence, and then
commit it in defiance of divine justice, as we do in almost all the sins we
commit. They think it no more a crime to kill a captive taken in war,
than we do to kill an ox; nor to eat human flesh than we do to eat
mutton."
When I had considered this a little, it followed necessarily that I was
certainly in the wrong in it, that these people were not murderers in
the sense that I had before condemned them in my thoughts, any more
than those Christians were murderers who often put to death the prisoners
taken in battle ; or more frequently, upon many occasions, put whole
troops of men to the sword, without giving quarter, though they threw
down their arms and submitted.
In the next place, it occurred to me, that albeit the usage they gave
one another was thus brutish and inhuman, yet it was really nothing to
me : these people had done me no injury, that if they attempted me, or
I saw it necessary, for my immediate preservation, to fall upon them,
something might be said for it ; but that I was yet out of their power,
and they had really no knowledge of me, and consequently no design
upon me, and therefore it could not be just for me to fall upon them :
that this would justify the conduct of the Spaniards in all their bar
barities practised in America, where they destroyed millions of these
people, who however they were idolaters and barbarians, and had
several bloody and barbarous rites in their customs, such as sacrificing
human bodies to their idols were yet, as to the Spaniards, very innocent
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 153
people, and that the rooting them out of the country is spoken of with
the utmost abhorrence and detestation by even the Spaniards themselves,
at this time, and by all other Christian nations of Europe, as a mere
butchery a bloody and unnatural piece of cruelty, unjustifiable either to
God or man, and such as for which the very name of a Spaniard is
reckoned to be frightful and terrible to all people of humanity, or of
Christian compassion; as if the kingdom of Spain were particularly
eminent for the product of a race of men who were without principles of
tenderness, or the common bowels of pity to the miserable, which is
reckoned to be a mark of generous temper in the mind.
These considerations really put me to a pause, and to a kind of a full
stop ; and I began, by little and little, to be off my design, and to con
clude I had taken wrong measures in my resolution to attack the savages
that it was not my business to meddle with them, unless they first
attacked me, and this it was my business, if possible, to prevent; but
that if I were discovered and attacked, then I knew my duty.
On the other hand, I argued with myself, that this really was the
way, not to deliver myself, but entirely to ruin and destroy myself ; for
unless' I was sure to kill every one that not only should be on shore at
that time, but that should ever come on shore afterwards, if but one of
them escaped to tell their country-people what had happened, they would
come over again by thousands to revenge the death of their fellows, and
I should only bring upon myself a certain destruction, which at present I
had no manner of occasion for.
Upon the whole, I concluded that neither in principle nor in policy
I ought, one way or other, to concern myself in this affair ; that my
business was by all possible means to conceal myself from them, and not
to leave the least signal to them to guess by that there were any living
creatures upon the island, I mean of human shape.
{ -f Eeligion joined in with this prudential resolution, and I was convinced
now, many ways, that I was perfectly out of my duty when I was laying
all my bloody schemes for the destruction of innocent creatures, I mean
innocent as to me. As to the crimes they were guilty of towards one
another, I had nothing to do with them; they were national, and I
ought to leave them to the justice of God, who is the governor of nations,
and knows how, by national punishments, to make a just retribution for
national offences, and to bring public judgments upon those who offend in
a public manner, by such ways as best please Him. > )
154
ADVENTURES OP
This appeared so clear to me now, that nothing was a greater satisfac
tion to me than that I had not heen suffered to do a thing which I now
saw so much reason to believe would have been no less, a sin than that
of wilful murder, if I had committed it ; and! I gave most humble thanks
on my knees to God, that had thus delivered me from blood-guiltiness,
beseeching him to grant me the protection of his providence) that I might
not fall into the hands of barbarians, or that I might not lay my hands
upon them, unless I had a more clear call from Heaven to do it in defence
of my own life.
ROBINSON CRUSOE* 155
CHAPTER XII.
Crusoe takes precautions against an incursion of the savages Lives a more retired life His prin
cipal employment, the milking of his goats, and the management of his flock Is surprised by
an old he-goat in a cave Discovers a party of cannibals on the shore A ship in distress Finds
the body of a drowned boy cast on shore Laments that not one of the crew has been saved,
and feels more solitary than ever Goes off to the wreck in his boat, and finds the only living
thing on board to be a dog Loads his boat with money-bags, clothes, etc., and returns to the
shore Reflections.
"N this disposition I continued for near a year after this; and
so far was I from desiring an occasion for falling upon these
wretches, that in all that time I never once went up the hill
to see whether there were any of them in sight, or to know
whether any of "them had been on shore there or not, that I
might not be tempted to renew any of my contrivances against
them, or be provoked by any advantage which might present
itself, to fall upon them : only this I did, I went and removed
my boat, which I had on the other side of the island, and carried it down
to the east end of the whole island, where I ran it into a little cove which
I found under some high rocks, and where I knew, by reason of the
currents, the savages durst not, at least would not, come with their boats,
upon any account whatsoever.
"With my boat I carried away every thing that I had left there
belonging to her, though not necessary for the bare going thither, viz.,
a mast and sail which I had made for her, and a thing like an anchor,
but, indeed, which could not be called either anchor or grappling ; how
ever, it was the best I could make of its kind. All these I removed,
that there might not be the least shadow of any discovery, or any appear
ance of any boat, or of any human habitation, upon the island.
Besides this, I kept myself, as I said, more retired than ever, and
seldom went from my cell, other than upon my constant employment,
viz., to milk my she-goats, and manage my little flock in the wood,
which, as it was quite on the other part of the island, was quite out of
156
ADVENTURES OF
danger ; for certain it is, that these savage people, who sometimes haunted
this island, never came with any thoughts of finding any thing here, and
consequently never wandered off from the coast, and I doubt not but
they might have been several times on shore after my apprehensions of
them had made me cautious, as well as before ; and, indeed, I looked back
with some horror upon the thoughts of what my condition would have
been if I had chopped upon them and been discovered before that, whon
naked and unarmed, except with one gun, and that loaded often only
with small shot I walked every where, peeping and peering about the
island to see what I could get, what a surprise should I have been in,
if, when I discovered the print of a man's foot, I had, instead of that,
seen fifteen or twenty savages, and found them pursuing me, and, by the
swiftness of their running, no possibility of my, escaping them ?
The thoughts of this sometimes sunk my very soul within me, and
distressed my mind so much that I could nt soon recover it ; to think
what I should have done, and how I not only should not have been able
to resist them, but even should not have had presence of mind enough to
do what I might have done, much less what now, after so much con
sideration and preparation, I might be able to do. Indeed, after serious
thinking of these things, I would be very melancholy, and sometimes it
would last a great while ; but I resolved it at last all into thankfulness
to that Providence which had delivered me from so many unseen dangers,
KOBINSON CKUSOE. 157
and had kept me from those mischiefs which I could no way have heen
the agent in delivering myself from, because I had not the least notion of
any such thing depending, or the least supposition of it being possible.
This renewed a contemplation which often had come to my thoughts
in former time, when first I began to see the merciful dispositions of
Heaven in the dangers we run through in this life, how wonderfully we
are delivered when we know nothing of it ; how, when we are in a quan
dary (as we call it) a doubt or hesitation whether to go this way or that
way, a secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intended to go that
way; nay, when sense, our own inclination, and perhaps business, has
called to go the other way, yet a strange impression upon the mind, from
we know not what springs, and by we know not what power, shall over
rule us to go this way, and it shall afterwards appear, that had we gone
that way which we should have gone, and even to our imagination ought
to have gone, we should have been ruined and lost. Upon these, and
many like reflections, I afterwards made it a certain rule with me, that
whenever I found those secret hints or pressings of my mind, to doing or
not doing any thing that presented, or to going this way or that way, I
never failed to obey the secret dictate, though I knew no other reason for
it than that such a pressure, or such a hint, hung upon my mind. I could
give many examples of the success of this conduct in the course of my
life, but more especially in the latter part of my inhabiting this unhappy
island ; besides many occasions which it is very likely I might have taken
^.notice of, if I had seen with the same eyes then that I saw with now.
But it is never too late to be wise ; and I cannot but advise all consider
ing men, whose lives are attended with such extraordinary incidents as
mine, or even though not so extraordinary, not to slight such secret inti
mations of Providence, let them cogue from what invisible intelligence
they will : that I shall not discuss, and perhaps cannot account for, but
certainly they are a proof of the converse of spirits, and a secret commu
nication between those embodied and those unembodied, and such a proof
as can never be withstood, of which I shall have occasion to give some
very remarkable instances in the remainder of my solitary residence in
this dismal place.
t believe the reader of this will not think it strange if I confess that
these anxieties these constant dangers I lived in, and the concern that
was now upon me put an end to all invention, and to all the contrivances
that I had laid for my future accommodations and conveniences. I had
158 ADVENTURES OP
the care of my safety more now upon my hands than that of my food. I
cared not to drive a nail, or chop a stick of wood now, for fear the noise I
should make should he heard ; much less would I fire a gun, for the same
reason, and, above all, I was intolerably uneasy at making any fire, lest
the smoke, which is visible at a great distance in the day, should betray
me; and for this reason I removed that part of my business which
required fire, such as burning of pots and pipes, etc., into my new apart
ment in the woods, where, after I had been some time, I found, to my
unspeakable consolation, a mere natural cave in the earth, which went in
a vast way, and where, I dare say, no savage, had he been at the mouth
of it, would be so hardy as to venture in, nor, indeed, would any man
else, but one who, like me, wanted nothing so much as a safe retreat.
The mouth of this hollow was at the bottom of a great rock, where,
by mere accident (I would say, if I did not see abundant reason to ascribe
all such things now to Providence), I was cutting down some thick
branches of trees to make charcoal ; and, before I go on, I must observe
the reason of my making this charcoal, which was thus :
I was afraid of making a smoke about my habitation, as I said before ;
and yet I could not live there without baking my bread, cooking my
meat, etc. : so I contrived to burn some wood here, as I had seen done in
England, under turf, till it became chark, or dry coal ; and then, putting
the fire out, I preserved the coal to carry home, and perform the services
for which fire was wanting, without danger of smoke.
But this is by-the-bye. "While I was cutting down some wood here,
I perceived that, behind a very thick branch of low brushwood or under
wood, there was a kind of hollow place : I was curious to look into it,
and getting with difficulty into the mouth of it, I found it was pretty
large, that is to say, sufficient for me to stand upright in it, and per
haps another with me ; but I must confess to you I made more haste out
than I did in, when, looking farther into the place, and which was
perfectly dark, I saw two broad shining eyes of some creature whether
devil or man I knew not which twinkled like two stars, the dim light
from the cave's mouth shining directly in, and making the reflection.
However, after some pause, I recovered myself, and began to call
myself a thousand fools, and tell myself that he that was afraid to see
the devil was not fit to live twenty years in an island all alone^and that
I durst to believe there was nothing in this cave that was more frightful
than myself. Upon this, plucking up my courage, I took up a great
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 159
firebrand, and in I rushed again, with the stick flaming in my hand:
I had not got three steps in, but I was almost as much frighted as I
was before, for I heard a very loud sigh, like that of a man in some pain,
and it was followed by a broken noise, as if of words half expressed, and
then a deep sigh again. I stepped back, and was indeed struck with
such a surprise that it put me into a cold sweat ; and if I had had a hat
on my head, I will not answer for it that my hair might not have lifted
it off. But still plucking up my spirits as well as I could, and encourag
ing myself a little with considering that the power and presence of God
was every where, and was able to protect me upon this I stepped
forward again, and by the light of the firebrand, holding it up a little
over my head, I saw lying on the ground, a most monstrous, frightful,
old he-goat, just making his will, as we say, and gasping for life, and
dying, indeed, of mere old age.
I stirred him a little to see if I could get him out, and he essayed to
get up, but was not able to raise himself ; and I thought with myself he
might even lie there, for if he had frighted me so, he would certainly
fright any of the savages, if any of them should be so hardy as to come in
there while he had any life in him.
I was now recovered from my surprise, and began to look round me,
when I found the cave was but very small, that is to say, it might be
about twelve feet over, but in no manner of shape, either round or square,
no hands having ever been employed in making it but those of mere
nature. I observed also that there was a place at the farther side of it
that went in further, but was so low that it required me to creep upon
my hands and knees to go into it, and whither it went I knew not : so,
having no candle, I gave it over for some time, but resolved to come
again the next day, provided with candles and a tinderbox, which I had
made of the lock of one of the muskets, with some wildfire in the pan.
Accordingly, the next day I came provided with six large candles of
my own making, for I had made very good candles now of goat's tallow ;
and going into this low place, I was obliged to creep upon all fours, as I
have said, almost ten yards, which, by the way, I thought was a venture
bold enough, considering that I knew not how far it might go, nor what
was beyond it. When I was got through the strait, I found the roof rose
higher up, I believe near twenty feet ; but never was such a glorious
sight seen in the island, I dare say, as it was to look round the sides and
roof of this vault or cave. The wall reflected a hundred thousand lights
160 ADVENTURES OF
to me from my two candles ; what it was in the rock, whether diamonds,
or any other precious stones, or gold, which I rather supposed it to he, I
knew not.
The place I was in was a most delightful cavity or grotto of its kind,
as could be expected, though perfectly dark ; the floor was dry and level,
and had a sort of small loose gravel upon it, so that there was no
nauseous or venomous creature to he seen, neither was there any damp
or wet on the sides or roof: the only difficulty in it was the entrance,
which, however, as it was a place of security, and such a retreat as I
wanted, I thought that was a convenience, so that I was really rejoiced
at the discovery, and resolved, without any delay, to bring some of those
things which I was most anxious about to this place ; particularly, I
resolved to bring hither my magazine of powder, and all my spare arms,
viz., two fowling-pieces (for I had three in all), and three muskets (for
of them I had eight in all), so I kept at my castle only five, which stood
ready mounted like pieces of cannon, on my outmost fence, and were ready
also to take out upon any expedition.
Upon this occasion of removing my ammunition, I took occasion to
open the barrel of powder which I took up out of the sea, and which had
been wet, and I found that the water had penetrated about three or four
inches into the powder on every side, which caking and growing hard,
had preserved the inside like a kernel in 'a shell, so that I had near sixty
pounds of very good powder in the centre of the cask ; and this was an
agreeable discovery to me at that time : so I earned all away thither,
never keeping above two or three pounds of powder with me in my castle,
for fear of a surprise of any kind : I also carried thither all the lead I had
left for bullets.
I fancied myself now like one of the ancient giants, which were* said
to live in caves and holes in the rocks, where none could come at -them ;
for I persuaded myself while I was here, if five hundred savages were to
hunt me, they could never find me out ; or, if they did, they would not
venture to attack me here.
The old goat, which I found expiring, died in the mouth of the cave
the next day after I made this discovery, and I found it much easier to
dig a great hole there, and throw him in and cover him with earth, than
to drag him out ; so I interred him there, to prevent offence to my nose.
I was now in my twenty-third year of residence in this island, and
was so naturalized to the place and to the manner of living, that could I
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 161
have but enjoyed the certainty that no savages would come to the place
to disturb me, I could have been content to have capitulated for spending
the rest of my time there, even to the last moment, till I had laid me
down and died, like the old goat in the cave. I had also arrived at some
little diversions and amusements, which made the time pass more plea
santly with me a great deal than it did before ; as, first, I had taught my
Poll, as I noted before, to speak, and he did it so familiarly, and talked
so articulately and plain, that it was very pleasant to me, and he lived
with me no less than six-and-twenty years: how long he might live
afterwards I know not, though I know they have a notion in the Brazils
that they live a hundred years. Perhaps poor Poll may be alive there
still, calling after " Poor Eobin Crusoe" to this day. I wish no English
man the ill-luck to come there and hear him ; but, if he did, he would
certainly believe it was the devil. My dog was a very pleasant and
loving companion to me for no less than sixteen years of my time, and
then died of mere old age. As for my cats, they multiplied, as I have
observed, to that degree that I was obliged to shoot several of them at
first, to keep them from devouring me and all I had; but, at length,
when the two old ones I brought with me were gone, and after some
time continually driving them from me, and letting them have no pro
vision with me, they all ran wild into the woods, except two or three
favourites, which I kept tame, and whose young, when they had any, I
always drowned, and these were part of my family. Besides these, I
always kept two or three household kids about me, which I taught to
feed out of my hand ; and I had two more parrots, which talked pretty
well, and would all call Eobin Crusoe, but none like my first, nor, indeed,
did I take the pains with any of them 'that I had done with him. I
had also several tame seafowls, whose names I knew not, which I caught
upon the shore, and cut their wings ; and the little stakes which I had
planted before my castle wall being now grown up to a good thick grove,
these fowls all lived among these low trees, and bred there, which was
very agreeable to me. So that, as I said above, I began to be very well
contented with the life I led, if it might but have been secured from
the dread of the savages.
But it was otherwise directed ; and it may not be amiss for all people
who shall meet with my story, to make this just observation from it, viz.,
how frequently, in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we
seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most /
11
162 ADVENTURES OF
dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance,
by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen
^ into. I could give many examples of this in the course of my unaccount
able life, but in nothing was it more particularly remarkable than in
the circumstances of my last years of solitary residence in this island.
It was now the month of December, as I said above, in my twenty-
third year ; and this, being the southern solstice for winter I cannot call
it was the particular time of my harvest, and required my being pretty
much abroad in the fields : when going out pretty'early in the morning,
even before it was thorough daylight, I was surprised with seeing a
light of some fife upon the shore, at a distance from me of about two
miles, towards the end of the island where I had observed some savages
had been, as before ; but not on the other side, but, to my great affliction,
it was on my side of the island.
I was, indeed, terribly surprised at the sight, and stopped short
within my grove, not daring to go out, lest I might be surprised ; and
yet I had no more peace within, from the apprehensions I had that, if
these savages, in rambling over the island, should find my corn standing
or cut, or any of my works and improvements, they would immediately
conclude that there were people in the place, and would then never give
over till they had found me out. In this extremity, I went back directly
to my castle, pulled up the ladder after me, and made all things without
look as wild and natural as I could.
Then I prepared myself within, putting myself in a posture of defence :
I loaded all my cannon, as I called them, that is to say, my muskets,
which were mounted upon my new fortification, and all my pistols, and
resolved to defend myself to the last gasp; not forgetting seriously to
commend myself to the divine protection, and earnestly to pray to God to
deliver me out of the hands of the barbarians.
After sitting awhile, and musing what I should do in this case, I
was not able to bear sitting in ignorance any longer ; so, setting up my
ladder to the side of the hill, where there was a flat place, as I observed
before, and then pulling the ladder up after me, I set it up again, and
mounted to the top of the bill, and pulling out my perspective glass,
which I had taken on purpose, 'l laid me down flat on my belly on the
ground, and began to look for the place. I presently found there were
no less than nine naked savages, sitting round a small fire they had made,
not to warm them, for they had no need of that, the weather being
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 163
extremely hot, but, as I supposed, to dress their barbarous diet of human
flesh, which they had brought, whether alive or dead I could not know.
They had two canoes with them, which they had haled up upon the
shore ; and as it was then tide of ebb, they seemed to me to wait for the
return of the flood to go away again. It is not easy to imagine what
confusion this sight put me into, especially seeing them come on my side
the island, and so near me too ; but when I observed their coming must be
always with the current of the ebb, I began afterwards to be more sedate
in my mind, being satisfied that I might go abroad with safety all the time
of the tide of flood, if they were not on shore before : and having made
this observation, I went abroad about my work with the more composure.
As I expected, so it proved ; for as soon as the tide made to the west
ward, I saw them all take boat, and row (or paddle, as we call it) all
away. I should have observed, that for an hour or more before they
went off they went to dancing, and I could easily discern their postures
and gestures by my glasses : I could not perceive by my nicest observation
but that they were stark naked, and had not the least covering upon them ;
but whether they were men or women, that I could not distinguish.
As soon as I saw them shipped and gone, I took two guns upon my
shoulders, and two pistols at my girdle, and my great sword by my side,
without a scabbard, and with all the speed I was able to make, I went
away to the hill where I had discovered the first appearance of all. As
soon as I got thither, which was not less than two hours (for I could
not go apace, being so loaden with arms as I was), I perceived there had
been three canoes more of savages on that place ; and looking out farther,
I saw they were all at sea together, making over for the main.
This was a dreadful sight to me, especially when, going to the shore,
I could see the marks of horror which the dismal work they had been
about had left behind it, viz., the blood, the bones, and part of the flesh of
human bodies, eaten and devoured by those wretches with merriment and
sport. I was so filled with indignation, that I began now to premeditate the
destruction of the next that I saw there, let them be who or how many soever.
It seemed evident to me that the visits which they thus made to this
island were not very frequent, for it was above fifteen months before any
more of them came on shore there again, that is to say, I never saw them,
nor any footsteps or signals of them, in all that time ; for, as to the rainy
seasons, then they are sure not to come abroad, at least not BO far : yet all
this while I lived uncomfortably, by reason of constant apprehensions I
164
ADVENTURES OF
was in of their coining upon me by surprise. From whence I observe,
that the expectation of evil is more bitter than the suffering, especially
if there is no room to shake off that expectation, or those apprehensions.
During all this time I was in the murdering humour, and took up
most of my hours, which should have been better employed, in contriving
how to circumvent and fall upon them, the very next time I should see
them, especially if they should be divided, as they were the last time,
into two parties ; nor did I consider at all, that if I killed one party,
suppose ten or a dozen, I was still the next day, or week, or month, to kill
another, and so another, even ad infinitum, till I should be at length no less a
murderer than they were in being men-eaters, and perhaps much more so.
I spent my days now in great perplexity and anxiety of mind,
expecting that I should one day or other fall into the hands of these
merciless creatures ; and if I did at any time venture abroad, it was not
without looking round me with the greatest care and caution imaginable.
And now I found, to my great comfort, how happy it was that I had
provided a tame flock or herd of goats; for I durst not, upon any account,
fire my gun, especially near that side of the island where they usually
came, lest I should alarm the savages : and if they had fled from me now,
I was sure to have them come back again, with perhaps two or three hun-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 165
dred canoes with them, in a few days, and then I knew what to expect.
However, I wore out a year and three months more before I ever saw
any more of the savages, and then I found them again, as I shall soon
observe. It is true, they might have been there once or twice, but either
they made no stay, or at least I did not hear them ; but in the month of
May, as near as I could calculate, and in my four-and-twentieth year, I
had a very strange encounter with them, of which in its place.
The perturbation of my mind during this fifteen or sixteen months'
interval was very great; I slept unquiet, dreamed always frightful
dreams, and often started out of my sleep in the night : in the day, great
troubles overwhelmed my mind, and in the night I dreamed often of
killing the savages, and of the reasons why I might justify the doing of
it. But to waive all this for a while : it was in the middle of May, on
the sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor wooden calendar would
reckon, for I marked all upon the post still ; I say, it was on the six
teenth of May that it blew a very great storm of wind all day, with a
great deal of lightning and thunder, and a very foul night it was after it.
I know not what was the particular occasion of it, but as I was reading
in the Bible, and taken up with serious thoughts about my present
condition, I was surprised with the noise of a gun, as I thought, fired at
sea. This was, to be sure, a surprise of a quite different nature from
any I had met with before ; for the notions this put into my thoughts
were quite of another kind. I started up in the greatest haste
imaginable, and in a trice clapped up my ladder to the middle place
of the rock and pulled it after me, and, mounting it the second time, got
to the top of the hill the very moment that a flash of fire bade me listen for
a second gun, which accordingly, in about half a moment, I heard, and,
by the sound knew that it was from that part of the sea where I was
driven out with the current in my boat.
I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress, and
that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired
these guns for signals of distress, and to obtain help. I had this presence
of mind at that minute, as to think that though I could not help them, it
might be they might help me : so I brought together all the dry wood I
could get at hand, and, making a good handsome pile, I set it on fire upon
the hill. The wood was dry, and blazed freely, and though the wind
blew very hard, yet it burnt fairly out, so that I was certain, if there was
any such thing as a ship, they must needs see it j and no doubt they did,
166 ADVENTURES OP
for as soon as ever my fire blazed up I heard another gun, and after that
several others all from the same quarter. I plied my fire all night long,
till day broke ; and when it was broad day, and the air cleared up, I saw
something at a great distance at sea, full east of the island, whether a
sail or a hull I could not distinguish, the distance was so great, and the
weather still continuing hazy also at least it was so out at sea.
I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived that it did
not move, so I presently concluded that it was a ship at anchor: and
being eager, you may be sure, to be satisfied, I took my gun in my hand,
and ran towards the south-east side of the island, to the rocks where I
had formerly been carried away with the current ; and getting up there,
the weather by this time being perfectly clear, I could plainly see, to my
great sorrow, the wreck of a ship cast away in the night upon those con
cealed rocks which I found when I was out in my boat, and which rocks,
as they checked the violence of the stream, and made a counter-stream, or
eddy, were the occasion of my recovering then from the most desperate,
hopeless condition that ever I had been in in all my life.
Thus, what is one man's safety is another man's destruction ; for it
seems these men, whoever they were, being out of their knowledge, and
the rocks being wholly under water, had been driven upon them in the
night, the wind blowing hard at east and east-north-east. Had they .seen
the island, as I must necessarily suppose they did not, they must, as I
thought, have endeavoured to have saved themselves on shore by the help
of their boat ; but the firing of their guns for help, especially when they saw,
as I imagined, my fire, filled me with many thoughts : First, I imagined
that upon seeing my light, they might have put themselves into their
boat, and have endeavoured to make -the shore, but that the sea going
very high, they might have been cast away ; other times I imagined that
they might have lost their boat before, as might be the case many ways
as, particularly, by the breaking of the sea upon their ship, which many
times obliges men to stave, or take in pieces, their boat, and sometimes to
throw it overboard with their own hands ; other times I imagined they
had some other ship or ships in company, who, upon the signals of dis
tress they had made, had taken them up and carried them off; other
whiles I fancied they were all gone off to sea in their boat, and being
hurried away by the current, were carried out into the great ocean, where
there was nothing but misery and perishing, and that, perhaps, they might
by this time be starving, and in a condition to think of eating one another.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 167
As all these were but conjectures at best, so, in the condition I was
in, I could do no more than look on upon the misery of the poor men, and
pity them, which had still this good effect on my side, that it gave me
more and more cause to give thanks to God, who had so happily and com
fortably provided for me in my desolate condition, and that of two ships'
companies, who were now cast upon this part of the world, not one life
should be spared but mine. I learnt here again to observe, that it is very
rare that the providence of God casts us into any condition of life so low,
or any misery so great, but we may see something or other to be thankful
for, and may see others in worse circumstances than our own.
Such certainly was the case of these men, of whom I could not so
much as see room to suppose any of them were saved ; nothing could
make it rational so much as to wish or expect that they did not all perish
there, except the possibility only of their being taken up by another ship
in company ; and this was but mere possibility indeed, for I saw not the
least signal or appearance of any such thing.
I cannot explain, by any possible energy of words, what a strange
longing or hankering of desire I felt in my soul upon this sight, break
ing out sometimes thus : " Oh, that there had been but one or two, nay,
or but one soul saved out of the ship, to have escaped to me, that I might
but have had one companion, one fellow-creature, to have spoken to me,
and to have conversed with!" In all the time of my solitary life, I
never felt so earnest, so strong a desire after the society of my fellow-
creatures, or so deep a regret at the want of it.
There are some secret moving springs in the affections, which, when
they are set a-going by some object in view or be it some object though
not in view, yet rendered present to the mind by the power of imagina
tion that motion carries out the soul, by its impetuosity, to such violent
eager embracings of the object, that the absence of it is insupportable.
Such were these earnest wishings, that but one man had been saved.
Oh, that it had been but one ! I believe I repeated the words, " Oh, that
it had been but one !" a thousand times, and my desires were so moved
by it, that when I spoke the words my hands would clinch together, and
my fingers press the palms of my hands, that if I had had any soft thing
in my hand it would have crushed it involuntarily ; and my teeth in my
head would strike together, and set against one another so strong, that for
some time I could not part them again.
Let the naturalist explain these things, and the reason and manner of
168
ADVENTURES OF
them: all I can say to them is to describe the fact, which was even
surprising to me, when I found it: though I knew not from what it
should proceed, it was doubtless the effect of ardent wishes, and of strong
ideas formed in my mind, realising the comfort which the conversation of
one of my fellow Christians would have been to me.
But it was not to be : either their fate or mine, or both, forbade it '>
for till the last year of my being on this island, I never knew whether
any were saved out of that ship or no ; and had only the affliction, some
days after, to see the corpse of a drowned boy come on shore at the end of
the island which was next the shipwreck. He had on no clothes but a
seaman's waistcoat, a pair of open-kneed linen drawers, and a blue linen
shirt ; but nothing to direct me so much as to guess what nation he was
of : he had nothing in his pockets but two pieces- of- eight and a tobacco-
pipe : the last was to me of ten times more value than the first.
It was now calm, and I had a great mind to venture out in my boat
to this wreck, not doubting but I might find something on board that
might be useful to me ; but that did not altogether press me so much as
the possibility that there might be yet some living creature on board,
whose life I might not only save, but might, by saving that life, comfort
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 169
my own to the last degree. And this thought clung so to my heart, that
I could not be quiet night nor day, but I must venture out in my boat on
board this wreck ; and committing the rest to God's providence, I thought
the impression was so strong upon my mind that it could not be resisted,
that it must come from some invisible direction, and that I should be
wanting to myself if I did not go.
Under the power of this impression, I hastened back to my castle,
prepared every thing for my voyage, took a quantity of bread, a great pot
of fresh water, a compass to steer by, a bottle of rum (for I had still a
great deal of that left), and a basket full of raisins ; and thus loading
myself with every thing necessary, I went down to my boat, got the
^Yater out of her, and got her afloat, loaded all my cargo in her, and then
went home again for more. My second cargo was a great bag full of rice,
the umbrella to set up over my head for a shade, another large pot full of
fresh water, and about two dozen of my small loaves or barley-cakes,
more than before, with a bottle of goat's milk and a cheese : all which,
with great labour and sweat, I brought to my boat, and praying to God
to direct my voyage, I put out ; and rowing, or paddling, the canoe along
the shore, I came at last to the utmost point of the island on the north
east side. And now I was to launch out into the ocean, and either to
venture or not to venture. I looked on the rapid currents which ran con
stantly on both sides of the island at a 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 per
haps out of 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
170 ADVENTURES OF
no sooner in my head but I cast my eye upon a little hill which suffi
ciently 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 side 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 the night in my
canoe, under the great watch-coat I mentioned, I launched out. I first
made a little out to sea, full north, till I began to feel the benefit of the
current, which set eastward, and which carried me at a great rate, and
yet did not so hurry me as the southern side current had done before, and
so as to take from me all government of the boat ; but having a strong
steerage with my paddle, I went, I say, at a great rate directly for the
wreck, and in less than two hours I came up to it. It was a dismal sight
to look at: the ship, which, by its building, was Spanish, stuck fast,
jammed in between two rocks: all the stern and quarter of her was
beaten to pieces with the sea ; and as her forecastle, which stuck in the
rocks, had run on with great violence, her mainmast and foremast were
brought by the board, that is to say, broken short off; but her boltsprit
was sound, and the head and bow appeared firm. "When I came close to
her, a dog appeared upon her, which, seeing me coming, yelped and cried,
and as soon as I called him jumped into the sea to come to me, and I took
him into the boat, but found him almost dead for hunger and thirst. I
gave him a cake of my bread, and he eat it like a ravenous wolf that had
been starving a fortnight in the snow. I then gave the poor creature some
fresh water, with which, if I had let him, he would have burst himself.
After this,' I went on board. The first sight I met with was two
men drowned in the cook-room, or forecastle of the ship, with their arms
fast about one another. I concluded, as is indeed probable, that when
the ship struck, it being in a storm, the sea broke so high and so con
tinually over her, that the men were not able to bear it, and were
strangled with the constant rushing in of the water as much as if they
had been under water. Besides the dog, there was nothing left in the
ship that had life, nor any goods, that I could see, but what were spoiled
by the water. There were some casks of liquor, whether wine or brandy
I knew not, which lay lower in the hold, and which, the water being
BOBINSON CRUSOE. 171
ebbed out, I could see ; but they were too big to meddle with. I
saw several chests, which I believe belonged to some of the seamen, and
I got two of them into the boat, without examining what was in them.
Had the stern of the ship been fixed, and the fore part broken off, I am
persuaded I might have made a good voyage ; for, by what I found in
these two chests, I had room to suppose the ship had a great deal of
wealth on board : and, if I may guess from the course she steered, she
must have been bound from Buenos Ayres, or the Rio de la Plata, in the
south part of America, beyond the Brazils, to the Havanna, in the Gulf
of Mexico, and so perhaps to Spain. She had, no doubt, a great treasure
in her, but of no use at that time to anybody ; and what became of the
rest of her people I then knew not.
I found, besides these chests, a little cask full of liquor, of about
twenty gallons, which I got into my boat with much difficulty. There
were several muskets in the cabin, and a great powder-horn, with about
four pounds of powder in it : as for the muskets, I had no occasion for
them, so I left them, but took the j)owder-horn. I took a fire-shovel and
tongs, which I wanted extremely; as also two little brass kettles, a
copper pot to make chocolate, and a gridiron : and with this cargo and
the dog, I came away, the tide beginning to make home again ; and the
same evening, about an hour within night, I reached the island again,
weary and fatigued to the last degree.
I reposed that night in the "boat, and in the morning I resolved to
harbour what I had gotten in my new cave, not to carry it home to my
castle. After refreshing myself, I got all my cargo on shore, and began
to examine the particulars. The cask of liquor I found to be a kind of
rum, but not such as we had at the Brazils, and in a word, not at all
good ; but when I came to open the chests, I found several things which
I wanted, for example, I found in one a fine case of bottles, of an extra
ordinary kind, and filled with cordial waters, fine and very good : the
bottles held about three pints each, and were tipped with silver. I
found two pots of very good succades, or sweetmeats, so fastened also on
the top that the salt water had not hurt them ; and two more of the
same, which the water had spoiled. I found some very good shirts,
which were very welcome to me ; and about a dozen and a half of white
linen handkerchiefs and coloured neckcloths : the former were also very
welcome, being exceeding refreshing to wipe my face in a hot day. Be
sides this, when I came to the till in the chest, I found three great bags
172
ADVENTURES OF
of pieces-of-eight, which, held about eleven hundred pieces in all ; and in
one of them, wrapped up in a paper, six doubloons of gold and some small
bars or wedges of gold, I suppose they might all weigh near a pound.
The other chest I found had some clothes in it, but of little value :
but by the circumstances, it must have belonged to the gunner's mate,
though there was no powder in it, but about two pounds of glazed powder
in three small flasks, kept, I suppose, for charging their fowling-pieces on
occasion. Upon the whole, I got very little by this voyage that was of
much use to me : v for as to the money, I had no manner of occasion for
it ; it was to me as the dirt under my feet, and I would have given it all
for three or four pair of English shoes and stockings, which were things
I greatly wanted, but had not had on my feet now for many years. I
had indeed gotten two pair of shoes now, which I took off the feet of the
two drowned men whom I saw in the wreck, and I found two pair more
in one of the chests, which were very welcome to me ; but they were
not like our English shoes, either for ease or service, being rather what
we call pumps than shoes. I found in this seaman's chest about fifty
pieces-of-eight in royals, but no gold : I suppose this belonged to a poorer
man than the other, which seemed to belong to some officer.
Well, however, I lugged the money home to my cave, and laid it up,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 173
as I had done that before which I brought from our own ship ; but it was
great pity, as I said, that the other part of this ship had not come to my ,.
share, for I am satisfied that I might have loaded my canoe several times j
over with money, which, if I ever escaped to England, would have lain 7
here safe enough till I might have come again and fetched it.
Having now brought all my things on shore, and secured them, I.\
went back to my boat, and rowed or paddled her along the shore to her
old harbour, where I laid her up, and made the best of my way to my
old habitation, where I found every thing safe and quiet. So I began
to repose myself, live after my old fashion, and take care of my family
affairs; aj^d, for a while, I lived easy enough, only that I was more
vigilant than I used to be, looked out offcener, and did not go abroad so
much ; and if at any time I did stir with any freedom, it was always to
the east part of the island, where I was pretty well satisfied the savages
never came, and where I could go without so many precautions and such
a load of arms and ammunition as I always carried with me if I went the
other way.
I lived in this condition near two years more ; but my unlucky head,
that was always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable,
was all these two years filled with projects and designs, how, if it were
possible, I might get away from this island ; for sometimes I was for
making another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me that
there was nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage, sometimes
for a ramble one way, sometimes another ; and I believe, verily, if I had
had the boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea,
bound any where I knew not whither.
I have been, in all my circumstances, a memento to those who are
touched with that general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know,
one half of their miseries flow, I mean that of not being satisfied with
the station wherein God and nature hath placed them ; for, not to look
back upon my primitive condition, and the excellent advice of my father
the opposition to which was, as I may call it, my original sin my subse
quent mistakes of the same kind had been the means of my coming into
this miserable condition ; for had that Providence, which so happily had
seated me at the Brazils as a planter, blessed me with confined desires,
and I could have been contented to have gone on gradually, I might have
been, by this time, I mean in the time of my being in this island,
one of the most considerable planters in the Brazils. Nay, I am
174
ADVENTURES OP
persuaded, that by the improvements I had made in that little time I
lived there, and the increase I should probably have made if I had staid,
I might have been worth a hundred thousand moidores. And what busi
ness had I to leave a settled fortune, a well-stocked plantation, improving
and increasing, to turn supercargo to Guinea to fetch negroes, when patience
and time would have so increased our stock at home, that we could have
bought them at our door from those whose business it was to fetch them ;
and though it had cost us something more, yet the difference of that price
was by no means worth saving at so great a hazard ?
But as this is ordinarily the fate of young heads, so reflection upon the
folly of it is as ordinarily the exercise of more years, or of the dear-
bought experience of time, and so it was with me now ; and yet so deep
had the mistake taken root in my temper, that I could not satisfy myself
in my station, but was continually poring upon the means and possibility
of my escape from this place. And that I may, with the greater pleasure
to the reader, bring on the remaining part of my story, it may not be im
proper to give some account of my first conceptions on the subject of this
foolish scheme for my escape, and how, and upon what foundation, I acted.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 175
CHAPTER XIII.
The four-and-twentieth year of Crusoe's sojourn on the island He dreams about the savages He
conceives the design of getting a savage into his possession The cannibals visit the island again,
and proceed to slay the prisoners they bring with them The dream is fulfilled One of the
savages escapes, but is pursued Crusoe knocks down one of the pursuers, and shoots the other
He welcomes the fugitive, whom he encourages to slay the second of his enemies Names
his savage, Friday Instructs and clothes him Human companionship almost reconciles him to
his lot.
AM now to be supposed to be retired into my castle, after my
late voyage to the wreck my frigate laid up and secured under
water, as usual, and my condition restored to what it was
before : I had more wealth, indeed, than I had before, but was
not at all the richer, for I had no more use for it than the Indians of
Peru had before the Spaniards came thither.
It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, the four-and-
twentieth year of my first setting foot on this island of solitariness, I was
lying in my bed, or hammock, awake and very well in health, had no
pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body, no, nor any uneasinesss of
mind, more than ordinary, but could by no means close my eyes, that is,
so as to sleep ; no, not a wink all night long, otherwise than as follows :
It is as impossible as needless to set down the innumerable crowd of
thoughts that whirled through that great thoroughfare of the brain, the
memory, in this night's time : I ran over the whole history of my life
in miniature, or by abridgment, as I may call it, to my coming to this
island, and also of that part of my life since I came to this island. In
my reflections upon the state of my case since I came on shore on this
island, I was comparing the happy posture of my affairs in the first years
of my habitation here, to that course of anxiety, fear, and care which I
had lived in ever since I had seen the print of a foot in the sand ; not
that I did not believe the savages had frequented the island even all the
while, and might have been several hundreds of them at times on shore
176 ADVENTURES OF
there ; but as I had never known it, and was incapable of any apprehen
sions about it, my satisfaction was perfect though my danger was the
same, and I was as happy in not knowing my danger as if I had never
really been exposed to it. This furnished my thoughts with many very
profitable reflections, and particularly this one : How infinitely good that
Providence is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such
narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he
walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if
discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept
serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and
knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him.
After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to
reflect seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years in
this very island, and how I had walked about in the greatest security,
and with all possible tranquillity, even when perhaps nothing but a brow
of a hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night, had been between
me and the worst kind of destruction, viz., that of falling into the hands of
cannibals and savages, who would have seized on me with the same view
as I did on a goat or a turtle, and have thought it no more a crime to kill
and devour me, than I did of a pigeon or curlew. I should unjustly
slander myself, if I should say I was not sincerely thankful to my
great Preserver, to whose singular protection I acknowledged, with great
humility, that all these unknown deliverances were due, and without
which I must inevitably have fallen into their merciless hands.
When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken
up in considering the nature of these wretched creatures, I mean the
savages, and how it came to pass in the world, that the wise Governor of
all things should give up any of his creatures to such inhumanity, nay,
to something so much below even brutality itself, as to devour its own
kind ; but as this ended in some (at that time) fruitless speculations, it
occurred to me to inquire what part of the world these wretches lived
in ? how far off the coast was from whence they came ? what they ven
tured so far from home for ? what kind of boats they had ? and why
I might not order myself and my business so, that I might be as able
to go over thither as they were to come to me ?
I never so much as troubled myself to consider what I should do with
myself when I came thither ; what would become of me, if I fell into
the hands of the savages; or how I should escape from them, if they
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 177
attempted me ; no, nor so much as how it was possible for me to reach
the coast, and not be attempted by some or other of them, without any
possibility of delivering myself ; and if I should not fall into their hands,
what I should do for provision, or whither I should bend my course :
none of these thoughts, I say, so much as came in my way ; but my mind
was wholly bent upon the notion of my passing over in my boat to the
main land. I looked upon my present condition as the most miserable
that could possibly be; that I was not able to throw myself into any
thing, but death, that could be called worse ; that if I reached the shore
of the main, I might perhaps meet with relief, or I might coast along, as
I did on the shore of Africa, till I came to some inhabited country, and
where I might find some relief; and after all, perhaps, I might fall in
with some Christian ship that might take me in ; and, if the worst came
to the worst, I could but die, which would put an end to all these
miseries at once. Pray note, all this was the fruit of a disturbed mind,
an impatient temper, made, as it were, desperate by the long continuance of
my troubles, and the disappointments I had met in the wreck I had been on
board of, and where I had been so near the obtaining what I so earnestly
longed for, viz., somebody to speak to, and Jx> learn some knowledge from,
of the place where I was and of the probable means of my deliverance,
I say I was agitated wholly by these thoughts. All my calm of mind, in
my resignation to Providence, and waiting the issue of the dispositions of
Heaven, seemed to be suspended, and I had, as it were, no power to turn
my thoughts to any thing but to the project of a voyage to the main,
which came upon me with such force, and such an impetuosity of desire,
that it was not to be resisted.
"When this had agitated my thoughts for two hours or more, with such
violence that it set my very blood into a ferment, and my pulse beat as
high as if I had been in a fever, merely with the extraordinary fervour of
my mind about it, nature as if I had been fatigued and exhausted with
the very thought of it threw me into a sound sleep. One would have
thought I should have dreamt of it, but I did not, nor of any thing relat
ing to it ; but I dreamt that as I was going out in the morning, as usual,
from my castle, I saw upon the shore two canoes and eleven savages
coming to land, and that they brought with them another savage whom
they were going to kill, in order to eat him, when, on a sudden, the
savage that they were going to kill jumped away, and ran for his life ;
and I thought, in my sleep, that he came running into my little thick
12
178 ADVENTURES OF
grove before my fortification, to hide himself, and that I, seeing him
alone, and not perceiving that the others sought him that way, showed
myself to him, and smiling upon him, encouraged him ; that he kneeled
down to me, seeming to pray me to assist him, upon which I showed
my ladder, made him go up, and carried him into my cave, and he became
my servant ; and that as soon as I had gotten this man, I said to myself,
"Now I may certainly venture to the main land; for this fellow will
serve me as pilot, and will tell me what to do, and whither to go for pro
visions, and whither not to go for fear of being devoured ; what places to
venture into, and what to escape." I waked with this thought, and was
under such inexpressible impressions of joy at the prospect of my escape
in my dream, that the disappointments which I felt upon coming to
myself and finding it was no more than a dream, were equally extra
vagant the other way, and threw me into a very great dejection of
spirit.
Upon this, however, I made this conclusion that my only way to
go about an attempt for an escape was, if possible, to get a savage into
my possession ; and, if possible, it should be one of their prisoners whom
they had condemned to be eaten, and should bring hither to kill. But
these thoughts still were attended with this difficulty, that it was
impossible to effect this without attacking a whole caravan of them, and
killing them all : and this was not only a very desperate attempt, and
might miscarry, but, on the other hand, I had greatly scrupled the
lawfulness of it to me, and my heart trembled at the thoughts of shedding
so much blood, though it was for my deliverance. I need not repeat
the arguments which occurred to me against this, they being the same
mentioned before : but though I had other reasons to offer now, viz.,
that those men were enemies to my life, and would devour me if thejr
could ; that it was self-preservation, in the highest degree, to deliver
myself from this death of a life, and was acting in my own defence as
much as if they were actually assaulting me, and the like ; I say,
though these things argued for it, yet the thoughts of shedding human
blood for my deliverance were very terrible to me, and such as I could by
no means reconcile myself to a great while.
However, at last, after many secret disputes with myself, and after
great perplexities about it (for all these arguments, one way and another
struggled in my head a long time), the eager prevailing desire of
deliverance at length mastered all the rest ; and I resolved, if possible,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 179
to get one of these savages into my hands, cost what it would. My next
thing, then, was to contrive how to do it, and this indeed was very
difficult to resolve on ; but as I could pitch upon no probable means for
it, so I resolved to put myself upon the watch, to see them when they
came on shore, and leave the rest to the event, taking such measures as
the opportunity should present, let be what would be.
With these resolutions in my thoughts, I set myself upon the scout as
often as possible, and indeed so often, till I was heartily tired of it ; for
it was above a year and a half that I waited, and for great part of that
time went out to the west end and to the south-west corner of the island,
almost every day, to see for canoes, l?ut none appeared. This was very
discouraging, and began to trouble me much, though I cannot say that
it did in this case as it had done some time before that wear off the
edge of my desire to the thing ; but the longer it seemed to be delayed,
the more eager I was for it : in a word, I was not at first so careful to
shun the sight of these savages, and avoid being seen by them, as I was
now eager to be upon them.
Besides, I fancied myself able to manage one, nay, two or three
savages, if I had them, so as to make them entirely slaves to me, to do
whatever I should direct them, and to prevent their being able at any
time to do me any hurt. It was a great while that I pleased myself with
this affair, but nothing still presented ; all my fancies and schemes came
to nothing, for no savages came near me for a great while.
About a year and a half after I had entertained these notions, and by
long musing had, as it were, resolved tbem all into nothing, for want of
an occasion to put them in execution, I was surprised, one morning early,
with seeing no less than five canoes all on shore together on my side the
island, and the people who belonged to them all landed, and out of my sight.
The number of them broke all my measures, for seeing so many, and
knowing that they always came four or six, or sometimes more, in a
boat, I could not tell what to think of it, or how to take my measures to
attack twenty or thirty men single-handed ; so I lay still in my castle,
perplexed and discomforted : however, I put myself into all the same
.postures for an attack that I had formerly provided, and was just ready for
action, if anything had presented. Having waited a good while,
listening to hear if they made any noise, at length, being very impatient,
I set my guns at the foot of my ladder, and clambered up to the top of
the hill by my two stages, as usual, standing so, however, that my head
180 ADVENTURES OP
did not appear above the hill, so that they could not perceive me by any
means. Here I observed, by the help of my perspective glass, that they
were no less than thirty in number, that they had a fire kindled, and
that they had had meat dressed ; how they had cooked it, that I knew
not, or what it was, but they were all dancing, in I know not how many
barbarous gestures and figures, their own way, round the fire.
While I was thus looking on them, I perceived, by my perspective,
two miserable wretches dragged from the boats, where, it seems, they
were laid by, and were now brought out for the slaughter. I perceived
one of them immediately fell, being knocked down, I suppose, with a
club or wooden sword, for that was their way, and two or three others
were at work immediately, cutting him open for their cookery, while the
other victim was left standing by himself, till they should be ready for
him. In that very moment this poor wretch, seeing himself a little at
liberty, nature inspired him with hopes of life, and he started away from
them, and ran with incredible swiftness along the sands directly towards
me I mean towards that part of the coast where my habitation was.
I was dreadfully frighted (that I must acknowledge) when I perceived
him to run my way, and especially when, as I thought, I saw him
pursued by the whole body ; and now I expected that part of my dream
was coming to pass, and that he would certainly take shelter in my
grove, but I could not depend, by any means, upon my dream for the
rest of it, viz., that the other savages would not pursue him thither, and
find him there. However, I kept my station, and my spirits began to
recover when I found that there- were not above three men that followed
him, and still more was I encouraged when I found that he outstripped
them exceedingly in running, and gained ground of them, so that, if he
' could but hold it for half an hour, I saw easily he would fairly get away
from them all.
There was between them and my castle the creek, which I mentioned
often at the first part of my story, when I landed my cargoes Out of the
ship ; and this I saw plainly he must necessarily swim over, or the poor
wretch would be taken there : but when the savage escaping came
thither, he made nothing of it, though the tide was then up, but plunging
in, swam through in about thirty strokes, or thereabouts, landed, and ran
on with exceeding strength and swiftness. "When the three persons
came to the creek, I found that two of them could swim, but the third
could not, and that, standing on the other side, he looked at the others,
BOBINSON CRUSOE. 181
but went no farther, and soon after went softly back again, which, as it
happened, was very well for him in the main. , '. :
I observed that the two who swam were yet more than twice as long
swimming over the creek as the fellow was that fled from them. It
came now very warmly upon my thoughts, and indeed irresistibly, that
now was my time to get me a servant, and perhaps a companion or
assistant, and that I was called plainly by Providence to save this poor
creature's life. I immediately ran down the ladders with all possible
expedition, fetched my two guns, for they were both but at the foot of
the ladders, as I observed above; and, getting up again with the same
haste, to the top of the hill, I crossed toward the sea, and having a very
short cut, and all down hill, clapped myself in the way between the pur
suers and the pursued, hallooing aloud to him that fled, who, looking
back, was at first, perhaps, as much frighted at me as at them ; but I
beckoned with my hand to him to come back, and in the meantime I
slowly advanced towards the two that followed, then rushing at once
upon the foremost, I knocked him down with the stock of my piece. I
was loth to fire, because I would not have the rest hear, though, at that
distance, it would not have been easily heard, and being out of sight of
the smoke too, they would not have easily known what to make of it.
Having knocked this fellow down, the other who pursued him stopped, as
if he had been frighted, and I advanced apace towards him ; but as I came
nearer, I perceived presently he had a bow and arrow, and was fitting
it to shoot at me, so I was then necessitated to shoot at him first, which
I did, and killed him at the first shot. The poor savage who fled, but
had stopped, though he saw both his enemies fallen and killed (as he
thought), yet was so frighted with the fire and noise of my piece, that
he stood stock-still, and neither came forward nor went backward, though
he seemed rather inclined to fly still, than to come on. I hallooed again
to him, and made signs to come forward, which he easily understood, and
came a little way then stopped again, and then a little farther, and
stopped again ; and I could then perceive that he stood trembling, as if
he had been taken prisoner, and had just been to be killed, as his two
enemies were. I beckoned him again to come to me, and gave him all
the signs of encouragement that I could think of; and he 'came nearer
and nearer, kneeling down every ten or twelve steps, in token of ac
knowledgment for my saving his life. I smiled at him, and looked
pleasantly, and beckoned to him to come still nearer ; at length he came
182 ADVENTUEE8 OP
close to me, and then he kneeled down again, kissed the ground, and laid
his head upon the ground, and, taking me by the foot, set my foot upon
his head : this, it seems, was in token of swearing to he my slave for ever.
I took him up, and made much of him, and encouraged him all I could.
But there was more work to do yet ; for I perceived the savage whom
I knocked down was not killed, hut stunned with the blow, and began
to come to himself: so I pointed to him, and showed him the savage,
that he was not dead : upon this he spoke some words to me, and though
I could not understand them, yet I thought they were pleasant to hear,
for 1 they were the first sound of a man's voice that I had heard, my own
excepted, for above twenty-five years. But there was no time for such
reflections now : the savage who was knocked down recovered himself so
far as to sit up upon the ground, and I perceived that my savage began to
be afraid ; but when I saw that, I presented my other piece at the man,
as if I would shoot him : upon this my savage, for so I call him now,
made a motion to me to lend him my sword which hung naked in a belt
by my side ; so I did : he no sooner had it, but he runs to his enemy,
and, at one blow, cuts off his head as cleverly, no executioner in Germany
could have done it sooner or better, which I thought very strange for
one who, I had reason to believe, never saw a sword in his life before,
except their own wooden swords : however, it seems, as I learned after
wards, they make their wooden swords so sharp, so heavy, and the wood
is so hard, that they will cut off heads even with them, aye and arms, and
that at one blow too. "When he had done this, he comes laughing to
me, in sign of triumph, and brought me the sword again, and with
abundance of gestures which I did not understand, laid it down with the
head of the savage that he had killed, just before me.
But that which astonished him most was to know how I had killed
the other Indian so far off; so, pointing to him, he made signs to me
to let him go to him: so I bade him go, as well as I could. When
he came to him, he stood like one amazed, looking at him, turned him
first on one side, then on the other, looked at the wound the bullet had
made, which it seems was just in his breast where it had made a hole,
and no great quantity of blood had followed ; but he had bled inwardly,
for he was quite dead. He took up his bow and arrows, and . came
back ; so I turned to go away, and beckoned to him to follow me, making
signs to him that more might come after them. Upon this, he signed
to me that he should bury them with sand, that they might not be
CEUSOE MEETING WITH FRIDAY.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 183
seen by the rest, if they followed ; and so I made signs again to him to
do so. He fell to work, and in an instant he had scraped a hole in the
sand with his hands big enough to bury the first in, and then dragged
him into it and covered him, and did so also by the other : I believe
he had buried them both in a quarter of an hour. Then calling him
away, I carried him not to my castle, but quite away, to my cave on
the farther part of the island ; so I did not let my dream come to pass
in that part, viz. that he came into my grove for shelter.
Here I gave him bread and a bunch of raisins to eat, and a draught
of water, which I found he was indeed in great distress for, by his
running ; and having refreshed him, I made signs for him to go lie
down and sleep, pointing to a place where I had laid a great parcel
of rice-straw, and a blanket upon it, which I used to sleep upon myself
sometimes. So the poor creature lay down, and went to sleep.
He was a comely, handsome fellow perfectly well made, with
straight, strong limbs, not too large tall, and well shaped, and, as I
reckon, about twenty-six years of age. He had a very good countenance,
not a fierce and surly aspect, but seemed to have something very manly
in his face ; and yet he had all the sweetness and softness of an Euro
pean in his countenance too, especially when he smiled. His hair was
long and black, not curled like wool ; his forehead very high and large,
and a great vivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. The colour
of his skin was not quite black, but very tawny, and yet not of an
u gly> yellow, nauseous tawny, as the Brazilians and Virginians, and
other natives of America are, but of a bright kind of a dun olive colour,
that had in it something very agreeable, though not very easy to
describe. His face was round and plump ; his nose small, not flat
like the Negroes ; a very good mouth, thin lips, and his fine teeth well
set, and white as ivory. After he had slumbered rather than slept
about half an hour, he waked again, and comes out of the cave to me,
for I had been milking my goats, which I had in the enclosure just
by : when he espied me, he came running to me, laying himself down
again upon the ground, with all the possible signs of an humble, thank
ful disposition, making a great many antic gestures to show it. At
last, he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to my foot, and sets
my other foot upon his head, as he had done before ; and after this
made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, and submission imagin
able, to let me know how he would serve me as long as he lived. I
184 ADVENTURES OF
understood him in many things, and let him know I was very well
pleased with him. In a little time I began to speak to him, and teach
him to speak to me; and, first, I made him know his name should he
FRIDAY, which was the day I saved his life: I called him so for the
memory of the time. I likewise taught him to say "Master:" and
then let him know that was to be my name : I likewise taught him to
say '"Yes" and "No," and to know the meaning of them. I gave
him some milk in an earthen pot, and let him see me drink it before
him, and sop my bread in it ; and I gave him a cake of bread to do
the like, which he quickly complied with, and made signs that it was
very good for him.
I kept there with him all that night, but as soon as it was day I
beckoned to him to come with me, and let him know I would give
him some clothes, at which he seemed very glad, for he was stark
naked. As we went by the place where he had buried the two men,
he pointed exactly to the place, and showed me the marks that he had
made to find them again, making signs to me that we should dig them
up again, and eat them. At this I appeared very angry, expressed
my abhorrence of it, made as if I would vomit at the thoughts of it,
and beckoned with my hand to him to come away, which he did imme
diately, with great submission. I then led him up to the top of the
hill, to see if his enemies were gone ; and pulling out my glass, I
looked, and saw plainly the place where they had been, but no appear
ance of them or their canoes, so that it was plain they were gone,
and had left their two comrades behind them, without any search after
them.
Eut I was not content with this discovery; but having now more
courage, and consequently more curiosity, I took my man Friday with
me, giving him the sword in his hand, with the bow and arrows at his
back, which I found he could use very dexterously, making him carry
one gun for me, and I two for myself; and away we marched to the
place where these creatures had been, for I had a mind now to get
some fuller intelligence of them. "When I came to the place, my very
blood ran chill in my veins and my heart sunk within me at the horror
of the spectacle : indeed, it was a dreadful sight, at least it was so to
me, though Friday made nothing of it. The place was covered with
human bones, the ground dyed with their blood, great pieces, of flesh
left here and there, half-eaten, mangled, and scorched, and, in short, all
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 185
the tokens of the triumphant feast they had been making there, after
a victory over their enemies. I saw three skulls, five hands, and the
bones of three or four legs and feet, and abundance of other parts of
the bodies ; and Friday, by his signs, made me understand that they
brought over four prisoners to feast upon that three of them were
eaten up, and that he, pointing to himself, was the fourth; that there
had been a great battle between them and their next king, whose sub
jects, it seems, he had been one of, and that they had taken a great
number of prisoners, all which were carried to several places by those
that had taken them in the fight, in order to feast upon them, as was
done here by these wretches upon those they brought hither.
I caused Friday to gather all the skulls, bones, flesh, and whatever
remained, and lay them together in a heap, and make a great fire upon
it, and burn them all to ashes. I found Friday had still a hankering
stomach after some of the flesh, and was still a cannibal in his nature ;
but I discovered so much abhorrence at the very thoughts of it, and at
the least appearance of it, that he durst not discover it, for I had,
by some means, let him know that I would kill him if he offered it.
"WTien we had done this we came back to our castle, and there I
fell to work for my man Friday ; and, first of all, I gave him a pair of
linen drawers which I had out of the poor gunner's chest I mentioned,
which I found in the wreck, and which, with a little alteration, fitted
him very well; then I made him a jerkin of goat's skin, as well as
my skill would allow, and I was now grown a tolerable good tailor;
and I gave him a cap, which I made of a hare's skin, very convenient and
fashionable enough : and thus he was clothed for the present, tolerably
well, and was mighty well pleased to see himself almost as well clothed
as his master. It is true, he went awkwardly' in these things at first :
wearing the drawers was very awkward to him, and the sleeves of the
waistcoat galled his shoulders, and the inside of his arms ; but a little
easing them where he complained they hurt him, and using himself to
them, at length he took to them very well.
The next day, after I came home to my hutch with him, I began
to consider where I should lodge him; and that I might do well for
him, and yet be perfectly easy myself, I made a little tent for him, in
the vacant place between my two fortifications, in the inside of the
last, and in the outside of the first : and as there was a door or entrance
there into my cave, I made a formal framed doorcase, and a door to it
186 ADVENTURES OF
of boards, and set it up in the passage a little within the entrance ;
and, causing the door to open on the inside, I barred it up in the
night, taking in my ladders to ; so that Friday could no way come at
me in the inside of my innermost wall, without making so much noise
in getting over that it must needs waken me : for my first wall had
now a complete roof over it of long poles, covering all my tent, and
leaning up to the side of the hill, which was again laid across with
smaller sticks, instead of laths, and then thatched over a great thickness
with the rice-straw, which was strong, like reeds ; and at the hole or
place which was left to go in or out by the ladder, I had placed a kind
of trapdoor, which, if it had been attempted on the outside, would not
have opened at all, but would have fallen down, and made a great
noise : and as to weapons, I took them all into my side every night.
But I needed none of all this precaution ; for never man had a more
faithful, loving, sincere servant than Friday was to me : without pas
sions, sullenness, or designs, perfectly obliged and engaged, his very
affections were tied to me like those of a child to a father ; and I dare
say he would have sacrificed his life for the saving -mine, upon any
occasion whatsoever ; the many testimonies he gave me of this put it out
of doubt, and soon convinced me that I needed to use no precautions
as to my safety on his account.
This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder,
that however it had pleased God, in his providence, and in the govern
ment of the works of his hands, to take from so great a part of the
world of his creatures the best uses to which their faculties and the
powers of their souls are adapted, yet that he has bestowed upon them
the same powers, the same reason, the same affections, the same senti
ments of kindness and obligation, the same passions and resentments of
wrongs, the same sense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the
capacities of doing good, and receiving good, that he has given to us;
and that when he pleases to offer them occasions of exerting these, they
are as ready, nay, more ready, to apply them to the right uses for
which they were bestowed, than we are. And this made me very
melancholy sometimes, in reflecting, as the several occasions presented,
how mean a use we make of all these, even though we have these
powers enlightened by the great lamp of instruction, the Spirit of God,
and by the knowledge of his word added to our understanding; and
why it has pleased God to hide the like saving knowledge from so many
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 187
millions of souls, who, if I might judge by this poor savage, would
make a much better use of it than we did.
From hence I sometimes was led too far to invade the sovereignty
of Providence, and, as it were, arraign the justice of so arbitrary a dis
position of things, that should hide that light from some, and reveal it
to others, and yet expect a like duty from both ; but I shut it up, and
checked my thoughts with this conclusion first, that we do not know
by what light and law these should be condemned ; but that, as God
was necessarily, and by the nature of his being, infinitely holy and
just, so it could not be but that if these creatures were all sentenced
to absence from himself, it was on account of sinning against that light,
which, as the Scripture says, was a law to themselves, and by such
rules as their consciences would acknowledge to be just, though the
foundation was not discovered to us ; and, secondly, that still, as we
are all clay in the hands of the potter, no vessel could say to him,
" Why hast thou formed me thus ?"
But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with
him, and made it my business to teach him every thing that was proper
to make him useful, handy, and helpful, but especially to make him
speak, and understand me when I spoke : and he was the aptest scholar
that ever was ; and particularly was so merry, so constantly diligent,
and so pleased when he could but understand me, or make me under
stand him, that it was very pleasant to me to talk to him. And now
my life began to be so easy, that I began to say to myself, that could
I but have been safe from more savages, I cared not if I was never to
remove from the place while I lived.
188 ADVENTURES OF
CHAPTER XIV.
Crusoe attempts to reclaim Friday from cannibalism, and converses with him about his country and
its inhabitants Instructs him in the knowledge of the true God, and exposes the delusions of
Pagan priestcraft Friday finds it difficult to account for the existence of evil The savage
becomes a Christian, and Crusoe is completely happy.
FTER I had been two or three days returned to my castle,
I thought that, in order to bring Friday off from his
horrid way of feeding, and from the relish of a cannibal's
stomach, I ought to let him taste other flesh ; so I took
him out with me one morning to the woods. I went, indeed, intending
to kill a kid out of my own flock, and bring it home and dress it ;
but as I was going, I saw a she-goat lying down in the shade, and two
young kids sitting by her. I catched hold of Friday. "Hold," said
I; " stand still;" and made signs to him not to stir. Immediately
I presented my piece, shot, and killed one of the kids. The poor
creature, who had, at a distance indeed, seen me kill the savage his
enemy, but did not know, nor could imagine, how it was done, was
sensibly surprised, trembled and shook, and looked so amazed, that I
thought he would have sunk down. He did not see the kid I had
shot at, or perceive that I had killed it, but ripped up his waistcoat,
to feel if he was not wounded; and, as I found presently, thought I
was resolved to kill him, for he came and kneeled down to me, and
embracing my knees, said a great many things I did not understand,
but I could easily see that his meaning was, to pray me not to kill
him.
I soon found a way to convince him that I would do him no harm ;
and, taking him up by the hand, laughed at him, and, pointing to the
kid which I had killed, beckoned to him to run and fetch it, which
he did : and while he was wondering, and looking to see how the
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 189
creature was killed, I loaded my gun again : and, by and by, I saw a great
fowl, like a hawk, sit upon a tree, within shot ; so, to let Friday under
stand a little what I would do, I called him to me again, pointing at
the fowl, which was indeed a parrot, though I thought it had been a
hawk, I say, pointing to the parrot, and to my gun, and to the
ground under the parrot, to let him see I would make it fall, I made
him understand that I would shoot and kill that bird. Accordingly, I
fired, and bade him look, and immediately he saw the parrot fall. He
stood like one frighted again, notwithstanding all that Thad said to
him; and I found he was the more amazed, because he did not see me
put any thing into the gun, but thought there must be some wonderful
fund of death and destruction in that thing, able to kill man, beast, bird,
or any thing, near or far off : and the astonishment this created in him was
such as could not wear off for a long time, and I believe, .if I would
have let him, he would have worshipped me and my gun. As for the
gun itself, he would not so much as touch it for several days after ;
but would speak to it and talk to it as if it had answered him, when
he was by himself; which, as I afterwards learned of him, was to desire
it not to kill him.
Well, after his astonishment was a little over at this, I pointed to
him to run and fetch the bird I had shot, which he did, but stayed
some time ; for the parrot, not being quite dead, had fluttered a good
way from the place where she fell : however, he found her, took her
up, and brought her to me ; and as I had perceived his ignorance about
the gun before, I took this advantage to charge the gun again, and not
let him see me do it, that I might be ready for any other mark that
might present. Eut nothing else offered at that time, so I brought
home the- kid, -and the same evening I took the skin off, and cut it out
as well as I could ; and having a pot for that purpose, I boiled or
stewed some of the flesh, and made some very good broth. After I had
begun to eat some, I gave some to my man, who seemed very glad
of it, and liked it very well ; but that which was strangest to him,
was to see me eat salt with it. He made a sign to me that the salt
was not gjood to eat ; and, putting a little into his own mouth, he seemed
to nauseate it, and would spit and sputter at it, washing his mouth
with fresh water after it : on the other hand, I took some meat in my
mouth without salt, and I pretended to spit and sputter for want of
salt, as fast as he had done at the salt ; but it would not do he would
190 ADVENTURES OF
never care for salt with, his meat or in his broth, at least not a great while,
and then but a very little.
Having thus fed him with boiled meat and broth, I was resolved
to feast him the next day with roasting a piece of the kid : this I did,
by hanging it before the fire in a string, as I had seen many people do
in England, setting two poles up, one on each side of the fire, and one
cross on the top, and tying the string to the cross stick, letting the
meat turn continually. This Friday admired very much ; but when he
came to taste the flesh, he took so many ways to tell me how well he
liked it, that I could not but understand him, and at last he told me
that he would never eat man's flesh any more, which I was very glad
to hear.
The next day I set him to work to beating some corn out, and
sifting it in the manner I used to do, as I observed before ; and he soon
understood how to do it as well as I, especially after he had seen what
the meaning of it was, and that it was to make bread of : for after that
I let him see me make my bread, and bake it too ; and in a little time
Friday was able to do all the work for me, as well as I could do it
myself.
I began now to consider that, having two mouths to feed instead of
one, I must provide more ground for my harvest, and plant a larger
quantity of corn than I used to do : so I marked out a larger piece of
land, and began the fence in the same manner as before, in which
Friday not only worked very willingly and very hard, but did it very
cheerfully : and I told him what it was for that it was for corn to
make more bread, because he was now with me, and that I might have
enough for him and myself too. He appeared very sensible of that part,
and let me know that he thought I had much more labour upon me on
his account than I had for myself ; and that he would work the harder
for me, if I would tell him what to do.
This was the pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place.
Friday began to talk pretty well, and understand the names tff almost
every thing I had occasion to call for, and of every place I had to send
him to, and talk a great deal to me, so that, in short, I began now to
have some use for my tongue again, which, indeed, I had very little
occasion for before, that is to say, about speech. Besides the pleasure
of talking to him, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself:
his simple, unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 191
and I began really to love the creature ; and, on his side, I believe he
loved me more than it was possible for him ever to love any thing before.
I had a mind once to try if he had any hankering inclination to his
own country again; and, having learned him English so well that he
could answer me almost any questions, I asked him whether the nation
that he belonged to never conquered in battle ? At which he smiled,
and said, "Yes, yes, we always fight the better," that is, he meant,
always get the better in fight ; and so we began the following discourse :
"You always fight the better?" said I, "how came you to be taken
prisoner then, Friday?"
FBIDAY. My nation beat much, for all that.
MASTER. How beat ? If your nation beat them, how came you to be
taken ?
FRIDAY. They more many than my nation in the place where me was ;
they take one, two, three, and me ; my nation overheat them in the
yonder place, where me no was ; there my nation take one, two, grea$
thousand.
MASTEE. But why did not your side recover you from the hands of
your enemies, then ?
FRIDAY. They run one, two, three, and me, and make go in the canoe ;
my nation have no canoe that time.
MASTER. "Well, Friday, and what does your nation do with the men,
they take ? Do they carry them away and eat them, as these did ?
FRIDAY. Yes, my nation eat mans too ; eat all up.
MASTER. Where do they carry them ?
FRIDAY. Gro to other place, where they think.
MASTEE. Do they come hither ?
FEIDAY. Yes, yes, they come hither ; come other else place.
MASTER. Have you been here with them ?
FRIDAY. Yes, I have been here ; (points to the north-west side of the
island, which, it seems, was their side.)
By this I understood that my man Friday had formerly been among
the savages who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island,
on the said man-eating occasions that he was now brought for ; and
some time after, when I took the courage to carry him to that side, being
the same I formerly mentioned, he presently knew the place, and told
me he was there once when they eat up twenty men, two women, and
one child : he could not tell twenty in English, but he numbered them
192 ADVENTURES OP
by laying so many stones in a row, and pointing to me to tell them
over.
I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows, that
after I had had this discourse with him, I asked him how far it was
from our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost.
He told me there was no danger, no canoes ever lost ; but that, after
a little way out to sea, there was a current and a wind, always one
way in the morning, the other in the afternoon.
This I understood to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going
out or coming in ; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the
great draft and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoque, in the mouth of
which river, as I found afterwards, our island lay; and that the land
which I perceived to the west and north-west was the great island
Trinidad, on the north point of the mouth of the river. I asked Friday
a thousand questions about the country, the inhabitants, the sea, the
.coast, and what nations were near : he told me all he knew, with the
greatest openness imaginable. I asked him the names of the several
nations of his sort of people, but could get no other name than Caribs :
from whence I easily understood that these were the Caribbees, which
our maps place on that part of America which reaches from the mouth
of the river Oroonoque to Guiana, and onwards to St. Martha. He told
me that up a great way beyond the moon that was, beyond the setting
of the moon, which must be west from their country, there dwelt white
bearded men, like me, and pointed to my great whiskers, which I
mentioned before, and that they had killed much mans that was his
word, by which I understood, he meant the Spaniards, whose cruelties
in America had been spread over whole countries, and were remembered
by all the nations, from father to son.
I enquired if he could tell me how I might come from this island, and
get among those white men: he told me, "Yes, yes, I might go in
two canoe." I could not understand what he meant, or make him
describe to me what he meant, by two canoe, till at last, with great
difficulty, I found he meant that it must be in a large great boat, as big
as two canoes.
This part of Friday's discourse began to relish with me very well ;
and from this time I entertained ^some hopes that, one time or other, I
might find an opportunity to make my escape from this place, and that
this poor savage might be a means to help me to do it.
KOBINSON CRUSOE.
193
During the long time that Friday had now been with me, and that he
began to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay a foun
dation of religious knowledge in his mind. I asked him, one time, who
made him ? The poor creature did not understand me at all, but thought
I had asked who was his father ? but I took it by another handle, and
asked him who made the sea, the ground we walked on, and the hills
and woods ? He told me, it was one old Benamuckee, that lived beyond
all : he could describe nothing of this great person, but that he was very
13
194 ADVENTURES OF
old, much older, he said, than the sea or the land, than the moon or the
stars. I asked him then, if this old person had made all things, why did
not all things worship him ? He looked very grave, and with a perfect
look of innocence said, " All things said to him !" I asked him if the
people who die in his country went away any where ? He said, " Yes ;
they all went to Benamuckee." Then I asked him whether those they
eat up went thither too ? He said, " Yes."
From these things I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the
true God. I told him that the great Maker of all things lived up there,
pointing up towards heaven ; that he governs the world by the same
power and providence by which he made it ; that he was omnipotent,
could do every thing for us, give every thing to us, take every thing from
us ; and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes. He listened with great
attention, and received with pleasure' the notion of Jesus Christ being
sent to redeem us, and of the manner of making our prayers to God, and
his being able to hear jis, even in heaven. He told me one day, that if
our God could hear -us up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater
God than their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet could
not hear till they went up to the great mountains where he dwelt to
speak to him. I asked him if ever he went thither to speak to him?
He said, "No; they never went that were young men: none went
thither but the old men," whom he called their Oowookakee, that is, as
I made him explain it to me, their religious, or clergy; and that they
went to say) "0" (so he called saying prayers), and then came back, and
told them what Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there is
priestcraft even among the most blinded, ignorant pagans in the world ;
and the policy of making a secret of religion, in order to preserve the
veneration of the people to the clergy, is to be found among all religions
in the world, even among the most brutish and barbarous savages.
I endeavoured to clear up this fraud to my man Friday, and told him
that the pretence of their old men going up to the mountains to say
" " to their god Benamuckee was a" cheat, and their bringing word from
thence what he said was much more so ; that if they met with any
answer, or spoke with any one there, it must be with an evil spirit ; and
then I entered into a long discourse with him about the devil, the original
of him, his rebellion against God, his enmity to man, the reason of it, his
setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be worshipped instead
of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he made use of to delude
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 195
mankind to their ruin ; how he had a secret access to our passions and
to our affections, to adapt his snares so to our inclinations as to cause us
even to be our own tempters, and to run upon our destruction by our own
choice.
I found it was not so easy to imprint right notions in his mind about
the devil, as it was about the being of a God: nature assisted all my
arguments to evidence to him even the necessity of a great First Cause,
and overruling governing Power, a secret, directing Providence and of
the equity and justice of paying homage to him that made us, and the
like. But there appeared nothing of all this in the 'notion of an evil
spirit, of his original, his being, his nature, and, above all, of his
inclination to do evil, and to draw us in to do so too ; and the poor
creature puzzled me once in such a manner, by a question merely natural
and innocent, that I scarce knew what to say to him.
I had been talking a great deal to him of the power of God, his
omnipotence, his dreadful aversion to sin his being a consuming fire to
the workers of iniquity, how, as he had made us all, he could
destroy us and all the world in a moment ; and he listened with great
seriousness to me all the while. After this, I had been telling him how
the devil was God's enemy in the hearts of men, and used all his malice
and skill to defeat the good designs of Providence, and to ruin the
kingdom of Christ in the world, and the like. ""Well," says Friday,
"but you say God is so strong, so great; is he not much strong, much
might as the devil?" "Yes, yes," says I, "Friday, God is stronger
than the devil : God is above the devil, and therefore we pray to God to
tread him under our feet, and enable us to resist his temptations, and
quench his fiery darts." "But," says he 'again, "if God much strong,
much might as the devil, why God no kill the devil, so make him no
more do wicked ? "
I was strangely surprised at his question ; and, after all, though I
was now an old man, yet I was but a young doctor, and ill enough
qualified for a casuist, or a solver of difficulties, and, at first, I could
not tell what to say, so I pretended not to hear him, and asked him what
he said? but he was too earnest for an answer, to forget his question,
so that he repeated it in the very same broken words as above. By this
time I had recovered myself a little, and I said, " God will at last punish
him severely ; he is reserved for the judgment, and is to be cast into the
bottomless pit, to dwell with everlasting fire." This did not satisfy
196 ADVENTURES OF
Friday; but he returns upon me, repeating my words, " Reserve at last :
me no understand ; but why not kill the devil now not kill great ago ?"
" You may as well ask me," said I, " why God does not kill you and me,
when we do wicked things here that offend him ? We are preserved to
repent and be pardoned." He muses a while at this. " "Well, well,"
says he, mighty affectionately, "that well : so you, I, devil, all wicked,
all preserve, repent, God pardon all." Here I was run down again by
him to the last degree ; and it was a testimony to me, how the mere
notions of nature, though they will guide reasonable creatures to the
knowledge of a God, and of a worship or homage due to the supreme being
of God, as the consequence of our nature, yet nothing but divine revela
tion can form the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of a redemption
purchased for us ; of a Mediator ; of a new covenant ; and of an Inter
cessor at the footstool of God's throne : I say, nothing but a revelation
from Heaven can form these in the soul, and that, therefore, the gospel of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I mean the "Word of God, and the
Spirit of God, promised for the guide and sanctifier of his people, are the
absolutely necessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving know
ledge of God, and the means of salvation.
I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man,
rising up hastily, as upon some sudden occasion of going out : then
sending him for something a great way off, I seriously prayed to God
that he would enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage, assisting,
by his Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creature to receive the light
of the knowledge of God in Christ reconciling him to Himself, and would
guide me to speak so to him from the word of God, as his conscience
might be convinced, his eyes opened, and his soul saved. "When he came
again to me, I entered into a long discourse with him upon the subject of
the redemption of man by the Saviour of the world, and of the doctrine
of the gospel preached from heaven, viz., of repentance towards God, and
faith in our blessed Lord Jesus. I then explained to him, as well as I
could, why our blessed Redeemer took not on him the nature of angels,
but the seed of Abraham ; and how, for that reason, the fallen angels had
no share in the redemption, that he came only to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel, and the like.
I had, God knows, more sincerity than knowledge in all the methods
I took for this poor creature's instruction, and must acknowledge, what I
believe all that act upon the same principle will find that, in laying
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 197
things open to him, I really informed and instructed myself in many
things that either I did not know, or had not fully considered before, hut
which occurred naturally to my mind upon my searching into them, for
the information of this poor savage ; and I had more affection in my
inquiry after things upon this occasion than ever I felt before : so that,
whether this poor wild wretch was the better for me or no, I had great
reason to be thankful that ever he came to me. My grief sat lighter
upon me ; my habitation grew comfortable to me beyond measure ; and
when I reflected that, in this solitary life which I had been confined to,
I had not only been moved myself to look up to Heaven, and to seek to
the hand that brought me thither, but was now to be made an instrument,
under Providence, to save the life, and, for aught I knew, the soul, of a
poor savage, and bring him to the true knowledge of religion, and of the
Christian doctrine, that he might know Christ Jesus, to know whom is
life eternal ; I say, when I reflected upon all these things, a secret joy
ran through every part of my soul, and I frequently rejoiced that ever I
was brought to this place, which I had often thought the most dreadful
of all afflictions that could possibly have befallen me.
In this thankful frame I continued all the remainder of my time, and
the conversation which employed the hours between Friday and me was
such as made the three years which we lived there together perfectly and
completely happy, if any such thing as complete happiness can be found
in a sublunary state. The savage was now a good Christian, a much
better than I, though I have reason to hope, and bless God for it, that
we were equally penitent, and comforted, restored penitents. We had
here the word of God to read, and no farther off from his Spirit to in
struct, than if we had been in England. I always applied myself to
reading the Scripture, and to let him know as well as I could the mean
ing of what I read ; and he again, by his serious inquiries and question
ings, made me, as I said before, a much better scholar in the Scripture-
knowledge than I should ever have been by my own mere private reading.
Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here also, from experience
in this retired part of my life, viz., how infinite and inexpressible a bless
ing it is that the knowledge of God, and of the doctrine of salvation by
Christ Jesus, is so plainly laid down in the word of God, so easy to be
received and understood, that, as the bare reading the Scripture made me
capable of understanding enough of my duty to carry me directly on to
the great work of sincere repentance for my sins, and laying hold of a
198
ADVENTURES OF
Saviour for life and salvation, to a stated reformation in practice, and
obedience to all God's commands, and this without any teacher or in
structor, I mean human, so, the same plain instruction sufficiently served
to the enlightening this savage creature, and bringing him to be such a
Christian as I have known few equal to him in my life.
As to the disputes, wrangling, strife, and contention, which have
happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in doctrines, or
schemes of church government, they were all perfectly useless to us, as /or
aught I can yet see, they have been to all the rest in the world. "We had
the sure guide to heaven, viz., the word of God ; and we had, blessed be
God, comfortable views of the Spirit of God teaching and instructing us
by his word, leading us into all truth, and making us both willing and
obedient to the instruction of his word. And I cannot see the least use
that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points in religion, which have
made such confusions in the world, would have been to us, if we could
have obtained it. But I must go on with the historical part of things,
and take every part in its order.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 199
CHAPTER XV.
Crusoe teaches Friday the use of fire-arms, and describes to him the countries of Europe They
make a boat, and fit it with masts and sails Friday is instructed how to navigate it The
savages again visit the island They are attacked and routed Crusoe rescues a Spaniard, their
prisoner, and Friday discovers his father.
FTEB, Friday and I became more intimately acquainted,
and that lie could understand almost all I said to him,
and speak fluently, though in broken English, to me, I
acquainted him with my own story, or at least so much
of it as related to my coming into this place ; how I had lived here, and
how long : I let him into the mystery, for such it was to him, of gun
powder and bullet, and taught him how to shoot. I gave him a knife,
which he was wonderfully delighted with ; and I made him a belt with
a frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in, and in
the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not
only as good a weapon, in some cases, but much more useful upon other
occasions.
I described to him the countries of Europe, and particularly England,
which I came from ; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how we be
haved to one another, and how we traded in ships to all parts of the world.
I gave him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of, and
showed him, as near as I could, the place where she lay ; but she was all
beaten in pieces before, and gone. I showed him the ruins of our boat,
which we lost when we escaped, and which I could not stir with my
whole strength then, but was now fallen almost all to pieces. Upon
seeing this boat, Friday stood musing a great while, and said nothing. I
asked him what it was he studied upon ? At last, says he, " Me see such
200 ADVENTURES OP
boat like come to place at my nation." I did not understand Mm a good
while ; but, at last, when I had examined farther into it, I understood by
him, that a boat, such as that had been, came on shore upon the country
where he lived ; that is, as he explained it, was driven thither by stress
of weather. I presently imagined that some European ship must have
been cast away upon their coast, and the boat might get loose, and drive
ashore ; but was so dull, that I never once thought of men making
escape from a wreck thither, much less whence they might come : so I
only inquired after a description of the boat.
Friday described the boat to me well enough, but brought me better
to understand him when he added, with some warmth, "AVe save the
white mans from drown." Then I presently asked him, if there were
any white mans, as he called them, in the boat? " Yes," he said ; " the
boat full of white mans." I asked him how many? He told upon his
fingers seventeen. I asked him then what became of them ? He told
me, " They live, they dwell at my nation."
This put new thoughts into my head ; for I presently imagined that
these might be the men belonging to the ship that was cast away in
sight of my island, as I now called it ; and who, after the ship was struck
on the rock, and they saw her inevitably lost, had saved themselves in
their boat, and were landed upon that wild shore among the savages.
Upon this, I inquired of him more critically what was become of them ;
he assured me they lived still there ; that they had been there about four
years ; that the savages let them alone, and gave them victuals to live on.
I asked him how it came to pass they did not kill them and eat them ?
He said, " !N"o, they make brother with them;" that is, as I understood
him, a truce ; and then he added, " They no eat mans but when make the
war fight ;" that is to say, they never eat any men but such as come to
fight with them, and are taken in battle.
It was after this some considerable time, that, being upon the top of
the hill, at the east side of the island, from whence, as I have said, I had,
in a clear day, discovered the main or continent of America, Friday, the
weather being very serene, looks very earnestly towards the main land,
and, in a kind of surprise, falls a jumping and dancing, and calls out to
me, for I was at some distance from him. I asked him what was the
matter? " joy !" says he ; " glad! there see my country, there my
nation!" I observed an extraordinary sense of pleasure appeared in his
face, and his eyes sparkled, and his countenance discovered a strange
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 201
eagerness, as if lie had a mind to be in his own country again. This
observation of mine put a great many thoughts into me, which made me
at first not so easy about my new man, Friday, as I was before ; and I
made no doubt but that if Friday could get back to his own nation again,
he would not only forget all his religion, but all his obligation to me, and
would be forward enough to give his countrymen an account of me, and
come back perhaps with a hundred or two of them, and make a feast upon
me, at which he might be as merry as he used to be with those of his
enemies, when they were taken in war. But I wronged the poor honest
creature very much, for which I was very sorry afterwards. However,
as my jealousy increased, and held me some weeks, I was a little more
circumspect, and not so familiar and kind to him as before : in which I
was certainly in the wrong too, the honest, grateful creature having no
thought about ;t, but what consisted with the best principles, both as a
religious Christian, and as a grateful friend, as appeared afterwards to my
full satisfaction.
While my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every day
pumping him, to see if he would discover any of the new thoughts which
I suspected were in him ; but I found everything he said was so honest
and so innocent, that I could find nothing to nourish my suspicion ; and,
in spite of all my uneasiness, he made me at last entirely his own again :
nor did he, in the least, perceive that I was uneasy, and therefore I could
not suspect him of deceit.
One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at
sea, so that we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said,
" Friday, do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation?"
" Yes," he said, " I be much glad to be at my own nation." " What
would you do there?" said I; " would you turn wild again, eat men's
flesh again, and be a savage as you were before?" He looked full of
concern, and shaking his head, said, " No, no ; Friday tell them to live
good, tell them to pray God, tell them to eat corn-bread, cattle-flesh,
milk; no eat man again." "Why then," said I to him, "they will
kill you." He looked grave at that, and then said, " No, they no kill
me, they willing love learn." He meant by this, they would be willing
to learn. He added, " they learned much of the bearded mans that came
in the boat." Then I asked him if he would go back to them. He
smiled at that, and told me he could not swim so far. I told him I
would make a canoe for him. He told me he would go, if I would go
202 ADVENTURES OF
with him. "I go.?" says I ; " why, they will eat me, if I come there."
"No, no," says he ; "me make they no eat you; me make they much
love you." He meant, he, would tell them how I had killed his enemies,
and saved his life, and so he would make them love me. Then he told
me, as well as he could, how kind they were to seventeen white men, or
bearded men, as he called them, who came on shore there in distress.
From this time, I confess I had a mind to venture over, and see if I
could possibly join with those bearded men, who, I made no doubt, were
Spaniards, or Portuguese; not doubting but if I could, we might find
some method to escape from thence, being upon the continent, and a good
company together, better than I could from an island forty miles off the
shore, and alone, without help. So, after some days, I took Friday to
work again, by way of discourse ; and told him I would give him a boat
to go back to his own nation ; and accordingly I carried him to my frigate,
which lay on the other side of the island, and having cleared it of water
(for I always kept it sunk in the water) I brought it out, showed it him,
and we both went into it. I found he was a most dexterous fellow at
managing it, and would make it go almost as swift again as I could. So
when he was in, I said to him, "Well, now, Friday, shall we go to your
nation ?" He looked very dull at my saying so ; which, it seems, was
because he thought the boat too small to go so far : I then told him I had
a bigger ; so the next day I went to the place where the first boat lay
which I had made, but which I could not get into the water. He said
that was big enough : but then, as I had taken no care of it, and it had
lain two or three-and-twenty years there, the sun had split and dried it,
that it was in a manner rotten. Friday told me such a boat would do
very well, and would carry "much enough vittle, drink, bread;" that
was his way of talking.
Upon the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going
over with him to the continent, that I told him we would go and make
one as big as that, and he should go home in it. He answered not one
word, but looked very grave and sad. I asked him what was the matter
with him? He asked me again, "Why you angry mad with Friday?
What me done ?" I asked him what he meant ? I told him I was not
angry with him at all. "No angry?" says he, repeating the words
several times, "Why send Friday home away to my nation?" "Why,"
says I, " Friday, did you not say you wished you were there ?" "Yes,
yes," says he, "wish be both there; no wish Friday there, no master
BOBINSON CRUSOE. 203
there." In a word, he would not think of going there without me. " I
go there, Friday!" says I, "what shall I do there?" He turned very
quick upon me at this: "You do great deal much good," says he;
"you teach wild mans be good, sober, tame mans; you tell them
know God, pray God, and live new life." "Alas! Friday," says I,
" thou knowest not what thou sayest ; I am but an ignorant man myself."
"Yes, yes," says he, "you teachee me good, you teachee them good."
" No, no, Friday," says I, " you shall go without me ; leave me here to
live by myself, as I did before." He looked confused again at that word :
and running to one of the hatchets which he used to wear, he takes it
up hastily, and gives it to me. ""What must I do with this?" says I
to him. " You take kill Friday," says he. " What must I kill you
for?" said I again. He returns very quick, "What you send Friday
away for ? Take kill Friday, no send Friday away." This he spoke so
earnestly, that I saw tears stand in his eyes : in a word, I so plainly
discovered the utmost affection in him to me, and a firm resolution in
him, that I told him then and often after, that I would never send him
away from me, if he was willing to stay with me.
Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse, a settled affection to
me, and that nothing should part him from me, so I found all the founda
tion of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent affection
to the people, and his hopes of my doing them good ; a thing which, as
I had no notion of myself, so I had not the least thought, or intention, or
desire, of undertaking it. But still I found a strong inclination to my
attempting an escape, as above, founded on the supposition gathered from
the discourse, viz., that there were seventeen bearded men there ; and,
therefore, without any more delay, I went to work with Friday, to find
out a great tree proper to fell, and make a large periagua, or canoe, to
undertake the voyage.
There were trees enough in the island to have built a little fleet, not
of periaguas and canoes, but even of good large vessels ; but the main
thing I looked at was, to get one so near the water that we might launch
it when it was made, to avoid the mistake I committed at first. At last,
Friday pitched upon a tree ; for I found he knew much better than I
what kind of wood was fittest for it ; nor can I tell, to this day, what
wood to call the tree we cut down, except that it was very like the tree
we call fustic, or between that and the Nicaragua wood, for it was much
of the same colour and smell. Friday was for burning the hollow or
204 ADVENTURES OP
cavity of this tree out, to make it for a boat ; but I showed him how to
cut it with tools, which, after I showed him how to use, he did very
handily : and in about a month's hard labour we finished it, and made it
very handsome; especially, when, with our axes, which I showed him
how to handle, we cut and hewed the outside into the true shape of a
boat. After this, however, it cost us near a fortnight's time to get her
along, as it were inch by inch, upon great rollers into the water; but
when she was in she would have carried twenty men with great ease.
When she was in the water, and though she was so big, it amazed
me to see with what dexterity, and how swift my man Friday would
manage her, turn her, and paddle her along. So I asked him if he
would, and if we might, venture over in her. "Yes," he said, "he
venture over in her very well, though great blow wind." However, I had
a further design that he knew nothing of, and that was to make a mast
and a sail, and to fit her with an anchor and cable. As to a mast, that
was easy enough to get : so I pitched upon a straight young cedar tree,
which I found near the place, and which there were great plenty of in
the island ; and I set Friday to work to cut it down, and gave him
directions how to shape and order it. But as to the sail, that was my
particular care. I knew I had old sails, or rather pieces of old sails
enough; but as I had had them now six-and-twenty years by me, and had
not been very careful to preserve them, not imagining that I should ever
have this kind of use for them, I did not doubt but they were all rotten,
and, indeed, most of them were so. However, I found two pieces, which
appeared pretty good ; and with these I went to work, and with a great
deal of pains, and awkward stitching you may be sure, for want of
needles I at length made a three-cornered ugly thing, like what we
call in England a shoulder-of-mutton sail, to go with a boom at bottom,
and a little short sprit at the top, such as usually our ships' long boats
sail with, and such as I best knew how to manage, for it was such a one as
I had to the boat in which I made my escape from Barbary, as related in
the first part of my story.
I was near two months performing this last work, viz., rigging and
fitting my mast and sails ; for I finished them, very complete, making a
small stay, and a sail, or foresail, to it, to assist, if we should turn to
windward ; and, which was more than all, I fixed a rudder to the stern
of her to steer with ; and though I was but a bungling shipwright, yet,
as I knew the usefulness, and even necessity of such a thing, I applied
FRIDAY INSTRUCTED IN BOAT-BUILDING.
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
205
myself with, so much pains to do it, that at last I brought it to pass,
though, considering the many dull contrivances I had for it that failed, I
think it cost me almost as much labour as making the boat.
After all this was done, too, I had my man Friday to teach as to
what belonged to the navigation of my boat ; for, though he knew very
well how to paddle the canoe, he knew nothing what belonged to a sail
and a rudder, and was the most amazed when he saw me work the boat
to and again in the sea by the rudder, and how the sail gibbed, and filled
this way or that way, as the course we sailed changed ; I say, when he
saw this, he stood like one astonished and amazed. However, with a
little use, I made all these things familiar to him, and he became an
expert sailor, except that, as to the compass, I could make him understand
very little of that. On the other hand, as there was very little cloudy
weather, and seldom or never any fogs in those parts, there was the less
occasion for a compass, seeing the stars were always to be seen by night,
and the shore by day, except in the rainy Seasons, and then nobody cared
to stir abroad, either by land or sea.
I was now entered on the seven-and-twentieth year of my captivity in
this place ; though the three last years that I had this creature with me
ought rather to be left out of account, my habitation being quite of
another kind than in all the rest of the time. I kept the anniversary of
my landing here with the same thankfulness to God for his mercies as at
first : and if I had such cause of acknowledgment at first, I had much
more so now, having such additional testimonies of the care of Providence
206 ADVENTURES OP
over me, and the great hopes I had of being effectually and speedily
. delivered ; for I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts that my
deliverance was at hand, and that I should not be another year in this
place. However, I went on with my husbandry digging, planting, and
fencing, as usual: I gathered and cured my grapes, and did every
necessary thing as before.
The rainy season was, in the mean time, upon me, when I kept more
within doors than at other times; so I had stowed our new vessel as
secure as I could ; bringing her up into the creek, where, as I said in
the beginning, I landed my rafts from the ship, and haling her up to
the shore, at high water mark, I made my man Friday dig a little dock,
just big enough to hold her, and just deep enough to give her water
enough to float in ; and then, when the tide was out, we made a strong
dam across the end of it, to keep the water out, and so she lay dry as to
the tide from the sea: and to keep the rain off, we laid a great many
boughs of trees so thick, that she was as well thatched as a house, and
thus we waited for the months of November and December in which I
designed to make my adventure.
When the settled season began to come in, as the thought of my
design returned with the fair weather, I was preparing daily for the
voyage ; and the first thing I did was to lay by a certain quantity of
provisions, being the stores for our voyage, and intended, in a week or a
fortnight's time, to open the dock, and launch out our boat. I was busy
one morning upon something of this kind, when I called to Friday, and
bid him go to the sea-shore, and see if he could find a turtle, or tortoise,
a thing which we generally got once a week, for the sake of the eggs as
well as the flesh. Friday had not been long gone, when he came running
back, and flew over my outer wall, or fence, like one that felt not the
ground, or the steps he set his feet on ; and before I had time to speak to
him, he cries out to me, "0 master! master! sorrow! bad!"
" What's the matter, Friday?" say si. "0 yonder, there," says he,
" one, two, three canoe : one, two, three !" By his way of speaking, I
concluded there were six; but on enquiry, I found it was but three.
"Well, Friday," says I, "do not be flighted." So I heartened him up
as well as I could : however, I saw the poor fellow was most terribly
scared, for nothing ran in his head but that they were come to look for
him, and would cut him in pieces, and eat him ; and the poor fellow
trembled so, that I scarce knew what to do with him. I comforted him
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 207
as well as I could, and told him I was in as much danger as he, and that
they would eat me as well as him. "But," says I, " Friday, we must
resolve to fight them. Can you fight, Friday ?" "Me shoot," says he,
"hut there come many great number." "!N"o matter for that," said I,
again ; " our guns will fright them that we do not kill." So I asked
him whether, if I resolved to defend him, he would defend me and stand
by me ; and do just as I bid him. He said, "Me die, when you bid die,
master." So I went and fetched a good dram of rum and gave him ; for
I had been so good a husband of my rum, that I had a great deal left.
When he had drank it, I made him take the two fowling-pieces, which we
always carried, and loaded them with large swan-shot, as big as small
pistol-bullets ; then I took four muskets, and loaded them with two slugs,
and five small bullets each, and my two pistols I loaded with a brace
of bullets each : I hung my great sword, as usual, naked by my side, and
gave Friday his hatchet.
When I had thus prepared myself, I took my perspective glass, and
went up to the side of the hill, to see what I could discover ; and I found
quickly, by my glass, that there were one-and-twenty savages, three
prisoners, and three canoes ; and that their whole business seemed to be
the triumphant banquet upon these three human bodies, a barbarous
feast indeed I but nothing more than, as I had observed, was usual with
them. I observed also, that they were landed, not where they had done
when Friday made his escape, but nearer to my creek : where the shore
was low, and where a thick wood came almost close down to the sea.
This, with the abhorrence of the inhuman errand these wretches came
about, filled me with such indignation, that I came down again to Friday,
and told him I was resolved to go down to them and kill them all, and
asked him if he would stand by me. He had now gotten over his fright,
and his spirits being a little raised with the dram I had given him, he
was very cheerful, and told me, as before, he would die when I bid die.
In this fit of fury, I took, and divided the arms which I had charged,
as before, between us. I gave Friday one pistol to stick in his girdle,
and three guns upon his shoulder, and I took one pistol, and the other
three guns myself; and in this posture we marched out. I took a small
bottle of rum in my pocket, and gave Friday a large bag with more
powder and bullets; and, as to orders, I charged him to keep close
behind me, and not to stir, or shoot, or do anything, till I bid him ; and,
in the mean time, not to speak a word. In this posture, I fetched a
208 ADVENTURES OF
compass to my right hand of near a mile, as well to get over the creek as
to get into the wood, so that I might come within shot of them before I
should he discovered, which I had seen, by my glass, it was easy to do.
"While I was making this march, my former thoughts returning, I
began to abate my resolution : I do not mean that I entertained any fear
of their number ; for, as they were naked, unarmed wretches, it is certain
I was superior to them, nay, though I had been alone. But it occurred
to my thoughts, what call, what occasion, much less what necessity I was
in, to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack people who had neither
done nor intended me any wrong? who, as to me, were innocent, and
whose barbarous customs were their own disaster; being, in them, a
token indeed -of God's having left them, with the other nations of that
part of the world, to such stupidity and to such inhuman courses, but did
not call me to take upon me to be a judge of their actions, much less an
executioner of his justice ; that, whenever he thought fit, he would take
the cause into his own hands, and, by national vengeance, punish them as
a people, for national crimes ; but that, in the mean time, it was none of
my business ; that, it was true, Friday might justify it, because he was
a declared enemy, and in a state of war with those very particular people,
and it was lawful for him to attack them ; but I could not say the same
with respect to myself. These things were so warmly pressed upon my
thoughts all the way as I went, that I resolved I would only go and
place myself near them, that I might observe their barbarous feast, and
that I would act then as God should direct : but that, unless something
offered that was more a call to me than yet I knew of, I would not
meddle with them.
With this resolution I entered the wood, and, with all possible wari
ness and silence, Friday following close at my heels, I marched till I came
to the skirt of the wood, on the side which was next to them, only
that one corner of the wood lay between me and them. Here I called
softly to Friday, and showing him a great tree, which was just at the
corner of the wood, I bade him go to the tree, and bring me word if
he could see there plainly what they were doing. He did so, and came
immediately back to me, and told me they might be plainly viewed there ;
that they were all about their fire, eating the flesh of one of their prisoners,
and that another lay bound upon the sand, a little from them, which, he
said, they would kill next, and which fired all the very soul within me.
He told me it was not one of their nation, but one of the bearded men
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
209
whom lie had told me of, that came to their country in the boat. I was
filled with horror at the very naming the white bearded man ; and, going
to the tree, I saw plainly, by my glass, a white man, who lay upon the
beach of the sea, with his hands and his feet tied with flags, or things
like rushes, and that he was an European, and had clothes on.
There was another tree, and a little thicket beyond it, about fifty
yards nearer to them than the place where I was, which, by going a little
way about, I saw I might come at undiscovered, and that then I should
be within half shot of tjiem ; so I withheld my passion, though I was
indeed enraged to the highest degree, and going back about twenty paces,
I got behind some bushes, which held all the way till I came to the other
tree, and then I came to a little rising ground, which gave me a full view
of them, at the distance of about eighty yards.
I had not a moment to lose, for nineteen of the dreadful wretches sat
upon the ground, all close-huddled together, and had just sent the other
two to butcher the poor Christian^ and bring him> perhaps, limb by limb,
to their fire ; and they were stooped down to untie the bands at his feet.
I turned to Friday. " Now, Friday," said I, " do as I bid thee." Friday
said he would. " Then, Friday," says I, " do exactly as you see me do ;
fail in nothing." So I set down one of the muskets and the fowling-piece
upon the ground, and Friday did the like by his; and with the other
musket I took my aim at the savages, bidding him do the like : then ask-
14
210 ADVENTURES OF
ing Mm if he was ready, he said, " Yes." " Then fire at them," said I ;
and the same moment I fired also.
Friday took his aim so much better than I, that on the side that he
shot, he killed two of them, and wounded three more ; and on my side,
I killed one, and wounded two. They were, you may be sure, in a
dreadful consternation, and all of them who were not hurt jumped upon
their feet, but did not immediately know which way to run, or which
way to look, for they knew not from whence their destruction came.
Friday kept his eyes close upon me, that, as I. had bid him, he might
observe what I did ; so, as soon as the first shot was made, I threw down
the piece, and took up the fowling-piece, and Friday did the like : he saw
me cock and present ; he did the same again. " Are you ready, Friday ?"
said I. "Yes," says he. "Let fly, then," says I, "in the name of
God !" And with that I fired again among the amazed wretches, and so
did Friday ; and as our pieces were now loaden with what I called swan-
shot, or small pistol-bullets, we found only two drop, but so many were
wounded, that they ran about yelling and screaming like mad creatures,
all bloody, and miserably wounded most of them, whereof three more fell
quickly after, though not quite dead.
"Now, Friday," says I, laying down the discharged pieces, and
taking up the musket which was yet loaden, " follow me," which he
did, with a great deal of courage, upon which I rushed out of the wood,
and showed myself, and Friday close at my foot. As soon as I perceived
they saw me, I shouted as loud as I could, and bade Friday do so too ;
and running as fast as I could, which, by the way, was not very fast,
being loaden with arms as I was, I made directly towards the poor victim,
who was, as I said, lying upon the beach, or shore, between the place
where they sat and the sea. The two butchers, who were just going to
work with him, had left him at the surprise of our first fire, and fled in
a* terrible fright to the sea-side, and had jumped into a canoe, and three
more of the rest made the same way. I turned to Friday, and bade Tn'm
step forwards, and fire at them ; he understood me immediately, and
running about forty yards, to be near them, he shot at them, and I
thought he had killed them all, for I saw them all fall of a heap into the
boat, though I saw two of them up again quickly : however, he killed
two of them, and wounded the third, so that he lay down in the bottom
of the boat as if he had been dead.
While my man Friday fired at them, I pulled out my knife, and cut
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 211
the flags that bound the poor victim ; and loosing his hands and feet,
I lifted him up, and asked him in the Portuguese tongue, what he was.
He answered in Latin, " Christianus," but was so weak and faint that he
could scarce stand or speak. I took my bottle out of my pocket, and
gave it him, making signs that he should drink, which he did; and I
gave him a piece of bread, which he eat. Then I asked him what
countryman he was, and he said, " Espagniole ; " and being a little re
covered, let me know, by all the signs he could possibly make, how much
he was in my debt for his deliverance. " Seignior," said I, with as much
Spanish as I could make up, "we will talk afterwards, but we must
fight now : if you have any strength left, take this pistol and sword, and
lay about you." He took them very thankfully ; and no sooner had he
the arms in his hands, but, as if they had put new vigour into him, he
flew upon his murderers like a fury, and had cut two of them in pieces in
an instant ; for the truth is, as the whole was a surprise to them, so the
poor creatures were so much frighted with the noise of our pieces, that
they fell down for mere amazement and fear, and had no more power to
attempt their own escape, than their flesh had to resist our shot : and that
was the case of those five that Friday shot at in the boat ; for as three of
them fell with the hurt they received, so the other two fell with the fright.
I kept my piece in my hand still without firing, being willing to keep
my charge ready, because I had given the Spaniard my pistol and sword ;
so I called to Friday, and bade him run up to the tree from whence we
first fired, and fetch the arms which lay there that had been discharged,
which he did with great swiftness ; and then, giving him my musket, I
sat down myself to load all the rest again, and bade them come to me
when they wanted. "While I was loading these pieces, there happened a
fierce engagement between the Spaniard and one of the savages, who
made at him with one of their great wooden swords, the same like weapon
that was to have killed him before, if I had not prevented it. The
Spaniard, who was as bold and brave as could be imagined, though
weak, had fought this Indian a good while, and had cut him two great
wounds on his head ; but the savage being a stout, lusty fellow, closing
in with him, had thrown him down, being faint, and was wringing my
sword out of his hand, when the Spaniard, though undermost, wisely
quitting the sword, drew the pistol from his girdle, shot the savage
through the body, and killed him upon the spot, before I, who was run
ning to help him, could come near him.
212
ADVENTURES OP
Friday being now left to his liberty, pursued the flying wretches with
no weapon in his hand but his hatchet ; and with that he despatched
those three, who, as I said before, were wounded at first, and fallen, and
all the rest he could come up with : and the Spaniard coming to me for a
gun, I gave him one of the fowling-pieces, with which he pursued two of
the savages, and wounded them both ; but as he was not able to run, they
both got from him into the wood, where Friday pursued them, and killed
one of them, but the other was too nimble for him ; and though he was
wounded, yet had plunged himself into the sea, and swam with all his
might off to those two who were left in the canoe, which three in the
canoe, with one wounded, who we knew not whether he died or no, were
all that escaped our hands of one-and-twenty. The account of the whole
is as follows : Three killed at our first shot from the tree ; two killed at
the next shot ; two killed by Friday in the boat ; two killed by Friday of
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 213
those at first wounded ; one killed by Friday in the wood ; three killed
by the Spaniard ; four killed, being found dropped here and there of their
wounds, or killed by Friday in his chase of them ; four escaped in the
boat, whereof one wounded, if not dead twenty-one in all.
Those that were in the canoe worked hard to get out of gun-shot, and
though Friday made two or three shots at them, I did not find that he hit
any of them. Friday would fain have had me take one of their canoes,
and pursue them ; and indeed, I was very anxious about their escape, lest,
carrying the news home to their people, they should come back perhaps
with two or three hundred of their canoes, and devour us by mere multi
tude : so I consented to pursue them by sea, and running to one of their
canoes, I jumped in, and bade Friday follow me ; but when I was in the
canoe, I was surprised to find another poor creature lie there, bound hand
and foot, as the Spaniard was, for the slaughter, and almost dead with
fear, not knowing what the matter was, for he had not been able to look
up over the side of the boat : he was tied so hard neck and heels, and had
been tied so long, that he had really little life in him.
I immediately cut the twisted flags or rushes, which they had bound
him with, and would have helped him up ; but he could not stand or
speak, but groaned most piteously, believing, it seems, still, that he was
only unbound in order to be killed.
"When Friday came to him, I bade him speak to him, and tell him of
his deliverance ; and, pulling out my bottle, made him give the poor
wretch a dram, which, with the news of his being delivered, revived him,
and he sat up in the boat. But when Friday came to hear him speak,
and looked in his face, it would have moved any one to tears to have
seen how Friday kissed him, embraced him, hugged him, cried, laughed,
hallooed, jumped about, danced, sung, then cried again, wrung his
hands, beat his own face and head, and then sung and jumped about
again, like a distracted creature. It was a good while before I could
make him speak to me, or tell me what was the matter ; but when he
came a little to himself, he told me that it was his father.
It is not easy for me to express how it moved me to see what ecstasy
and filial affection had worked in this poor savage at the sight of his
father, and of his being delivered from death ; nor, indeed, can I describe
half the extravagancies of his affection after this ; for he went into the
boat and out of the boat a great many times : when he went into him,
he would sit down by him, open his breast, and hold his father's head
214 ADVENTURES OP
close to his bosom half an hour together, to nourish it ; then he took his
arms and ankles, which were numbed and stiff with the binding, and
chafed and rubbed them with his hands ; and I, perceiving what the case
was, gave him some rum out of my bottle to rub them with, which did
them a great deal of good.
This action put an end to our pursuit of the canoe with the other
savages, who were now gotten almost out of sight ; and it was happy for
us that we did not, for it blew so hard within two hours after, and before
they could be gotten a quarter of their way, and continued blowing so
hard all night, and that from the north-west, which was against them,
that I could not' suppose their boat could live, or that they ever reached
to their own coast.
But, to return to Friday, he was so busy about his father, that I
could not find in my heart to take him off for some time : but after I
thought he could leave him a little, I called him to me, and he came
jumping and laughing, and pleased to the highest extreme. Then I asked
him if he had given his father any bread ? He shook his head, and said,
" ^"one, ugly dog eat all up self." So I gave him a cake of bread, out
of a little pouch I carried on purpose ; I also gave him a dram for him
self, but he would not taste it, but carried it to his father. I had in my
pocket also two" or three bunches of my raisins, so I gave him a hand
ful of them for his father. He had no sooner given his father these raisins,
but I saw him come out of the boat, and run away, as if he had been
bewitched, he ran at such a rate, for he was the swiftest fellow of his
foot that ever I saw : I say he ran at such a rate, that he was out of
sight, as it were in an instant; and though I called, and hallooed too,
after him, it was all one, away he went ; and in a quarter of an hour I
saw him come back again, though not so fast as he went, and as he came
nearer, I found his pace was slacker, because he had something in his
hand. When he came up to me, I found he had been quite home for an
earthen jug or pot, to bring his father some fresh water, and that he had
got two more cakes or loaves of bread. The bread he gave me, but the
water he carried to his father : however, as I was very thirsty too, I took
a little sup of it. The water revived his father more than all the ruin or
spirits I had given him, for he was just fainting with thirst.
When his father had drunk, I called to him to know if there was any
water left. He said, "Yes;" and I bade him give it to the poor
Spaniard, who was in as much want of it as his father : and I sent one
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 215
of the cakes that Friday brought, to the Spaniard too, who was indeed
very weak, and was reposing himself upon a green place under the shade
of a tree, and whose limbs were also very stiff, and very much swelled
with the rude bandage he had been tied with. "When I saw that, upon
Friday's coming to him with the water, he sat up and drank, and took the
bread, and began to eat, I went to him and gave him a handful of raisins.
He looked up in my face with all the tokens of gratitude and thankful
ness that could appear in any countenance ; but was so weak, notwith
standing he had so exerted himself in the fight, that he could not stand
up upon his feet : he tried to do it two or three times, but was really not
able, his ankles were so swelled and so painful to him ; so I bade him sit
still, and caused Friday to rub his ankles and bathe them with rum, as
he had done his father's.
I observed the poor affectionate creature, every two minutes, or
perhaps less, all the while he was here, turned his head about to see if
his father was in the same place and posture as he left him sitting ; and
at last he found he was not to be seen, at which he started up, and
without speaking a word, flew with that swiftness to him, that one could
scarce perceive his feet to touch the ground as he went: but when he
came he only found he had lain himself down to ease his limbs, so Friday
came back to me presently, and I then spoke to the Spaniard to let
Friday help him up, if he could, and lead him to the boat, and then he
should carry him to our dwelling, where I would take care of him. But
Friday, a lusty strong fellow, took the Spaniard quite up upon his back,
and carried him away to the boat, and set him down softly upon the side,
or gunnel, of the canoe, with his feet in the inside of it, and then lifted
him quite in, and set him close to his father ; and presently," stepping
out* again, launched the boat off, and paddled it along the shore faster
than I could walk, though the wind blew pretty hard too : so he brought
them safe into our creek, and leaving them in the boat, ran away to fetch
the other canoe. As he passed me, I spoke to him, and asked him
whither he went. He told me, " Go fetch more boat :" so away he went
like the wind, for sure never man or horse ran like him ; and he had the
other canoe in the creek almost as soon as I got to it by land. So he
wafted me over, and then went to help our new guests out of the boat,
which he did ; but they were neither of them able to walk, so that poor
Friday knew not what to do.
To remedy this, I went to work in my thought, and calling to Friday
216
ADVENTURES OF
to bid them sit down on the bank while he came to me, I soon made a
kind of a hand-barrow to lay them on, and Friday and I carried them up
both together upon it, between us. But when we got them to the outside
of our wall, or fortification, we were at a worse loss than before, for it was
impossible to get them over, and I was resolved not to break it down : so
I set to work again, and Friday and I, in about two hours' time, made a
very handsome tent, covered with old sails, and above that with boughs
of trees, being in the space without our outward fence, and between
that and the grove of young wood which I had planted ; and here we
made them two beds of such things as I had, viz., of good rice straw,
with blankets laid upon it, to lie on, and another to cover them, on
each bed.
EOBINSON CRUSOE. 217
CHAPTER XVI.
Crusoe's subjects and their religions The dead bodies of the slain savages are buried The Spaniard
and Friday's father set out for the mainland to fetch Europeans who had been shipwrecked
there In their absence Crusoe is surprised by the appearance of a boat-load of mutinous sailors,
who bring their officers to the island to murder them Crusoe releases the prisoners The
mutineers are attacked and defeated.
Y island was now peopled, and I thought myself very
rich in subjects ; and it was a merry reflection, which
I frequently made, how like a king I looked. First of
all, the whole country was my own mere property,
so that I had an undoubted right of dominion. Secondly, my people
were perfectly subjected, I was absolute lord and lawgiver ; they
all owed their lives to me, and were ready to lay down their lives, if
there had been occasion of it, for me. It was remarkable, too, I had
but three subjects, and they were of three different religions : my man
Friday was a Protestant, his father was a Pagan and a cannibal, and the
Spaniard was a Papist. However, I allowed liberty of conscience
throughout my dominions. But this is by the way.
As soon as I had secured my two weak rescued prisoners, and given
them shelter, and a place to rest them upon, I began to think of
making some "provision for them ; and the first thing I did, I ordered
Friday to take a yearling goat, betwixt a kid and a goat, out of my
particular flock, to be killed, when I cut off the hinder quarter, and
chopping it into small pieces, I set Friday to work to boiling and
stewing, and made them a very good dish, I assure you, of flesh and
broth, having put some barley and rice also into the broth : and as I
cooked it without doors, for I made no fire within my inner wall, so I
carried it all into the new tent, and having set a table there for them, I
sat down and eat my own dinner also with them, and, as well .as I
could, cheered them and encouraged them ; Friday being my interpreter,
218 ADVENTUBES OP
especially to his father, and, indeed, to the Spaniard too, for the Spaniard
spoke the language of the savages pretty well.
After we had dined, or rather supped, I ordered Friday to take one of
the canoes, and go and fetch our muskets and other fire-arms, which, for
want of time, we had left upon the place of battle ; and the next day, I
ordered him to go and bury the dead bodies of the savages, which lay
open to the sun, and would presently be offensive. I also ordered him to
bury the horrid remains of their barbarous feast, which I knew were
pretty much, and which I could not think of doing myself, nay, I could
not bear to see them, if I went that way ; all which he punctually per
formed, and effaced the very appearance of the savages being there, so
that when I went again, I could scarce know where it was, otherwise
than by the corner of the wood pointing to the place.
I then began to enter into a little conversation with my two new
subjects ; and first, I set Friday to inquire of his father what he thought
of the escape of the savages in that canoe, and whether we might expect
a return of them, with a power too great for us to resist. His first
opinion was that the savages in the boat never could live out the storm
which blew that night they went off, but must of necessity be drowned,,
or driven south to those other shores, where they were as sure to be
devoured, as they were to be drowned if they were cast away. : but as to
what they would do if they came safe on shore, he said he knew not ; but
it was his opinion that they were so dreadfully frighted with the
manner of their being attacked, the noise, and the fire, that he believed
they would tell their people they were all killed by thunder and lightning,
not by the hand of man ; and that the two which appeared, viz., Friday
and I, were two heavenly spirits, or furies, come down to destroy them,
and not men with weapons. This, he said, he knew, because he heard
them all cry out so in their language to one another; for it was im
possible to them to conceive that a man could dart fire, and speak
thunder, and kill at a distance, without lifting up the hand, as was done
now. And this old savage was in the right ; for, as I understood since, by
other hands, the savages never attempted to go over to the island after
wards, they were so terrified with the accounts given by those four men
(for, it seems, they did escape the sea), that they believed whoever went
to that enchanted island would be destroyed with fire from the gods.
This, however, I knew not; and therefore was under continual ap
prehensions for a good while, and kept always upon my guard, I and
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 219
all my army ; for, as there were now four of us, I would have ventured
upon a hundred of them, fairly in the open field at any time.
In a little time, however, no more canoes appearing, the fear of their
coming wore off, and I began to take my former thoughts of a voyage to
the main into consideration, being likewise assured by Friday's father
that I might depend upon good usage from their nation, on his account, if
I would go.
But my thoughts were a little suspended when I had a serious
discourse with the Spaniard, and when I understood that there were
fourteen more of his countrymen and Portuguese, who, having been cast
away, and made their escape to that side, lived there at peace, indeed,
with the savages, but were very sore put to it for necessaries, and
indeed for life. I asked him all the particulars of their voyage, and
found they were a Spanish ship, bound from the Eio de la Plata to the
Savanna, being directed to leave their loading there, which was chiefly
hides and silver, and to bring back what European goods they could meet
with there ; that they had five Portuguese seaman on board, whom they
took out of another wreck ; that five of their own men were drowned,
when first the ship was lost, and that these escaped through infinite
dangers and hazards, and arrived, almost starved, on the cannibal coast,
where they expected to have been devoured every moment. He told me
they had some arms with them, but they were perfectly useless, for that
they had neither powder nor ball, the washing of the sea having spoiled
all their powder but a little, which they used, at their first landing, to
provide themselves some food.
I asked him what he thought would become of them there, and if
they had formed no design of making any escape. He said they had
many consultations about it, but that having neither vessel, nor tools to
build one, nor provisions of any kind, their councils always ended in tears
and despair. I asked him how he thought they would receive a proposal
from me, which might tend towards an escape ; and whether, if they
were all here, it might not be done. I told him, with freedom, I feared
mostly their treachery and ill usage of me, if I put my life in their hands ;
for that gratitude was no inherent virtue in the nature of man, nor did
men always square their dealings by the obligations they had received, so
much as they did by the advantages they expected. I told him it would
be very hard that I should be the instrument of their deliverance, and
that they should afterwards make me their prisoner in "New Spain, where
220 ADVENTURES OF
an Englishman was certain to be made a sacrifice, what necessity or what
accident soever brought him thither ; and that I had rather be delivered
up to the savages, and be devoured alive, than fall into the merciless
claws of the priests, and be carried into the Inquisition. I added, that
otherwise I was persuaded, if they were all here, we might, with so
many hands, build a bark large enough to carry us all away, either to the
Brazils, southward, or to the islands, or Spanish coast, northward ; but that
if, in requital, they should, when I had put weapons into their hands,
carry me by force among their own people, I might be ill used for my
kindness to them, and make my case worse than it was before.
He answered with a great deal of candour and ingenuity, that their
condition was so miserable, and they were so sensible of it, that he
believed they would abhor the thought of using any man unkindly that
should contribute to their deliverance; and that, if I pleased, he would
go to them with the old man, and discourse with them about it, and
return again, and bring me their answer ; that he would make conditions
with them upon their solemn oath, that they would be absolutely under
my leading, as their commander and captain ; and that they should swear
upon the holy sacraments and gospel to be true to me, and go to such
Christian country as that I should agree to, and no other, and to be
directed wholly and absolutely by my orders, till they were landed safely
in such country as I intended ; and that he would bring a contract from
them, under their hands, for that purpose.
Then he told me he would first swear to me himself, that he would
never stir from me as long as he lived, till I gave him orders ; and that
he would take my side to the last drop of his blood, if there should happen
the least breach of faith among his countrymen.
He told me they were all of them very civil, honest men, and they
were under the greatest distress imaginable, having neither weapons nor
clothes, nor any food, but at the mercy and discretion of the savages, out
of all hopes of ever returning to their own country ; and that he was sure,
if I would undertake their relief, they would live and die by me.
Upon these assurances I resolved to venture to relieve them, if pos
sible, and to send the old savage and this Spaniard over to them to treat.
But when we had gotten all things in a readiness to go, the Spaniard
himself started an objection, which had so much prudence in it, on one
hand, and so much sincerity on the other hand, that I could not but be
very well satisfied in it; and, by his advice, put off the deliverance of
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 221
his comrades for at least half a year. The case, was thus : He had "been
with us now about a month, during which time I had let him see in what
manner I had provided, with the assistance of Providence, for my sup
port ; and he saw evidently what stock of corn and rice I had laid up,
which, as it was more than sufficient for myself, so it^was not sufficient,
at least without good husbandry, for my family, now it was increased to
four ; but much less would it be sufficient if his countrymen, who were,
as he said, fourteen still alive, should come over ; and least of all would
it be sufficient to victual our vessel, if we should build one, for a voyage
to any of the Christian colonies of America : so he told me he thought it
would be more advisable to let him and the two other dig and cultivate
some more land, as much as I could spare seed to sow, and that we
should wait another harvest, that we might have a supply of corn for his
countrymen, when they should come : for want might be a temptation to
them to disagree, or not to think themselves delivered, otherwise than out
of one difficulty into another. You know, says he, the children of Israel,
though they rejoiced at first for their being delivered out of Egypt, yet
rebelled even against God himself, that delivered them, when they came
to want bread in the Wilderness.
His caution was so seasonable, and his advice so good, that I could
not but be very well pleased with his proposal, as well as I was satisfied
with his fidelity : so we fell to digging all four of us, as well as the
wooden tools we were furnished with permitted ; and in about a month's
time, by the end of which it was seed-time, we had gotten as much land
cured and trimmed up as we sowed two and twenty bushels of barley on,
and sixteen jars of rice, which was, in short, all the seed we had to spare :
nor, indeed, did we leave ourselves barley sufficient for our own food for
the six months that we had to expect our crop, that is to say, reckoning
from the time we set our seed aside for sowing ; for it is not to be sup
posed it is six months in the ground in that country.
Having now society enough, and our number being sufficient to put us
out of fear of the savages, if they had come, unless their number had been
very great, we went freely all over the island, wherever we found occa
sion ; and as here we had our escape or deliverance upon our thoughts, it
was impossible, at least for me, to have the means of it out of mine. To
this purpose, I marked out several trees which I thought fit for our work,
and I set Friday and his father to cutting them down ; and then I caused
the Spaniard, to whom I imparted my thought on that affair, to oversee
222 ADVENTURES OP
and direct their work. I showed them with what indefatigable pains I
had hewed a large tree into single planks, and*I caused them to do the
like, till they had made about a dozen large planks of good oak, near two
feet broad, thirty-five feet long, and from two inches to four inches thick :
what prodigious labour it took up, any one may imagine.
At the same time I contrived to increase my little flock of tame goats
as much as I could, and, to this purpose, I made Friday and the
Spaniard go out one day, and myself with Friday the next day (for we
took our turns), and by this means we got about twenty young kids to
breed up with the rest; for whenever we shot the dam, we saved the
kids, and added them to our flock. But, above all, the season for curing
the grapes coming on, I caused such a prodigious quantity to be hung up
in the sun, that, I believe, had we been at Alicant, where the raisins of
the sun are cured, we could have filled sixty or eighty barrels ; and these,
with our bread, was a great part of our food, and very good living too, I
assure you, for it is an exceeding nourishing food.
It was now harvest, and our crop in good order : it was not the most
plentiful increase I had seen in the island ; but, however, it was enough
to answer our end, for from our twenty-two bushels of barley we brought
in and threshed out above two hundred and twenty bushels, and the like
in proportion of the rice ; which was store enough for our food to the next
harvest, though all the fourteen Spaniards had been on shore with me ;
or if we had been ready for a voyage, it would very plentifully have
victualled our ship to have carried us to any part of the world, that is to
say, of America.
When we had thus housed and secured our magazine of corn, we fell
to work to make more wickerwork, viz., great baskets, in which we kept
it, and the Spaniard was very handy and dexterous at this part, and often
blamed me that I did not make some things for defence of this kind of
work ; but I saw no need of it.
And now, having a full supply of food for all the guests I expected, I
gave the Spaniard leave to go over to the main, to see 'what he could do
with those he had left behind them there. I gave him a strict charge, in
writing, not to bring any man with him who would not first swear, in the
presence of himself and of the old savage, that he would in no way injure,
fight with, or attack the person he would find in the island, who was so
kind as to send for them in order to their deliverance ; but that they
would stand by, and defend him against all such attempts, and wherever
t ROBINSON CRUSOE. 223
they went, would be entirely under and subjected to his command ; and
that this should be put in writing, and signed with their hands. How
we were to have this done, when I knew they had neither pen nor ink,
that indeed was a question which we never asked.
Under these instructions, the Spaniard and the old savage, the father
of Friday, went away in one of the canoes which they might be said to
come in, or rather were brought in, when they came as prisoners to be
devoured by the savages. I gave each of them a musket, with a firelock
on it, and about eight charges of powder and ball, charging them to be
very good husbands of both, and not to use either of them but upon
urgent occasions.
This was a cheerful work, being the first measures used by me, in
view of my deliverance, for now twenty-seven years and some days. I
gave them provisions of bread, and of dried grapes, sufficient for them
selves for many days, and sufficient for all the Spaniards for about eight
days' time ; and wishing them a good voyage, I saw them go, agreeing
with them about a signal they should hang out at their return, by which
I should know them again, when they came back, at a distance, before
they came on shore.
They went away with a fair gale, on the day that the moon was at
full, by my account in the month of October ; but as for an exact reckon
ing of days, after I had once lost it, I could never recover it again, nor
had I kept even the number of years so punctually as to be sure I was
right, though, as it proved, when I afterwards examined my account, I
found I had kept a true reckoning of years.
It was no less than eight days I had waited for them, when a strange
and unforeseen accident intervened, of which the like has not perhaps
been heard of in history. I was fast asleep in my hutch one morning,
when my man Friday canie running in to me, and called aloud, " Master,
master, they are come, they are come !"
I jumped up, and, regardless of danger, I went out as soon as I could
get my clothes on, through my little grove, which, by the way, was by
this time grown to be a very thick wood ; I say, regardless of danger, I
went without my arms, which it was not my custom to do ; but I was
surprised, when turning my eyes to the sea, I presently saw a boat at
about a league and a half's distance, standing in for the shore, with a
shoulder-of-mutton sail, as they call it, and the wind blowing pretty fair
to bring them in : also I observed presently, that they did not come from
224 ADVENTURES OP
that side winch the shore lay on, but from the southernmost end of the
island. Upon this I called Friday in, and bade him lie close, for these
were not the people we looked for, and that we might not know yet
whether they were friends or enemies.
In the next place, I went in to fetch my perspective glass, to see
what I could make of them ; and, having taken the ladder out, I climbed
up to the top of the hill, as I used to do when I was apprehensive of
anything, and to take my view the plainer without being discovered.
I had scarce set my foot upon the hill, when my eye plainly dis
covered a ship lying at an anchor, at about two leagues and a half's dis
tance from me, south-south-east, but not above a league and a half from
the shore. By my observation, it appeared plainly to be an English ship,
and the boat appeared to be an English long-boat.
I cannot express the confusion I was in ; though the joy of seeing a
ship, and one that I had reason to believe was manned by my own
countrymen, and, consequently, friends, was such as* I cannot describe ;
but yet I had some secret doubts hang about me I cannot tell from
whence they came bidding me keep upon my guard. In the first place,
it occurred to me to consider what business an English ship could have in
that part of the world, since it was not the way to or from any part of the
world where the English had any traffic : and I knew there had been no
storms to drive them in there, as in distress ; and that if they were really
English, it was most probable that they were here upon no good design,
and that I had better continue as I was, than fall into the hands of
thieves and murderers.
Let no man despise the secret hints and notices of danger, which
sometimes are given him when he may think there is no possibility of its
being real. That such hints and notices are given us, I believe few that
have made any observations of things can deny ; that they are certain
discoveries of an invisible world, and a converse of spirits, we cannot
doubt; and if the tendency of them seems to be to warn us of danger,
why should we not suppose they are from some friendly agent (whether
supreme, or inferior and subordinate, is not the question), and that they
are given for our good ?
The present question abundantly confirms me in the justice of this
reasoning ; for had I not been made cautious by this secret admonition,
come it from whence it will, I had been undone inevitably, and in a far
worse condition than before, as you will see presently. I had not kept
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 225
myself long in this posture, but I saw the boat draw near the shore, as if
they looked for a creek to thrust in at, for the convenience of landing ;
however, as they did not come quite far enough, they did not see the
little inlet where I formerly landed my rafts, but run their boat on shore
upon the beach at about half a mile from me, which was very happy for
me ; for otherwise they would have landed just, as I may say, at my
door, and would soon have beaten me out of my castle, and perhaps have
plundered me of all I had.
"When they were on shore, I was fully satisfied they were Englishmen,
at least most of them ; one or two I thought were Dutch, but it did not
prove so ; there were in all eleven men, whereof three of them I found
were unarmed, and, as I thought, bound ; and when the first four or five
of them were jumped on shore, they took those three out of the boat, as
prisoners : one of the three I could perceive using the most passionate
gestures of entreaty, affliction, and despair, even to a kind of extrava
gance ; the other two, I could perceive, lifted up their hands sometimes,
and appeared concerned, indeed, but not to such a degree as the first. I
was perfectly confounded at the sight, and knew not what the meaning of
it should be. Friday called out to me in English, as well as he could,
"0 master! you see English mans eat prisoner as well as savage mans."
"Why," says I, " Friday, do yo think they are going to eat them then?''
" Yes," says Friday, " they will eat them." " No, no," says I, " Friday,
I am afraid they will murder them, indeed ; but you may be sure they
will not eat them."
i
All this while I had no thought of what the matter really was, but
stood trembling with the horror of the sight, expecting every moment
when the three prisoners should be killed ; nay, once I saw one of the
villains lift up his arm with a great cutlass, as the seamen call it, or
sword, to strike one of the poor men, and I expected to see him fall every
moment, at which all the blood in my body seemed to run chill in my
veins. I wished heartily now for my Spaniard, and the savage that was
gone with him, or that I had any way to have come undiscovered within
shot of them, that I might have rescued the three men, for I saw no
fire-arms they had among them: but it fell out to my mind another
way. After I had observed the outrageous usage of the three men by
the insolent seamen, I observed the fellows run scattering about the
island, as if they wanted to see the country. I observed that the three
other men had liberty to go also where they pleased; but they sat
15
226 ADVENTURES OF
down all three upon the ground, very pensive, and looked like men in
despair. .
This put me in mind of the first time when I came on shore and
began to look about me : how I gave myself over for lost ; how wildly I
looked around me ; what dreadful apprehensions I had ; and how I lodged
in the tree all night, for fear of being devoured by wild beasts. As I
knew nothing that night of the supply I was to receive by the providen
tial driving of the ship nearer the land by the storms and tide, by which
I have since been so long nourished and supported : so these three poor
desolate men knew nothing how certain of deliverance and supply they
were, how near it was to them, and how effectually and really they were in
a condition of safety, at the same time that they thought themselves lost,
and their case desperate. So little do we see before us in the world, and
so much reason have we to depend cheerfully upon the great Maker of the
world, that he does not leave his creatures so absolutely destitute, but
that, in the worst circumstances, they have always something to be thank
ful for, and sometimes are nearer their deliverance than they imagine ;
nay, are even brought to their deliverance by the means by which they
seem to be brought to their destruction.
It was just at the top of high water when these people came on shore ;
and while partly they stood parleying with the prisoners they brought, and
partly while they rambled about to see what kind of a place they were in,
they had carelessly staid till the tide was spent, and the water was ebbed
considerably away, leaving their boat aground. They had left two men
in the boat, who, as I found afterwards, having drunk a little too much
brandy, fell asleep ; however, one of them waking sooner than the other,
and finding the boat too fast aground for him to stir it, hallooed for the
rest, who were straggling about, upon which they all soon came to the
boat ; but it was past all their strength to launch her, the boat being
very heavy, and the shore on that side being a soft oozy sand, almost like
a quicksand.
In this condition, like true seamen, who are perhaps the least of all
mankind given to forethought, they gave it over, and away they strolled
about the country again ; and I heard one of them say aloud to another,
calling them -off from the boat, "Why, let her alone, Jack, can't you?
she'll float next tide," by which I was fully confirmed in the main in
quiry of what countrymen they were.
All this while I kept myself very close, not once daring to stir out of
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 227
my castle, any farther than to my place of observation near the top of the
hill ; and very glad I was to think how well it was fortified. I knew it
was no less than ten hours before the boat could be on float again, and by
that time it would be dark, and I might be at more liberty to see thei*
motions, 'and to hear their discourse, if they had any.
In the meantime I fitted myself up for a battle, as before, though with
more caution, knowing I had to do with another kind of enemy than I
had at first. I ordered Friday also, whom I had made an excellent marks
man with his gun, to load himself with arms. I took myself two fowling-
pieces, and I gave him three muskets. My figure, indeed, was very
fierce : I had my formidable goat's skin coat on, with the great cap I
have mentioned, a naked sword by my side, two pistols in my belt, and a
gun upon each shoulder.
It was my design, as I said above, not to have made any attempt till
it was dark; but about two o'clock, being the heat of the day, I found,
that, in short, they were all gone straggling into the woods, and, as I
thought, laid down to sleep. The three poor distressed men, too anxious
for their condition to get any sleep, were, however, set down under the
shelter of a great tree, at about a quarter of a mile from me, and, as I
thought, out of sight of any of the rest.
Upon this I resolved to discover myself to them, and learn some
thing of their condition. Immediately I marched in the figure as
above, my man Friday at a good distance behind me, as formidable for
his arms as I, but not making quite so staring a spectre-like figure as
I did.
I came as near them undiscovered as I could, and then, before any of
them saw me, I called aloud to them in Spanish, " What are ye, gentle
men?"
They started up at, the noise; but were ten times more confounded
when they saw me, and the uncouth figure that I made. They made no
answer at all^ but I thought I perceived them just going to fly from me,
when I spoke to them in English. " Gentlemen," said I, "do not be
surprised at me ; perhaps you may have a friend near, when you did not
expect it." " He must be sent directly from Heaven, then," said one of
them very gravely to me, and pulling off his hat at the same time to me,
" for our condition is past the help of man." " All help is from Heaven,
sir," said I ; " but can you put a stranger in the way how to help you ?
for you seem to be in some great distress. I saw' you when you landed ;
228 ADVENTURES OF
and when you seemed to make supplication to the brutes that came with
you, I saw one of them lift up his sword to kill you."
The poor man, with tears running down his face, and trembling,
looking like one astonished, returned, " Am I talking to God or man ? Is
it a real man or an angel ?" " Be in no fear about that, sir," said I ;
" if God had sent an angel to relieve you, he would have come better
clothed, and better armed after another manner than you see me : pray
lay aside your fears ; I am a man, an Englishman, and disposed to assist
you : you see I have one servant only ; we have arms and ammunition,
tell us freely, can we serve you ? What is your case ?"
" Our case," said he, " sir, is too long to tell you, while our murderers
are so near us : but, in short, sir, I was commander of that ship ; my men
have mutinied against me; they have been hardly prevailed on not to
murder me ; and at last have set me on shore in this desolate place, with
these two men with me, one my mate, the other a passenger, where we
expected to perish, believing the place to be uninhabited, and know not
yet what to think of it."
"Where are these brutes, your enemies?" said I: "do you know
where they are gone?" "There they lie, sir," said he, pointing to a
thicket of trees; "my heart trembles for fear they have seen us, and
heard you speak ; if they have, they will certainly murder us all."
"Have they any fire-arms?" said I. He answered, "They have only
two pieces, one of which they have left in the boat." " Well, then," said
I, " leave the rest to me ; I see they are all asleep, it is an easy thing to
kill them all : but shall we rather take them prisoners?" He told me
there were two desperate villains among them, that it was scarce safe to
show any mercy to ; but if they were secured, he believed all the rest
would return to their duty. I asked him which they were ? He told me
he could not at that distance distinguish them,. but he would obey my
orders in anything I would direct. " "Well," said I, " let us retreat out
of their view or hearing, lest they awake, and we will resolve farther."
So they willingly went back with me, till the woods covered us from them.
" Look you, sir," said I, " if I venture upon your deliverance, are you
willing to make two conditions with me ? " He anticipated my proposals,
by telling me, that both he and the ship, if recovered, should be wholly
directed and commanded by me in every thing ; and, if the ship was not
recovered, he would live and die with me in what part of the world
soever I would send him ; and the two other men said the same.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 229
"Well," says I, "my conditions are. but two First, That while you
stay in this island with me, you will not pretend to any authority here ;
and if I put arms into your hands, you will, upon all occasions, give them
up to me, and do no prejudice, to me or mine upon this island, and, in the
meantime, be governed by my orders. Second, That if the ship is, or may
be recovered, you will carry me and my man to England passage free."
He gave me all the assurances that the invention or faith of man could
devise, that he would comply with these most reasonable demands ; and,
besides, would owe his life to me, and acknowledge it upon all occasions,
as long as he lived.
"Well, then," said I, "here are three muskets for you, with powder
and ball : tell me next what you think is proper to be done." He showed
all the testimony of his gratitude that he was able, but offered to be
wholly guided by me. I told him I thought it was hard venturing any
thing; but the best method I could think of was to fire upon them at
once, as they lay, and if any were not killed at the first volley, and offered
to submit, we might save them, and so put it wholly upon God's provi
dence to direct the shot.
He said very modestly, that he was loath to kill them, if he could
help it but that those two were incorrigible villains, and had been the
authors of all the mutiny in the ship, and if they escaped, we should be
undone still ; for they would go on board and bring the whole ship's com
pany, and destroy us all. "Well, then," says I, "necessity legitimates
my advice, for it is the only way to save our lives." However, seeing
him still cautious of shedding blood, I told him tney should go them
selves, and manage as they found convenient.
In the middle of this discourse we heard some of them awake, and
soon after we saw two of them on their feet. I asked him if either of
them were the heads of the mutiny? He said, " No." " Well, then,"
said I, " you may let them escape ; and Providence seems to have awakened
them on purpose to save themselves. Now," says I, " if the rest escape
you, it is your fault."
Animated with this, he took the musket I had given him in his hand,
and a pistol in his belt, and his two comrades with him, each man a piece
in his hand : the two men who were with him going first, made some
noise, at which one of the seamen who was awake turned about, and
seeing them coming, cried out to the rest ; but it was too late then, for
the moment he cried out they fired; I mean the two men, the captain
230 ADVENTURES OF
wisely reserving his own piece. They had so well aimed their shot at
the men they knew, that one of them was killed on the spot, and the
other very much wounded ; hut not being dead, he started up on his feet,
and called eagerly for help to the others, but the captain, stepping to him,
told him it was too late to cry for help, he should call upon God to forgive
his villany, and with that word knocked him down with the stock of his
musket, so that he never spoke more : there were three more in the com
pany, and one of them was also slightly wounded. By this time I was
come ; and when they saw their danger, and that it was in vain to resist,
they begged for mercy. The captain told them he would spare their
lives, if they would give him any assurance of their abhorrence of the
treachery they had been guilty of, and would swear to be faithful to him
in recovering the ship, and afterwards in carrying her back to Jamaica,
from whence they came. They gave him all the protestations of their
sincerity that could be desired, and he was willing to believe them, and
spare their lives, which I was not against, only I was obliged to keep
them bound hand and foot while they were upon the island.
"While this was doing, I sent Friday with the captain's mate to the
boat, with orders to secure her, and bring away the oars and sail, which
they did ; and by-and-bye three straggling men, that were (happily for
them) parted from the rest, came back upon hearing the guns fired, and
seeing their captain, who before was their prisoner, now their conqueror,
they submitted to be bound also ; and so our victory was complete.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 231
CHAPTER XVII.
Crusoe and the captain consult how they may recover the ship from the mutineers In the mean
while a fresh party come ashore An ambuscade is contrived, and the mutineers lay down their
arms The captain promises mercy to all except Will Atkins The ship taken from the muti
neersCrusoe leaves the island, in which he had lived for twenty-eight years.
: T now remained that the captain and I should inquire into one
another's circumstances. I began first, and told him my whole
history, which he heard with an attention even to amazement,
and particularly at the wonderful manner .of my being furnished
with provisions and ammunition ; and, indeed, as my story is a whole
collection of wonders, it affected him deeply. Eut when he reflected from
thence upon himself, and how I seemed to have been preserved there on
purpose to save his life, the tears ran down his face, and he could not
speak a word more.
After this communication was at an end, I carried him and his two
men into my apartment, leading them in just where I came out, viz. at the
top of the house, where I refreshed them with such provisions as I had,
and showed them all the contrivances I had made, during my long, long
inhabiting that place.
All I showed them, all I said to them, was perfectly amazing ; but,
above all, the captain admired my fortification, and how perfectly I had
concealed my retreat with a grove of trees, which, having been now planted
near twenty years, and the trees growing much faster than in England,
was become a little wood, and so thick, that it was impassable in any part
of it, but at that one side where I had reserved my little winding passage
into it. This I told him was my castle and my residence, but that I had
a seat in the country, as most princes have, whither I could retreat upon
occasion, and I would show him that too another time ; but at present our
business was to consider how to recover the ship. He agreed with me as
to that ; but told me he was perfectly at a loss what measures to take, for
232 ADVENTURES OF
that there were still six-and-twenty hands on board, who having entered
into a cursed conspiracy, by which they had all forfeited their lives to the
law, would be hardened in it now by desperation, and would carry it oji,
knowing that, if they were subdued, they would be brought to the
gallows, as soon as they came to England, or to any of the English
colonies ; and that, therefore, there would be no attacking them with so
small a number as we were.
I mused for some time upon what he had said, and found it was a very
rational conclusion, and that, therefore, something was to be resolved on
speedily, as well to draw X;he men on board into some snare for their
surprise, as to prevent their landing upon us, and destroying us. Upon
this, it presently occurred to me that, in a little while, the ship's crew,
wondering what was become of their comrades and of the boat, would
certainly come on shore in their other boat, to look for them ; and that
then, perhaps, they might come armed, and be too strong for us : this he
allowed was rational.
Upon this, I told him the first thing we had to do was to stave the
boat, which lay upon the beach, so that they might not carry her off ; and
taking every thing out of her, leave her so far useless as not to be fit to
swim : accordingly we went on board, took the arms which were left on
board out of her, and whatever else we found there, which was a bottle
of brandy, and another of rum, a few biscuit-cakes, a horn of powder, and
a great lump of sugar in a piece of canvas (the sugar was five or six
pounds), all which was very welcome to me, especially the brandy and
sugar, of which I had had none left for many years.
When we had carried all these things on shore (the oars, mast, sail
and rudder of the boat were carried away before, as above), we knocked a
great hole in her bottom, that if they had come strong enough to master
us, yet they could not carry off the boat. Indeed, it was not much in my
thoughts that we could be able to recover the ship ; but my view was,
that if they went away without the boat, I did not much question to
make her fit again to carry us to the Leeward Islands, and call upon our
friends the Spaniards in my way, for I had them still in my thoughts.
While we were thus preparing our designs, and had first, by main
strength, heaved the boat upon the beach so high that the tide would not
float her off at high- water mark, and besides had broken a hole in her
bottom too big to be quickly stopped, and were set down musing what we
should do, we heard the ship fire a gun, and saw her make a waft with
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 233
her ancient as a signal for the boat to come on board ; but no boat stirred,
and they fired several times, making other signals for the boat.
At last, when all their signals and firing proved fruitless, and they
found the boat did not stir, we saw them (by the help of my glasses)
hoist another boat .out, and row towards the shore ; and we found, as they
approached, that there were no less than ten men in her, and that they
had fire-arms with them.
As the ship lay almost two leagues from the shore, we had a full view
of them as they came, and a plain sight even of their faces, because the
tide having set them a little to the east of the other boat, they rowed
up under shore, to come to the same place where the other had landed,
and where the boat lay.
By this means, I say, we had a full view of them, and the captain
knew the persons and characters of all the men in the boat, of whom, he
said, that there were three very honest fellows, who, he was sure, were led
into this conspiracy by the rest, being overpowered and frighted ; but
that as for the boatswain, who, it seems, was the chief officer among them,
and all the rest, they were as outrageous as any of the ship's crew, and
were no doubt made desperate in their new enterprise ; and terribly ap
prehensive he was that they would be too powerful for us.
I smiled at him, and told him that men in our circumstances were
past the operation of fear, that, considering every condition that could be
was better than that we were supposed to be in, we ought to expect that the
consequence, whether death or life, would b sure to be a deliverance. I
asked him what he thought of the circumstances of my life, and whether
a deliverance were not worth venturing for ? "And where, sir," said I, "is
your belief of my being preserved here on purpose to save your life, which
elevated you a little while ago? For my part," said I, "there seems to
me but one thing amiss in all the prospect of it." "What is that?"
says he. "Why," said I, "it is, that as you say there are three or four
honest fellows among them, which should be spared ; had they been all of
the wicked part of the crew I should have thought God's providence had
singled them out to deliver them into your hands ; for, depend upon it,
every man of them that comes ashore are our own, and shall die or live as
they behave to us."
As I spoke this with a raised voice and cheerful countenance, I found
it greatly encouraged him ; so we set vigorously to our business. We
had, upon the first appearance of the boat's coming from the ship, con-
234 ADVENTURES OP
sidered of separating our prisoners, and had, indeed, secured them effec
tually. Two of them, of whom the captain was less assured than ordinary,
I sent with Friday and one of the three delivered men to my cave, where
they were remote enough, and out of danger of being heard or discovered,
or of finding their way out of the woods if they could have delivered
themselves : here they left them bound, but gave them provisions ; and
promised them, if they continued there quietly, to give them their liberty
in a day or two, but that if they attempted their escape, they should be put
to death without mercy. They promised faithfully to bear their confine
ment- with patience, and were very thankful that they had such good
usage as to have provisions and a light left them, for Friday gave them
candles (such as we made ourselves) for their comfort, and they did not
know but that he stood sentinel over them at the entrance.
The other prisoners had better usage : two of them were kept pinioned,
indeed, because the captain was not free to trust them ; but the other two
were taken into my service, upon the captain's recommendation, and
upon their solemnly engaging to live and die with us. So with them and
the three honest men we were seven men well armed, and I made no
doubt we should be able to deal well enough with the ten that were
coming, considering that the captain had said there were three or four
honest men among them also.
As soon as they got to the place where their other boat lay, they run
their boat into the beach, and came all on shore, haling the boat up
after them, which I was glad to see ; for I was afraid they would rather
have left the boat at an anchor, some distance from the shore, with some
hands in her to guard her, and so we should not be able to seize the boat.
Being on shore, the first thing they did, they ran all to their other
boat, and it was easy to see they were under a great surprise to find her
stripped, as above, of all that was in her, and a great hole in her bottom.
After they had mused awhile upon this, they set up two or three great
shouts, hallooing with all their might, to try if they could make their
companions hear ; but all was to no purpose : then they came all close in
a ring, and fired a volley of their small arms, which, indeed, we heard,
and the echoes made the woods ring. But it was all one : those in the
cave we were sure could not hear ; and those in our keeping, though they
heard it well enough, yet durst give no answer to them.
They were so astonished at the surprise of this, that, as they told us
afterwards, they resolved to go all on board again to their ship, and let
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 235
them know there that the men were all murdered, and the long-boat
staved : accordingly, they immediately launched their boat again, and got
all of them on board.
The captain was terribly amazed and even confounded at this, believ
ing they would go on board the ship again, and set sail, giving their
comrades up for lost, and so he should still lose the ship, which he was in
hopes we should have recovered ; but he was quickly as much frighted
the other way.
They had not been long put off with the boat, but we perceived them,
all coming on shore again ; but with this new measure in their conduct,
which it seems they consulted together upon, viz., to leave three men in
the boat, and the rest to go on shore, and go up into the country to look
for their fellows.
This was a great disappointment to us, for we were now at a loss what
to do ; for our seizing those seven men on shore would be no advantage to
us, if we let the boat escape, because they would then row away to the
ship, and then the rest of them would be sure to weigh and set sail, and
so our recovery of the ship would be lost.
However, we had no remedy but to wait and see what the issue of
things might present. The seven men came on shore, and the three who
remained in the boat put her off to a good distance from the shore, and
came to an anchor to wait for them ; so that it was impossible for us to
come at them in the boat.
Those that came on shore kept close together, marching towards the
top of the little hill under which my habitation lay ; and we could see
them plainly, though they could not perceive us: we could have been
very glad they would have come nearer to us, so that we might have fired
at them, or that they would have gone farther off, that we might have
come abroad.
But when they were come to the brow of the hill, where they could see
a great way into the valleys and woods, which lay towards the north-east
part, and where the island lay lowest, they shouted and hallooed till they
were weary ; and not caring, it seems, to venture far from the shore, nor far
from one another, they sat down together under a tree, to consider of it.
Had they thought fit to have gone to sleep there, as the other party of
them had done, they had done the job for us ; but they were too full of
apprehensions of danger to venture to go to sleep, though they could not
tell what the danger was they had to fear neither.
236 ADVENTURES OF
The captain made a very just proposal to me upon this consultation of
theirs, viz., that perhaps they would all fire a volley again, to endeavour
to make their fellows hear, and that we should all sally upon them, just
at the juncture when their pieces were all discharged, and they would
certainly yield, and we should have them without bloodshed. I liked
this proposal, provided it was done while we were near enough to come
up to them before they could load their pieces again.
But this event did not happen, and we lay still a long time, very
irresolute what course to take. At length I told him there would be
nothing done, in my opinion, till night ; and then, if they did not return
to the* boat, perhaps we might find a way to get between them and the
shore, and so might use some stratagem with them in the boat to get
them on shore.
"We waited a great while, though very impatient for their removing,
and were very uneasy, when, after long consultations, we saw them all
start up, and march down towards the sea : it seems they had such dread
ful apprehensions upon them of the danger of the place, that they resolved
to go on board the ship again, give their companions over for lost, and so
go on with their intended voyage with the ship.
As soon as I perceived them to go towards the shore, I imagined it to
be, as it really was, that they had given over their search, and were for
going back again; and the captain, as soon as I told him my thoughts,
was ready to sink at the apprehensions of it ; but I presently thought of
a stratagem to fetch them back again, and which answered my end to a
tittle.
I ordered Friday and the captain's mate to go over the little creek
westward, towards the place where the savages came on shore when
Friday was rescued, and as soon as they came to a little rising ground, at
about half a mile's distance, I bade them halloo as loud as they could, and
wait till they found the seamen heard them ; that as soon as ever they
heard the seamen answer them, they should return it again, and then,
keeping out of sight, take a round, always answering them when the
others hallooed, to draw them as far into the island, and among the
woods, as possible, and then wheel about again to me, by such ways as I
directed.
They were just going into the boat when Friday and the mate
hallooed ; and they presently heard them, and answering, ran along the
shore westward,, towards the voice they heard, when they were presently
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 237
stopped by the creek, where, the water being up, they could not get over,
and called for the boat to come up and set them over, as, indeed, I
expected.
When they had set themselves over, I observed that the boat being
gone a good way into the creek, and, as it were, in a harbour within the
land, they took one of the three men out of her to go along with them,
and left only two in the boat, having fastened her to the stump of a little
tree on the shore.
This was what I wished for ; and immediately leaving Friday and the
captain's mate to their business, I took the rest with me, and crossing the
creek out of their sight, we surprised the two men before they were aware,
one of them lying on the shore, and the other being in the boat : the
fellow on shore was between sleeping and waking, and, going to start up,
the captain, who was foremost, ran in upon him, and knocked him down,
and then called out to him in the boat to yield, or he was a dead man.
There needed very few arguments to persuade a single man to yield,
when he saw five men upon him, and his comrade knocked down ; besides,
this was, it seems, one of the three who were not so hearty in the mutiny
as the rest of the crew, and therefore was easily persuaded not only to
yield, but afterwards to join very sincerely with us.
In the meantime, Friday and the captain's mate so well managed their
business with the rest, that they drew them, by hallooing and answering,
from one hill to another, and from one wood to another, till they not only
heartily tired them, but left them where they were very sure they could
not reach back to the boat before it was dark ; and, indeed, they were
heartily tired themselves also by the time they came back to us.
We had nothing now to do but to watch for them in the dark, and to
fall upon them, so as to make sure work with them.
It was several hours after Friday came back to me before they came
back to their boat, and we could hear the foremost of them, long before
they came quite up, calling to those behind to come along, and could also
hear them answer, and complain how lame and tired they were, and not
able to come any faster, which was very welcome news to us.
At length they came up to the boat ; but it is impossible to express
their confusion when they found the boat fast aground in the creek, the
tide ebbed out, and their two men gone. "We could hear them call to one
another in a most lamentable manner, telling one another they were
gotten into an enchanted island ; that either there were inhabitants in it,
238 ADVENTURES OF
and they should all be murdered, or else there were devils or spirits in it,
and they should be all carried away and devoured.
They hallooed again, and called their two comrades by their names a
great many times ; but no answer : after some time, we could see them
by the little light there was, run about, wringing their hands like men in
despair, and that sometimes they would go and sit down in the boat,
to rest themselves, then come ashore again, and walk about again, and
so the same thing over again.
My men would fain have had me give them leave to fall upon them in
the dark ; but I was willing to take them at some advantage, so to spare
them, and kill as few of them as I could : and especially I was unwilling
to hazard the killing any of our men, knowing the others were very well
armed. I resolved to wait, to see if they did not separate ; and, there
fore, to make sure of them, I drew my ambuscade nearer, and ordered
Friday and the captain to creep upon their hands and feet as close to the
ground as they could, that they might not be discovered, and get as near
them as they could possibly, before they offered to fire*
They had not been long in that posture, when the boatswain, who was
the principal ringleader of the mutiny, and had now shown himself the
most dejected and dispirited of all the rest, came walking towards them
with two more of the crew : the captain was so eager at having the principal
rogue so much in his power, that he could hardly have patience to let him
come so near as to be sure of him, for they only heard his tongue before :
but when they came nearer, the captain and Friday, starting up on their
feet, let fly at them.
The boatswain was killed upon the spot ; the next man was shot in
the body, and fell just by him, though he did not die till an hour or two
after ; and the third ran for it.
At the noise of the fire, I immediately advanced with my whole army,
which was now eight men, viz., myself, generalissimo ; Friday, my lieu
tenant-general ; the captain and his two men, and the three prisoners of
war, whom we had trusted with arms.
We came upon them, indeed, in the dark, so that they could not see
our number ; and I made the man they had left in the boat, who was now
one of us, to call them by name, to try if I could bring them to a parley,
and so might perhaps reduce them to terms, which fell out just as we
desired, for, indeed, it was easy to think, as their condition then was, they
would be very willing to capitulate. So he calls out, as loud as he could,
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 239
to one of them, "Tom Smith! Tom Smith!" Tom Smith answered
immediately, " Who 's that ? Robinson ?" For it seems he knew the voice.
The other answered, " Ay, ay; for God's sake, Tom Smith, throw down
your arms and yield, or you are all dead men this moment."
"Who must we yield to? Where are they?" says Smith again.
"Here they are," says he, "here's our captain and fifty men with him,
have been hunting you these two hours : the boatswain is killed, Will Pry
is wounded, and I am a prisoner ; and if you do not yield, you are all lost."
"Will they give us quarter then?" says Tom Smith, " and we will
yield." " I will go ask, if you promise to yield," says Robinson. So he
asked the captain; and the captain himself then calls out, "You, Smith,
you know my voice ; if you lay down your arms immediately, and submit,
you shall have your lives, all but Will Atkins."
Upon this Will Atkins cried out, "For God's sake, captain, give me
quarter; what have I done? they have all been as bad as I," which by
the way, was not true neither, for, it seems, this Will Atkins was the
first man that laid hold of the captain, when they first mutinied, and used
him barbarously, in tying his hands, and giving him injurious language.
However, the captain told him he must lay down his arms at discretion,
and trust to the governor's mercy, by which he meant me, for they all
called me governor.
In a word, they all laid down their arms, and begged their lives ; and
I sent the man who had parleyed with them, and two more, who bound
them all : and then my great army of fifty men, which, particularly with
those three, were in all but eight, came up and seized upon them all, and
upon their boat, only that I kept myself and one more out of sight for
reasons of state.
Our next work was to repair the boat, and to think of seizing the
ship ; and as for the captain, now he had leisure to parley with them, he
expostulated with them upon the villany of their practices with him, and
at length upon the farther wickedness of their design, and how certainly
it must bring them to misery and distress in the end, and pp^ps to
the gallows.
They all appeared very penitent, and begged hard for t^eir lives. As
for that, he told them they were none of his prisoners, but the com
mander's of the island; that they thought they had set him on shore in a
barren, uninhabited island, but it had pleased God so <o direct them, that
the island was inhabited, and that the governor was co. Englishman ; that
240 ADVENTURES OP
he might hang them all there, if he pleased ; but, as he had given them
all quarter, he supposed he would send them to England, to be dealt with
there as justice required, except Atkins, whom he was commanded by the
governor to advise to prepare for death, for that he would be hanged in
the morning.
Though all this was but a fiction of his own, yet it had its desired
effect: Atkins fell upon his knees, to beg the captain to intercede with
the governor for his life ; and all the rest begged of him, for God's sake,
that they might not be sent to England.
It now occurred to me that the time of our deliverance was come, and
that it would be a most easy thing to bring these fellows in to be hearty
in getting possession of the ship ; so I retired in the dark from them, that
they might not see what kind of a governor they had, and called the cap
tain to me : when I called, as at a good distance, one of the men was
ordered to speak again, and say to the captain, " Captain, the commander
calls for you;" and presently the captain replied, " Tell his excellency I
am just a-coming." This more perfectly amused them, and they all
believed that the commander was just by with his fifty men.
Upon the captain's coming to me, I told him my project for seizing
the ship, which he liked wonderfully well, and resolved to put it in
execution the next morning.
But in order to execute it with more heart, and to be secure of success,
I told him we must divide the prisoners, and that he should go and take
Atkins and two more of the worst of them, and send them pinioned to
the cave where the others lay. This was committed to Friday and the
two men who came on shore with the captain.
They conveyed them to the cave as to a prison ; and it was, indeed, a
dismal place, especially to men in their condition.
The others I ordered to my bower, as I called it, of which I have
given a full description ; and as it was fenced in, and they pinioned, the
place was secure enough, considering they were upon their behaviour.
I'o these in the morning I sent the captain, who was to enter into a
parley wi'Ji them, in a word, to try them, and tell me whether he
thought they might be trusted or no to go on board and surprise the ship.
He talked to them of the injury done him, of the condition they were
brought to, and fhat though the governor had given them quarter for
their lives as to tho present action, yet that if they were sent to England,
they would all be hanged in chains, to be sure ; but that if they would
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 241
join in such an attempt as to recover the ship, he would have the gover
nor's engagement for their pardon.
Any one may guess how readily such a proposal would be accepted by
men in their condition ; they fell down on their knees to the captain, and
promised, with the deepest imprecations, that they would be faithful to
him to the last drop, and that they should owe their lives to him, and
would go with him all over the world ; that they would own him for a
father as long as they lived. "Well," says the captain, " I must go and
tell the governor what you say, and see what I can do to bring him to
consent to it." So he brought me an account of the temper he found
them in, and that he verily believed they would be faithful.
However, that we might be very secure, I told him he should go back
again and choose out five, and tell them that they might see he did not
want men, but that he would take out those five to be his assistants,
and that the governor would keep the other two-, and the three that were
sent prisoners to the castle- (my cave) as hostages for the fidelity of those
five ; and that, if they proved unfaithful in the execution, the five hostages
should be hanged in chains alive on the shore.
This looked severe, and convinced them that the governor was in
earnest: however, they had no way left them but to accept it; and it
was now the business of the prisoners, as much as of the captain, to
persuade the other five to do their duty.
Our strength was now thus ordered for the expedition: 1. The
captain, his mate, and passenger. 2. Then the two prisoners of the first
gang, to whom, having their characters from the captain, I had given
their liberty, and trusted them with arms. 3. The other two that I had
kept till now in my bower pinioned, but, upon the captain's motion, had
now released. 4. These five released at last ; so that they were twelve
in all, besides five we kept prisoners in the cave for hostages.
I asked the captain if he was willing to venture with these hands on
board the ship ; but as for me and my man Friday, I did not think it was
proper for us to stir, having seven men left behind : and it was employ
ment enough for us to keep them asunder, and supply them with victuals.
As to the five in the cave, I resolved to keep them fast, but Friday
went in twice a day to them, to supply them with necessaries ; and I
made the other two carry provisions to a certain distance, where Friday
was to take it.
When I showed myself to the two hostages, it was with the captain,
16
242 ADVENTURES OP
who told them I was the person the governor had ordered to look after
them, and that it was the governor's pleasure they should not stir any
where but by my direction ; that if they did, they should be fetched into
the castle, and be laid in irons : so that, as we never suffered them to see
me as a governor, I now appeared as another person, and spoke of the
governor, the garrison, the castle, and the like, upon all occasions.
The captain now had no difficulty before him, but to furnish his two
boats, stop the breach of one, and man them. He made his passenger
captain of one, with four of the men ; and himself, his mate, and five
more, went in the other : and they contrived their business very well, for
they came up to the ship about midnight. As soon as they came within
call of the ship, he made Robinson hail them, and tell them they had
brought off the men and the boat, but that it was a long time before they
had found them, and the like, holding them in a chat till they came to
the ship's side ; when the captain and the mate entering first, with their
arms, immediately knocked down the second mate and carpenter with the
butt end of their muskets. Being very faithfully seconded by their men,
they secured all the rest that were upon the main and quarter decks, and
began to fasten the hatches, to keep them down that were below ; when
the other boat and their men, entering at the fore-chains, secured the
forecastle of the ship and the scuttle which went down into the cock-
room, making three men they found there prisoners.
"When this was done, and all safe upon deck, the captain ordered the
mate, with three men, to break into the round house, where the new
rebel captain lay, who having taken the alarm, had got up, and with two
men and a boy had gotten fire-arms in their hands ; and when the mate,
with a crow, split open the door, the new captain and his men fired boldly
among them, and wounded the mate with a musket ball, which broke his
arm, and wounded two more of the men, but killed nobody.
The mate, calling for help, rushed, however, into the round-house,
' wounded as he was, and with his pistol shot the new captain through the
head, the bullet entering at his mouth, and came out again behind one of
his ears, so that he never spoke a word : upon which the rest yielded, and
the ship was taken effectually, without any more lives lost.
As soon as the ship was thus secured, the captain ordered seven guns
to be fired, which was the signal agreed upon with me to give me notice
of his success, which you may be sure I was very glad to hear, having
sat watching upon the shore for it till near two o'clock in the morning.
I
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 243
Having thus heard the signal plainly, I laid me down ; and it having
been a day of great fatigue to me, I slept very sound, till I was something
surprised at the noise of a gun : and presently starting up, I heard a man
call me by the name of " Governor, Governor," and presently I knew the
captain's voice, when climbing up to the top of the hill, there he stood, and
pointing to the ship, he embraced me in his arms. " My dear friend and
deliverer," says he, "there's your ship, for she is all yours, and so are
we, and all that belong to her." I cast my eyes to the ship, and there
she rode within little more than half a mile of the shore ; for they had
weighed her anchor as soon as they were masters of her, and the weather
being fair, had brought her to an anchor just against the mouth of a
little creek ; and the tide being up, the captain had brought the pinnace
in near the place where I first landed my rafts, and so landed just at
my door.
I was at first ready to sink down with the surprise ; for I saw my
deliverance, indeed, visibly put into my hands, all things easy, and a large
ship just ready to carry me away whither I pleased to go. At first, for
some time, I was not able to answer him one word ; but as he had taken
me in his arms, I held fast by him, or I should have fallen to the ground.
He perceived the surprise, and immediately pulls a bottle out of his
pocket, and gave me a dram of cordial, which he had brought on purpose
for me. After I drank it, I sat down on the ground ; and though it
brought me to myself, yet it was a good while before I could speak a word
to him.
All this time the poor man was in as great an ecstasy as I, only not
under any surprise, as I was; and he said a thousand kind and tender
things to me, to compose and bring me to myself : but such was the flood
of joy in my breast, that it put all my spirits into confusion; at last it
broke out into tears, and in a little while after I recovered my speech.
Then I took my turn, and embraced him as my deliverer, and we
rejoiced together. I told him I looked upon him as a man sent froni
Heaven to deliver me, and that the whole transaction seemed to be a
chain of wonders ; that such things as these were the testimonies we had
of a secret hand of Providence governing the world, and an evidence that
the eyes of an Infinite Power could search into the remotest corner of the
world, and send help to the miserable whenever he pleased.
I forgot not to lift up my heart in thankfulness to Heaven ; and what
heart could forbear to bless Him who had not only in a miraculous
244 ADVENTURES OF
manner provided for me in such a wilderness, and in such a desolate
condition, but from whom every deliverance must always be acknowledged
to proceed ?
When we had talked a while, the captain told me he had brought me
some little refreshment, such as the ship afforded, and such as the wretches
that had been so long his masters had not plundered him of. Upon this
he called aloud to the boat, and bade his men bring the things ashore that
were for the governor ; and, indeed, it was a present as if I had been one
that was not to be carried away with them, but as if I had been to dwell
upon the island still.
First, he brought me a case of bottles full of excellent cordial waters ;
six large bottles of Madeira wine (the bottles held two quarts each), two
pounds of excellent good tobacco, twelve good pieces of the ship's beef,
and six pieces of pork, with a bag of peas, and about a hundred weight of
biscuit : he brought also a box of sugar, a box of flour, a bag full of lemons,
and two bottles of lime juice, and abundance of other things. But,
besides these, and what was a thousand times more useful to me, he
brought me six clean new shirts, six very good neckcloths, two pair of
gloves, one pair of shoes, a hat, and one pair of stockings, with a very
good suit of clothes of his own, which had been worn but very little ;
in a word, he clothed me from head to foot.
It was a very kind and agreeable present, as any one may imagine, to
one in my circumstances ; but never was any thing in the world of that
kind so unpleasant, awkward, and uneasy, as it was to me to wear such
clothes at their first putting on.
After these ceremonies were past, and after all his good things were
brought into my little apartment, we began to consult what was to be
done with the prisoners we had : for it was worth considering whether
we might venture to take them away with us or no, especially two of
them, whom we knew to be incorrigible and refractory to the last degree ;
and the captain said he knew they were such rogues, that there was no
obliging them, and if he did carry them away, it must be in irons, as male
factors, to be delivered over to justice at the first English colony he could
come at ; and I found that the captain himself was very anxious about it.
Upon this I told him, that if he desired it, I durst undertake to bring
the two men he spoke of to make it their own request that he should
leave them upon the island. " I should be very glad of that," says the
captain, " with all my heart."
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 245
"Well," says I, "I will send for them up, and talk with them for
you." So I caused Friday and the two hostages, for they were now
discharged, their comrades having performed their promise, I say, I
caused them to go to the cave, and bring up the five men, pinioned as
they were, to the bower, and keep them there till I came.
After some time, I came thither dressed in my new habit ; and now I
was called governor again. Being all met, and the captain with me, I
caused the men to be brought before me, and I told them I had had a full
account of their villanous behaviour to the captain, and how they had run
away with the ship, and were preparing to commit farther robberies, but
that Providence had ensnared them in their own ways, and that they
were fallen into the pit which they had digged for others.
I let them know that by my direction the ship had been seized, that
she lay now in the road, and they might see, by and by, that their new
captain had received the reward of his villany, for that they would see
him hanging at the yard-arm : that as to them, I wanted to know what
they had to say why I should not execute them as pirates taken in the
fact, as by my commission they could not doubt I had authority to do.
One of them answered in the name of the rest, that they had nothing
to say but this, that when they were taken, the captain promised them
their lives, and they humbly implored my mercy ; but I told them I
knew not what mercy to show them, for, as for myself, I had resolved to
quit the island with all my men, and had taken passage with the captain
to go for England ; and as for the captain, he could not carry them to
England, other than as prisoners in irons, to be tried for mutiny and
running away with the ship the consequence of which they must needs
know would be the gallows ; so that I could not tell what was best for
them, unless they had a mind to take their fate in the island : if they
desired that, as I had liberty to leave it, I had some inclination to give
them their lives, if they thought they could shift on shore.
They seemed very thankful for it, and said they would much rather
venture to stay there than be carried to England to be hanged : so I left
it on that issue.
However, the captain seemed to make some difficulty of it, as if he
durst not leave them there. Upon this I seemed a little angry with the
captain, and told him that they were my prisoners, not his ; that, seeing
I had offered them so much favour, I would be as good as my word ; and
that if he did not think fit to consent to it, I would set them at liberty as
246 ADVENTUEES OP
I found them ; and if he did not like that, he might take them again if
he could catch them.
Upon this they appeared very thankful, and I accordingly set them at
liberty, and bade them retire into the woods to the place whence they
came, and I would leave them some fire-arms, some ammunition, and
some directions how they should live very well, if they thought fit.
Upon this I prepared to go on board the ship, but told the captain
that I would stay that night to prepare my things, and desired him to go
on board in the meantime, and keep all right in the ship, and send the
boat on shore the next day for me, ordering him in the meantime to
cause the new captain, who was killed, to be hanged at the yard-arm,
that these men might see him.
"When the captain was gone, I sent for the men up to me to my apart
ment, and entered seriously into discourse with them of their circum
stances. I told them I thought they had made a right choice ; that if
the captain carried them away, they would certainly be hanged. I
showed them the new captain hanging at the yard-arm of the ship, and
told them they had nothing less to expect.
"When they had all declared their willingness to stay, I then told
them I would let them into the story of my living there, and put them
into the way of making it easy to them : accordingly, I gave them the
whole history of the place, and of my coming to it ; showed them my
fortifications, the way I made my bread, planted my corn, cured my
grapes ; and, in a word, all that was necessary to make them easy. I
told them the story also of the fifteen Spaniards that were to be expected,
for whom I left a letter, and made them promise to treat them in common
with themselves.
I left them my fire-arms, viz., five muskets, three fowling-pieces, and
three swords. I had about a barrel and a half of powder left ; for after
the first year or two I used but little, and wasted none. I gave them a
description of the way I managed the goats, and directions to milk and
fatten them, and to make both butter and cheese: in a word, I gave
them every part of my own story, and I told them I should prevail with
the captain to leave them two barrels of gunpowder more, and some
garden seeds, which I told them I would have been very glad of : also I
gave them the bag of peas which the captain had brought me to eat, and
bade them be sure to sow and increase them.
Having done all this, I left them the next day, and went on board
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 247
the ship. We prepared immediately to sail, but did not weigh that night.
The next morning early, two of the five men came swimming to the ship's
side, and making a most lamentable complaint of the other three, begged
to be taken into the ship, for God's sake, for they should be murdered,
and begged the captain to take them on board, though he hanged them
immediately.
Upon this, the captain pretended to have no power without me ; but
after some difficulty, and after their solemn promises of amendment, they
were taken on board, and were some time after soundly whipped and
pickled, after which they proved very honest and quiet fellows.
Some time after this the boat was ordered on shore, the tide being up,
with the things promised to the men, to which the captain, at my inter
cession, caused their chests and clothes to be added, which they took, and
were very thankful for. I also encouraged them, by telling them that if
it lay in my way to send any vessel to take them in, I would not forget
them.
ADVENTURES OF
CHAPTER XVIII.
Crusoe arrives in England, and finds that most of his relations are dead, and that his benefactor and
steward has fallen into misfortune He goes to Lisbon, where he makes himself known to the
captain of the ship who took him up at sea, and is put in the way of recovering his property in
the Brazils His possessions are restored, and he finds himself a wealthy man Makes arrange
ments for the conduct of his estate, and sets out for England by way of Spain An encounter
with wolves Friday makes merry with a bear Crusoe arrives in England, and settles there.
I took leave of this island, I carried on board, for
reliques, the great goat-skin cap I had made, my um
brella, and one of my parrots ; also I forgot not to take
the money I formerly mentioned, which had lain by me
so long useless, that it was grown rusty or tarnished, and could hardly
pass for silver, till it had been a little rubbed and handled ; as also the
money I found in the wreck of the Spanish ship.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 249
And thus I left the island, the 19th of December, as I found by the
ship's account, in the year 1686, after I had been upon it eight-and-
twenty years, two months, and nineteen days ; being delivered from the
second captivity the same day of the month that I first made my escape
in the barcolongo, from among the Moors of Bailee.
In this vessel, after a long voyage, I arrived in England the llth of
June, in the year 1687, having been thirty and five years absent.
When I came to England, I was as perfect a stranger to all the world
as if I had never been known there. My benefactor and faithful steward,
whom I had left in trust with my money, was alive, but had had great
misfortunes in the world was become a widow the second time, and very
low in the world. I made her very easy as to what she owed me, assur
ing her I would give her no trouble ; but, on the contrary, in gratitude
for her former care and faithfulness to me, I relieved her as my little
stock would afford, which at that time would indeed allow me to do but
little for her : but I assured her I would never forget her former kindness
to me, nor did I forget her when I had sufficient to help her, as shall be
observed in its proper place.
I went down afterwards into Yorkshire ; but my father was dead, and
my mother and all the family extinct, except that I found two sisters,
and two of the children of one of my brothers ; and as I had been long
ago given over for dead, there had been no provision made for me : so
that, in a word, I found nothing to relieve or assist me ; and that little
money I had would not do much for me as to settling in the world.
I met with one piece of gratitude, indeed, which I did not expect ;
and this was, that the master of the ship whom I had so happily de
livered, and by the same means saved the ship and cargo, having given a
veiy handsome account to the owners of the manner how I had saved the
lives of the men, and the ship, they invited me to meet them and some
other merchants concerned, and altogether made me a very handsome
compliment upon that subject, and a present of almost two hundred pounds
sterling.
But after making several reflections upon the circumstances of my
life, and how little way this would go towards settling me in the world,
I resolved to go to Lisbon, and see if I might not come by some informa
tion of the state of my plantation in the Erazils, and of what was become
of my partner, who, I had reason to suppose, had .some years now given
me over for dead.
250 ADVENTURES OP
"With this view I took shipping for Lisbon, where I arrived in April
following ; my man Friday accompanying me very honestly in all these
ramblings, and proving a most faithful servant upon all occasions.
When I came to Lisbon, I found out, by inquiry, and to my particular
satisfaction, my old friend the captain of the ship who first took me up at
sea off the shore of Africa. He was now grown old, and had left off the
sea, having put his son, who was far from a young man, into his ship,
and who still used the Brazil trade. The old man did not know me, and,
indeed, I hardly knew him ; but I soon brought him to my remembrance,
and as soon brought myself to his remembrance, when I told him who I
was.
After some passionate expressions of the old acquaintance, I inquired,
you may be sure, after my plantation and my partner. The old man told
me he had not been in the Brazils for about nine years ; but that he could
assure me that, when he came away, my partner was living, but the
trustees whom I had joined with him to take cognizance of my part, were
both dead ; that, however, he believed I would have a very good account
of the improvement of the plantation, for that upon the general belief of
my being cast away and drowned, my trustees had given in the account
of the produce of my part of the plantation to the procurator-fiscal, who
had appropriated it, in case I never came to claim it, one-third to the
king, and two-thirds to the monastery of St. Augustine, to be expended
for the benefit of the poor, and for the conversion of the Indians to the
Catholic faith ; but that, if I appeared, or any one for me, to claim the
inheritance, it would be restored, only that the improvement, or annual
production, being distributed to charitable uses, could not be restored.
But he assured me that the steward of the king's revenue from lands, and
the provedore, or steward of the monastery, had taken great care all along
that the incumbent, that is to say, my partner, gave every year a faithful
account of the produce, of which they received duly my moiety.
I asked him if he knew to what height of improvement he had brought
the plantation, and whether he thought it might be worth looking after,
or whether, on my going thither, I should meet with no obstruction to
my possessing my just right in the moiety ?
He told me he could not tell exactly to what degree the plantation
was improved ; but this he knew, that my partner was grown exceeding
rich upon the enjoying but one half of it, and that, to the best of his
remembrance, he had heard that the king's third of my part, which was,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 251
it seems, granted away to some other monastery or religious house,
amounted to above two hundred moidores a-year : that, as to my being
restored to a quiet possession of it, there was no question to be made of
that, my partner being alive to witness my title, and my name being also
enrolled in the register of the country. Also he told me that the sur
vivors of my two trustees were very fair, honest people, and very wealthy ;
and he believed I would not only have their assistance for putting me in
possession, but would find a very considerable sum of money in their
hands for my account, being the produce of the farm while their fathers
held the trust, and before it was given up, as above, which, as he
remembered, was for about twelve years.
I showed myself a little concerned and uneasy at this account, and
inquired of the old captain how it came to pass that the trustees should
thus dispose of my effects, when he knew that I had made my will, and
had made him, the Portuguese captain, my universal heir, etc.
He told me that was true, but that, as there was no proof of my being
dead, he could not act as executor, until some certain account should
come of my death ; and that, besides, he was not willing to intermeddle
with a thing so remote ; that it was true he had registered my will, and
put in his claim, and, could he have given any account of my being dead
or alive, he would have acted by procuration, and taken possession of the
ingenio (so they called the sugar-house), and have given his son, who was
now at the 'Brazils, order to do it. " But," says the old man, " I have
one piece of news to tell you, which, perhaps, may not be so acceptable
to you as the rest ; and that is, that, believing you were lost, and all the
world believing so also, your partner and trustees did offer to account
to me in your name for six or eight of the first years of profit, which I
received ; but there being at that time," says he, " great disbursements
for increasing the works, building an ingenio, and buying slaves, it did
not amount to near so much as afterwards it produced. However," says
the old man, " I shall give you a true account of what I have received in
all, and how I have disposed of it."
After a few days' farther conference with this ancient friend, he
brought me an account of the first six years' income of my plantation,
signed by my partner and the merchant trustees, being always delivered
in goods, viz., tobacco in roll, and sugar in chests, besides rum, molasses,
etc., which is the consequence of a sugar- work : and I found by this
account, that every year the income considerably increased; but, as
252 ADVENTURES OP
above, the disbursements being large, the sum at first was small. How
ever, the old man let me see that he was debtor to me four hundred and
seventy moidores of gold, besides sixty chests of sugar, and fifteen double
rolls of tobacco, which were lost in his ship, he having been shipwrecked
coming home to Lisbon, about eleven years after my leaving the place.
The good man then began to complain of his misfortunes, and how he
had been obliged to make use of my money to recover his losses, and buy
him a share in a new ship. " However, my old friend," says he, "you
shall not want a supply in your necessity ; and as soon as my son returns,
you shall be fully satisfied." Upon this, he pulls out an old pouch, and
gives me one hundred and sixty Portugal moidores in gold, and giving me
the writings of his title to the ship, which his son was gone to the Brazils
in, of which he was a quarter part owner, and his son another, he puts
them both into my hands, for security of the rest.
I was too much moved with the honesty and kindness of the poor
man to be able to bear this ; and, remembering what he had done for me,
how he had taken me up at sea, and how generously he* had used me on
all occasions, and particularly how sincere a friend he was now to me, I
could hardly refrain weeping at what he had said to me ; therefore first
I asked him if his circumstances admitted him to spare so much money at
that time, and if it would not straiten him ? He told me he could not
say but it might straiten him a little ; but, however, it was my money,
and I might want it more than he.
Every thing the good man said was full of affection, and I could
hardly refrain from tears while he spoke ; in short, I took one hundred
of the moidores, and called for a pen and ink to give him a receipt for
them : then I returned him the rest, and told him if ever I had possession
of the plantation, I would return the other to him also (as, indeed, I
afterwards did) ; and that, as to the bill of sale of his part in his son's
ship, I would not take it by any means, but that if I wanted the money,
I found he was honest enough to pay me ; and, if I did not, but came to
receive what ha gave me reason to expect, I would never have a penny
more from him.
"When this was past, the old man began to ask me if he should put
me on a method to make my claim to my plantation? I told him I
thought to go over to it myself. He said I might do so, if I pleased, but
that, if I did not, there were ways enough to secure my right, and imme
diately to appropriate the profits to my use ; and as there were ships in
ROBINSON CBUSOE. 253
the river of Lisbon just ready to go away to Brazil, he made me enter my
name in a public register, with this affidavit, affirming upon oath that I
was alive, and that I was the same person who took up the land for the
planting the said plantation at first. This being regularly attested by a
notary, and a procuration affixed, he directed me to send it, with a letter
of his writing, to a merchant of his acquaintance at the place, and then
proposed my staying with him till an account came of the return.
Never anything was more honourable than the proceedings upon this
procuration ; for in less than seven months I received a large packet from
the survivors of my trustees, the merchants, on whose account I went to
sea, in which where the following particular letters and papers enclosed :
First, There was the account-current of the produce of my farm or
plantation, from the year when their fathers had balanced with my old
Portugal captain, being for six years : the balance appeared to be one
thousand one hundred and seventy-four moidores in my favour.
Secondly, There was the account of four years more, while they kept
the effects in their hands, before the government claimed the adminis
tration, as being the effects of a person not to be found, which they called
civil death ; and the balance of this, the value of the plantation increasing,
amounted to nineteen thousand four hundred crusadoes, being about three
thousand two hundred and forty-one moidores.
Thirdly, There was the prior of the Augustine's account, who had
received the profits for above fourteen years ; but not being able to account
for what was disposed to the hospital, very honestly declared he had eight
hundred and seventy-two moidores not distributed, which he acknow
ledged to my account : as to the king's part, that refunded nothing.
There was also a letter of my partner's congratulating me very affec
tionately upon my being alive, giving me an account how the estate was
improved, and what it produced a year : with a particular of the number
of squares or acres that it contained, how planted, how many slaves there
were upon it, and making two and twenty crosses for blessings, told me
he had said so many " Ave Marias" to thank the blessed Virgin that I
was alive ; inviting me very passionately to come over and take possession
of my own ; and in the mean time, to give him orders to whom he should
deliver my effects, if I did not come myself; concluding with a hearty
tender of his friendship, and that of his family : and sent me, as a present,
seven fine leopard's skins ; which he had, it seems, received from Africa,
by some other ship that he had sent thither, and who, -it seems, had made
254 ADVENTURES OP
a better voyage than I. He sent me also five chests of excellent sweet
meats, and a hundred pieces of gold uncoined, not quite so large as
moidores.
By the same fleet, my merchant trustees shipped me twelve hundred
chests of sugar, eight hundred rolls of tobacco, and the rest of the whole
account in gold.
I might well say now, indeed, that the latter end of Job was better
than the beginning. It is impossible to express the flutterings of my very
heart, when I looked over these letters, and especially when I found all
my wealth about me ; for as the Brazil ships come all in fleets, the same
ships which brought my letters brought my goods, and the effects were
safe in the river before the letters came to my hand. In a word, I turned
pale, and grew sick ; and had not the old man run and fetched me a
cordial, I believe the sudden surprise of joy had overset nature, and I had
died upon the spot. Nay, after that I continued very ill, and was so
some hours, till, a physician being sent for and something of the real cause
of my illness being known, he ordered me to be let blood, after which I
had relief, and grew well ; but I verily believe, if it had not been eased
by the vent given in that manner to the spirits, I should have died.
I was now master, all on a sudden, of above fifty thousand pounds
sterling in money, and had an estate, as I might well call it, in the
Brazils, of above a thousand pounds a-year, as sure as an estate of lands
in England ; and, in a word, I was in a condition which I scarce knew
how to understand, or how to compose myself for the enjoyment of.
The first thing I did was to recompense my original benefactor, my good
old captain, who had been first charitable to me in my distress, kind to
me in the beginning, and honest to me at the end. I showed him all
that was sent to me ; I told him that next to the Providence of Heaven,
which disposes all things, it was owing to him ; and that it now lay on
me to reward him, which I would do an hundred-fold : so I first returned
to him the hundred moidores I had received of him ; then I sent for a
notary, and caused him to draw up a general release or discharge for
the four hundred and seventy moidores which he had acknowledged he
owed me, in the fullest and firmest manner possible. After which I
caused a procuration to be drawn, empowering him to be my receiver of
the annual profits of my plantation, and appointing my partner to account
to him, and make the returns by the usual fleets to him in my name ;
and a clause in the end, being a grant of one hundred moidores a-year to
BOBINSON CRUSOE. 255
him during his life, out of the effects, and fifty moidores a year to his son
after him, for his life ; and thus I requited my old man.
I was now to consider which way to steer my course next, and what
to do with the estate that Providence had thus put into my hands ; and,
indeed, I had more care upon my head now than I had in my silent state
of life in the island, where I wanted nothing but what I had, and had
nothing but what I wanted j whereas, I had now a great charge upon me,
and my business was how to secure it. I had never a cave now to hide
my money in, or a place where it might lie without lock or key, till it
grew mouldy and tarnished before any body would meddle with it ; on
the contrary, I knew not where to put it, or whom to trust with it. My
old patron, the captain, indeed, was honest, and that was the only refuge
I had.
In the next place, my interest in the Brazils seemed to summon me
thither ; but now I could not tell how to think of going thither till I had
settled my affairs, and left my effects in some safe hands behind me. At
first I thought of my old friend the widow, who I knew was honest, and
would be just to me ; but then she was in years, and but poor, and, for
aught I knew, might be in debt : so that, in a word, I had no way but
to go back to England myself, and take my effects with me.
It was some months, however, before I resolved upon this ; and,
therefore, as I had rewarded the old captain fully, and to his satisfaction,
who had been my former benefactor, so I began to think of my poor
widow, whose husband had been my first benefactor, and she, while it
was in her power, my faithful steward and instructor. So the first thing
I did, I got a merchant in Lisbon to write to his correspondent in London,
not only to pay a bill, but to go find her out, and carry her in money
a hundred pounds from me, and to talk with her, and comfort her in her
poverty, by telling her she should, if I lived, have a further supply : at
the same time I sent my two sisters in the country a hundred pounds
each, they being, though not in want, yet not in very good circumstances
one having been married and left a widow, and the other having a hus
band not so kind to her as he should be.
But among all my relations or acquaintances, I could not yet pitch
upon one to whom I durst commit the gross of my stock, that I might go
away to the Brazils, and leave things safe behind me ; and this greatly
perplexed me.
I had once a mind to have gone to the Brazils, and have settled my-
256 ADVENTURES OP
self there, for I was, as it were, naturalized to the place ; but I had some
little scruple in my mind about religion, which insensibly drew me back.
However, it was not religion that kept me from going thither for the pre
sent ; and as I had made no scruple of being openly of the religion of the
country all the while I was among them, so neither did I yet ; only that,
now and then, having of late thought more of it than formerly, when I
began to think of living and dying among them, I began to regret my
having professed myself a Papist, and thought it might not be the best
religion to die in.
But, as I have said, this was not the main thing that kept me from
going to the Brazils, but that really I did not know with whom to leave
my effects behind me : so I resolved, at last, to go to England with them,
where, if I arrived, I concluded I should make some acquaintance, or find
some relations that would be faithful to me ; and, accordingly, I prepared
to go to England with all my wealth.
In order to prepare things for my going home, I first the Brazil fleet
being just going away resolved to give answers suitable to the just and
faithful account of things I had from thence ; and, first, to the prior of
St. Augustine I wrote a letter full of thanks for his just dealings, and
the offer of the eight hundred and seventy-two moidores which were un
disposed of, which I desired might be given, five hundred to the monas
tery, and three hundred and seventy-two to the poor, as the prior should
direct ; desiring the good padre's prayers for me, and the like.
I wrote next a letter of thanks to my two trustees, with all the
acknowledgment that so much justice and honesty called for; as for
sending them any present, they were far above having any occasion of it.
Lastly, I wrote to my partner, acknowledging his industry in the im
proving the plantation, and his integrity in increasing the stock of the
works ; giving him instructions for his future government of my part,
according to the powers I had left with my old patron, to whom I desired
him to send whatever came due to me, till he should hear from me more
particularly ; assuring him that it was my intention not only to come to
him, but to settle myself there for the remainder of my life. To this I
added a very handsome present of some Italian silks for his wife and two
daughters, for such the captain's son informed me he had ; with two
pieces of fine English broad-cloth, the best I could get in Lisbon, five
pieces of black baize, and some Flanders lace of a good value.
Having thus settled my affairs, sold my cargo, and turned all my
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 257
effects into good bills of exchange, my next difficulty was, which way to
go to England : I had been accustomed enough to the sea, and yet I had
a strange aversion to go to England by sea at that time ; and though I
could give no reason for it, yet the difficulty increased upon me so much,
that, though I had once shipped my baggage in order to go, yet I altered
my mind, and that not once, but two or three times*
It is true I had been very unfortunate by sea y and this might be one
of the reasons ; but let no man slight the strong, impulses of his own
thoughts in cases of such moment : two of the ships which I had singled
out to go in, I mean more particularly singled out than any other, having
put my things on board one of them, and, in the other, agreed with
the captain ; I say, two of these ships miscarried, viz,,, one was taken by
the Algerines, and the other was cast away on the Start, near Torbay,
and all the people drowned, except three ; so that in either of those vessels
I had been made miserable, and in which most, it was hard to say.
Having been thus harassed in my thoughts, my old pilot, to whom I
communicated every thing, pressed me earnestly not to go by sea, but
either to go by land to the Groyne (Corunna), and cross over the Bay of
Biscay to EocheUe, from whence it was but an easy and safe journey by
land to Paris, and so to Calais and Dover ; or to go up to Madrid, and so
all the way by land through Prance.
In a word, I was so prepossessed against my going by sea at all, except
from Calais to Dover, that I resolved to travel all the way by land ;
which, as I was not in haste, and did not value the charge, was by much
the pleasanter way : and to make it more so, my old captain brought an
English gentleman, the son of a merchant in Lisbon, who was willing to
travel with me; after which we picked up two English merchants
and two young Portuguese gentlemen, the last going to Paris only ;
so that in all there were six of us, and five servants, the two merchants
and the two Portuguese contenting themselves with one servant between
two, to save the charge. As for me, I got an English sailor to travel with
me as a servant, besides my man" Friday, who was too much a. stranger, to
be capable of supplying the place of a servant on the road.
In this manner I set out from Lisbon ; and our company being very
well mounted and armed, we made a little troop y whereof they did. me the
honour to call me captain, as well because I was> the oldest man, as
because I had two servants, and, indeed, was the original of the whole
journey.
17
258 ADVENTURES OF
As I have troubled you with none of my sea journals, so I shall
trouble you now with none of my land journals ; but some adventures
that happened to us in this tedious and difficult journey I must not omit.
When we came to Madrid, we being all of us strangers to Spain, were
willing to stay some time to see the court of Spain, and to see what was
worth observing ; but it being the latter part of the summer, we hastened
away, and set out from Madrid about the middle of October. But when
we came to the edge of Navarre, we were alarmed, at several towns
on the way, with an account that so much snow was fallen on the French
side of the mountains, that several travellers were obliged to come back
to Pampeluna, after having attempted, at an extreme hazard, to pass on.
When we came to Pampeluna itself, we found it so, indeed ; and to
me, that had been always used to a hot climate, and to countries where I
could scarce bear any clothes on, the cold was insufferable : nor, indeed,
was it more painful than surprising, to come but ten days before out of
Old Castile, where the weather was not only warm, but very hot, and
immediately to feel a wind from the Pyrenean mountains, so very keen,
so severely cold, as to be intolerable, and to endanger the benumbing and
perishing of our fingers and toes.
Poor Friday was really frighted when he saw the mountains all
covered with snow, and felt cold weather, which he had never seen or felt
before in his life.
To mend the matter, when we came to Pampeluna, it continued snow
ing with so much violence, and so long, that the people said winter was
come before its time ; and the roads, which were difficult before, were now
quite impassable : for, in a word, the snow lay in some places too thick
for us to travel, and being not hard frozen, as is the case in the northern
countries, there was no going without being in danger of being buried
alive every step. "We staid no less than twenty days at Pampeluna;
when, seeing the winter coming on, and no likelihood of its being better,
for it was the severest winter all over Europe that had been known in
the memory of man, I proposed that we should all go away to Fontarabia,
and there take shipping for Bourdeaux, which was a very little voyage.
But while we were considering this, there came in four French gen-"
tlemen, who having been stopped on the French side of the passes, as we
were on the Spanish, had found out a guide, who, traversing the country
near the head of Languedoc, had brought them over the mountains by
such ways that they were not much incommoded with the snow, and,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. . 259
where they met with snow in any quantity, they said it was frozen hard
enough to bear them and their horses.
We sent for this guide, who told us he would undertake to carry us
the same way with no hazard from the snow, provided we were armed
sufficiently to protect ourselves from wild beasts ; for, he said, upon these
great snows it was frequent for some wolves to show themselves at the
foot of the mountains, being made ravenous for want of food, the ground
being covered with snow. "We told him we were well enough prepared
for such creatures as they were, if he would insure us from a kind of two-
legged wolves, which, we were told, we were in most danger from,
especially on the Erench side of the mountains.
He satisfied us there was no danger of that kind in the way that we
were to go ; so we readily agreed to 'follow him, as did also twelve
other gentlemen, with their servants, some French, some Spanish, who,
as I said, had attempted to go, and were obliged to come back again.
Accordingly, we all set out from Pampeluna, with our guide, on the
15th of November ; and, indeed, I was surprised, when, instead of going
forward, he came directly back with us on the same road that we came
from Madrid, above twenty miles, when, having passed two rivers, and
come into the plain country, we found ourselves in a warm climate again,
where the country was pleasant, and no snow to be seen ; but on a sudden,
turning to his left, he approached the mountains another way, and though
it is true the hills and precipices looked dreadful, yet he made so many
tours, such meanders, and led us by such winding ways, we insensibly
passed the height of the mountains without being much incumbered with
the snow ; and all on a sudden he showed us the pleasant fruitful pro
vinces of Languedoc and Gascoigne, all green and flourishing, though,
indeed, at a great distance, and we had some rough way to pass yet.
We were a little uneasy, however, when we found it snowed one
whole day and a night so fast that we could not travel ; but he bade us
be easy, we should soon be past it all. We found, indeed, that we began
to descend every day, and to come more north than before ; and so,
depending upon our guide, we went on.
It was about two hours before night, when, our guide being something
before us and not just in sight, out rushed three monstrous wolves, and
after them a bear, out of a hollow way adjoining to a thick wood. Two
of the wolves flew upon the guide, and had he been half-a-mile before us
he had been devoured, indeed, before we could have helped him : one of
260 ADVENTURES OF
them fastened upon his horse, and the other attacked the man with that
violence, that he had not time, or not presence of mind enough, to draw
his pistol, but hallooed and cried out to us most lustily. My man Friday
being next me, I bade him ride up, and see what was the matter. As
soon as Friday came in sight of the man, he hallooed out as loud as the
other, "0 master! master!" but, like a bold fellow, rode up directly
to the man, and with his pistol shot the wolf that attacked him in the
head.
It was happy for the poor man that it was my man Friday ; for he,
having been used to such creatures in his country, had no fear upon him,
but went close up to him and shot him, as above : whereas, any other of
us would have fired at a greater distance, and have perhaps either missed
the wolf, or endangered shooting the man.
But it was enough to have terrified a bolder man than I, and, indeed,
it alarmed all our company, when, with the noise of Friday's pistol, we
beard on both sides the dismalest howlings of wolves, and the noise re
doubled by the echo of the mountains, that it was to us as if there had
been a prodigious multitude of them ; and, perhaps, indeed, there was not
such a few as that we had no cause of apprehension.
However, as Friday had killed this wolf, the other that had fastened
upon the horse left him immediately, and fled, having happily fastened
upon his head, where the bosses of the bridle stuck in his teeth, so that
he had not done him much hurt : the man, indeed, was most hurt, for
the raging creature had bit him twice, once on the arm, and the other
time a little above his knee, and he was just as it were tumbling down by
the disorder of the horse, when Friday came up and shot the wolf.
It is easy to suppose that, at the noise of Friday's pistol, we all
mended our pace, and rode up as fast as the way, which was very diffi
cult, would give us leave, to see what was the matter. As soon as we
came clear of the trees which blinded us before, we saw clearly what had
been the case, and how Friday had disengaged the poor guide, though we
did not presently discern what kind of creature it was he had killed.
But never was a fight managed so hardily, and in such a surprising
manner, as that which followed between Friday and the bear, which gave
us all (though at first we were surprised and afraid for him) the greatest
diversion imaginable. As the bear is a heavy, clumsy creature, and does
not gallop as the wolf does, which is swift and light, so he has two parti
cular qualities which generally are the rule of his actions : first, as to
KOBINSON CKUSOE.
261
men, who are not his proper prey I say not his proper prey, because,
though I can't say what excessive hunger might do, which was now their
case, the ground being all covered with snow, yet as to men, he does not
usually attempt them, unless they first attack him; on the contrary, if
262 ADVENTURES OF
you meet him in the woods, if you don't meddle with him, he won't
meddle with you : hut then you must take care to he very civil to him,
and give him the road, for he is a very nice gentleman ; he won't go a
step out of his way for a prince nay, if you are really afraid, your hest
way is to look another way, and keep going on, for sometimes, if you
stop and stand still, and look steadfastly at him, he takes it for an affront,
and if you throw or toss anything at him, and it hits him, though it were
hut a hit of stick as hig as your finger, he takes it for an affront, and sets
all other business aside to pursue his revenge, for he will have satisfaction
in point of honour, and this is his first quality : the next is, that if he
be once affronted, he will never leave you, night nor day, till he has his
revenge, hut follow at a good round rate till he overtakes you.
My man Friday had delivered our guide, and when we came up to
him, he was helping him off his horse, for the man was both hurt and
frighted and, indeed, the last more than the first when, on a sudden,
we espied the bear come out of the wood, and a vast monstrous one it
was, the biggest by far that ever I saw. We were all a little surprised
when we saw him ; but when Friday saw him, it was asy to see joy and
courage in the fellow's countenance. " ! 0! 0!" says Friday, three
times, pointing to him; " master ! you give me te leave, me shakee te
hand with him ; me makee you good laugh."
I was surprised to see the fellow so pleased. "You fool," says I,
"he will eat you up." "Eatee me up! eatee me up!" says Friday,
twice over again ; " me eatee him up ; me makee you good laugh. You
all stay here, me show you good laugh." So down he sits, and gets
his boots off in a moment, and put on a pair of pumps (as we call the
flat shoes they wear), which he had in his pocket, gives my other servant
his horse, and with his gun away he flew, swift like the wind.
The bear was walking softly on, and offered to meddle with nobody,
till Friday, coming pretty near, calls to him, as if the bear could under
stand him, "Hark ye, hark ye," says Friday, "me speakee wit you."
We followed at a distance, for now being come down on the Gascoigne
side of the mountains, we were entered a vast great forest, where the
country was plain and pretty open, though many trees in it scattered here
and there.
Friday, who had, as we say, the heels of the bear, came up with him
quickly, and takes up a great stone and throws at him, and hit him just
on the head, but did him no more harm than if he had thrown it against
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 263
a wall ; but it answered Friday's end, for the rogue was so void of fear
that he did it purely to make the bear follow him, and show us some
laugh, as he called it. As soon as the bear felt the stone, and saw him,
he turns about, and comes after him, taking devilish long strides, and
shuffling along at a strange rate, so as would put a horse to a middling
gallop : away runs Friday, and takes his course as if he run towards us
for help ; so we all resolved to fire at once upon the bear y and deliver my
man though I was angry at him heartily for bringing the bear back
upon us, when he was going about his own business another way ; and
especially I was angry that he had turned the bear upon us, and then run
away, and I called out, " You dog, is this your making us laugh ? Come
away, and take your horse, that we may shoot the creature." He hears
me, and cries out, " ~No shoot, no shoot ; stand still, and you get much
laugh ;" and as the nimble creature ran two feet for the beast's one, he
turned on a sudden on one side of us, and seeing a great oak tree fit for
his purpose, he beckoned us to follow, and, doubling his pace, he gets
nimbly up the tree, laying his gun down upon the ground at about five
or six yards from the bottom of the tree.
The bear soon came to the tree, and we followed at a distance : the
first thing he did, he stopped at the gun, smelt to it, but let it lie, and up
he scrambles into the tree, climbing like a cat, though so monstrously
heavy. I was amazed at the folly, as I thought it, of my man, and could
not for my life see any thing to laugh at yet, till, seeing the bear get up
the tree, we all rode nearer to him.
When we came to the tree, there was Friday got out to the small of a
large limb of the tree, and the bear got about half way to him. As soon
as the bear got out to that part where the limb of the tree was weaker,
" Ha !" says he to us, " now you see me teachee the bear dance ;" BO he
falls a jumping and shaking the bough, at which the bear began to totter,,
but stood still, and began to look behind him, to see how he should get
back; then, indeed, we did laugh heartily. But Friday had not done
with him by a great deal : when he sees him stand still, he calls out to
him again, as if he had supposed the bear could speak English, " "What,
you come no farther? pray you come farther;" so he left jumping and
shaking the bough, and the bear, just as if he had understood what he
said, did come a little farther ; then he fell a jumping again, and the bear
stopped again.
We thought now was a good time to knock him on the head, and
264 ADVENTURES OP
called to Friday to stand still, and we would shoot the bear ; but he cried
out earnestly, " pray ! pray! no shoot, me shoot by and then ;" he
would have said, by and by. However, to shorten the story, Friday
danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had laughing
enough indeed, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do ; for
first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off, and we found the
bear was too cunning for that too, for he would not go out far enough to-
be thrown down, but clings fast with his great broad claws and feet, so
that we could not imagine what would be the end of it, and where the
jest would be at last.
Eut Friday put us out of doubt quickly ; for, seeing the bear cling
fast to the bough, and that he would not be persuaded to come any
farther, "Well, well," says Friday, "you no come farther, me go, me
go ; you no come to me, me come to you," and upon this, he goes out to
the smallest end of the bough, where it would bend with his weight, and
gently lets himself down by it, sliding down the bough, till he came near
enough to jump down on his feet, and away he runs to his gun, takes it
up, and stands still.
"Well," said I to him, "Friday, what will you do now? Why
don't you shoot him?" "JSTo shoot," says Friday, "no yet; me shoot
now me no kill ; me stay, give you one more laugh." And, indeed, so he
did, as you will see presently : for when the bear saw his enemy gone, he
comes back from the bough where he stood, but did it mighty leisurely,
looking behind him at every step, and coming backward till he got into
the body of the tree ; then, with the same hinder end foremost, he came
down the tree, grasping it with his claws, and moving one foot at a time,
very leisurely. At this juncture, and just before he could set his hind
feet on the ground, Friday stepped up close, to him, clapped the muzzle
of his piece into his ear, and shot him dead as a stone.
Then the rogue turned about, to see if we did not laugh ; and when
he saw we were pleased, by our looks, he falls a laughing himself very
loud. " So we kill bear in my country," says Friday. " So you kill
them?" says I; "why you have no guns." "No," says he, "no gun,
but shoot great much long arrow."
This was a good diversion to us ; but we were still in a wild place,
and our guide very much hurt, and what to do we hardly knew : the
howling of wolves run much in my head; and, indeed, except the
noise I once heard on the shore of Africa, of which I have said some-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 265
thing already, I never heard any thing that filled me with so much
horror.
These things, and the approach of night, called us off, or else, as
Friday would have had us, we should certainly have taken the skin of this
monstrous creature off, which was worth saving ; but we had near three
leagues to go, and our guide hastened us, so we left him, and went forward
on our journey.
The ground was still covered with snow, though not so deep and
dangerous as on the mountains ; and the ravenous creatures, as we heard
afterwards, were come down into the forest and plain country, pressed by
hunger, to seek for food, and had done a great deal of mischief in the
villages, where they surprised the country peeple, killed a great many of
their sheep and horses, and some people too.
We had one dangerous place to pass, of which our guide told us, if
there were more wolves in the counfry we should find them there ; and
this was a small plain, surrounded with woods on every side, and a long
narrow defile, or lane, which we were to pass to get through the wood,
and then we should come to the village where we were to lodge.
It was within half an hour of sunset when we entered the first *vood,
and a little after sunset when we came into the plain. We met with
nothing in the first wood, except that, in a little plain within the wood
which was not above two furlongs over, we saw five great wolves cross
the road, full speed, one after another, as if they had been in chase of
some prey, and had it in view ; they took no notice of us, and were gone
out of sight in a few moments.
Upon this our guide, who, by the way, was but a faint-hearted fellow,
bid us keep in a ready posture, for he believed there were more wolves
a-coming.
We kept our arms ready, and our eyes about us; but we saw no
more wolves till we came through that wood, which was near half a
league, and entered the plain. As soon as we came into the plain, we had
occasion enough to look about us : the first object we met with was a
dead horse, that is to say, a poor horse which the wolves had killed, and
at least a dozen of them at work, we could not say eating of him, but
picking of his bones rather, for they had eaten up all the flesh before.
"We did not think fit to disturb them at their feast ; neither did they
take much notice of us. Friday would have let fly at them, but I would
not suffer him by any means ; for I found we were like to have more
266 ADVENTURES OF
business upon our hands than we were aware of. We were not gone half
over the plain, when we began to hear the wolves howl on our left in a
frightful manner, and presently after we saw about a hundred coming on
directly towards us, all in a body, and most of them in a line, as regularly
as an army drawn up by an experienced officer. I scarce knew in what
manner to receive them, but found to draw ourselves in a close line was
the only way : so we formed in a moment. But that we might not have
too much interval, I ordered that only every other man should fire, and
that the others who had not fired should stand ready to give them a second
volley immediately, if they continued to advance upon us ; and then that
those who had fired at first should not pretend to load their fusils again,
but stand ready every one with a pistol, for we were all armed with a fusil
and a pair of pistols each man ; so we were by this method able to fire
six volleys, half of us at a time. However,, at present we had no neces
sity ; for upon firing the first volley, the enemy made a full stop, being
terrified as well with the noise as with the fire ; four of them, being shot
in the head, dropped ; several others were wounded, and went bleeding
off, as we could see by the snow. I found they stopped, but did not
immediately retreat ; whereupon, remembering that I had been told that
the fiercest creatures were terrified at the voice of a man, I caused all our
company to halloo as loud as they could : and I found the notion was not
altogether mistaken ; for, upon our shout, they began to retire, and turn
about. I then ordered a second volley to be fired in their rear, which put
them to the gallop, and away they went to the woods.
This gave us leisure to charge our pieces again ; and that we might
lose no time, we kept going : but we had but little more than loaded our
fusils, and put ourselves in readiness, when we heard a terrible noise in
the same wood, on our left, only that it was farther onward, the same way
we were to go.
The night was coming on, and the light began to be dusky, which
made it worse on our side ; but the noise increasing, we could easily
perceive that it was the howling and yelling of those hellish creatures ;
and on a sudden, we perceived two or three troop& of wolves, one on our
left, one behind us, and one in our front, so that we seemed to be sur
rounded with them : however, as they did not fall upon us, we kept our
way forward, as fast as we could make our horses go,, which, the way
being very rough, was only a good hard trot. In this manner we came in
view of the entrance of the wood^ through which we were to pass, at the
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 267
farther side of the plain ; but we were greatly surprised, when, coming
nearer the lane or pass, we saw a confused number of wolves standing
just at the entrance.
On a sudden, at another opening of the wood, we heard the noise of a
gun; and, looking that way, out rushed a horse, with a saddle and bridle
on him, flying like the wind, and sixteen or seventeen wolves after him,
full speed ; indeed, the horse had the heels of them, but as we supposed
that he could not hold it at that rate, we doubted not but they would get
up with him at last, and no question but they did.
Here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the entrance
where the horse came out, we found the carcass of another horse and of
two men, devoured by the ravenous creatures. One of them was no
doubt the same whom we heard fixe a gun, for there lay a gun just by him
fired off; but as to the man, his head and upper part of his body were
eaten up.
This filled us with horror, and we knew not what course to take, but
the creatures resolved us soon, for they gathered about us presently, in
hopes of prey ; and I verily believe there were three hundred of them.
It happened very much to our advantage, that, at the entrance into the
wood, but at a little way from it, there lay some large timber trees, which
had been cut down the summer before, and I suppose lay there for carriage.
I drew my little troop in among these trees, and placing ourselves in a line
behind one long tree, I advised them all to alight, and keeping that tree
before us for a breastwork, to stand in a triangle, or three fronts, enclosing
our horses in the centre.
We did so, and it was well we did ; for never was a more furious
charge than the creatures made upon us in this place. They came on
with a growling kind of noise, and mounted the piece of timber, which,
as I said, was our breastwork, as if they were only rushing upon their
prey ; and this fury of theirs, it seems, was principally occasioned by their
seeing our horses behind us, which was the prey they aimed at. I
ordered our men to fire as before, every other man ; and they took their
aim so sure, that they killed several of the wolves at the first volley : but
there was a necessity to keep a continual firing, for they came on like
devils, those behind pushing on those before.
When we had fired a second volley of fusils, we thought they stopped
a little, and I hoped they would have gone off ; but it was but a moment,
for others came forward again : so we fired two volleys of pistols ; and I
268 ADVENTURES OP
believe in these four firings we killed seventeen or eighteen of them, and
lamed twice as many, yet they came on again.
I was loath to spend our shot too hastily ; so I called my servant, not
my man Friday, for he was better employed, for, with the greatest dex
terity imaginable, he charged my fusil and his own while we were
engaged, but as I said, I called my other man, and, giving him a horn of
powder, I bade him lay a train all along the piece of timber, and let it be
a large train. He did so ; and had just time to get away, when the
wolves came up to it, and some were got upon it, when I, snapping an
uncharged pistol close to the powder, set it on fire, and those that were
upon the timber were scorched with it, and six or seven of them fell, or
rather jumped in among us, with the force and fright of the fire : we
dispatched these in an instant, and the rest were so frighted with the
light, which the night, for it was now very near dark, made more terrible,
that they drew back a little. Upon which I ordered our last pistols to be
fired off in one volley, and after that we gave a shout : upon this the
wolves turned tail, and we sallied immediately upon near twenty
lame ones, which we found struggling on the ground, and fell a-cutting
them with our swords, which answered our expectation ; for the crying
and howling they made was better understood by their fellows, so that
they all fled and left us.
"We had, first and last, killed about three score of them ; and had it
been daylight, we had killed many more. The field of battle being thus
cleared, we made forward again, for we had still near a league to go.
We heard the ravenous creatures howl and yell in the woods, as we went,
several times ; and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them, but the
snow dazzling our eyes, we were not certain. So in about an hour more
we came to the town where we were to lodge, which we found in a
terrible fright, and all in arms ; for it seems that the night before, the
wolves and some bears had broke into that village, and put them in a
terrible fright, and they were obliged to keep guard night and day,
but especially in the night, to preserve their cattle, and, indeed, their
people.
The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs swelled so much
with the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther ; so we
were obliged to take a new guide here, and go to Tholouse, where we
found a warm climate, a fruitful pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves,
or any thing like them ; but when we told our story at Tholouse, they
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 269
told us it was nothing but what was ordinary in the great forest at the
foot of the mountains, especially when the snow lay on the ground ; but
they inquired much what kind of a guide we had gotten, that would
venture to bring us that way in such a severe season, and told us it was
very strange we were not all devoured. When we told them how we
placed ourselves, and the horses in the middle, they blamed us exceedingly,
and told us it was fifty to one but we had been all destroyed, for it was
the sight of the horses that made the wolves so furious, seeing their prey,
and that, at other times, they are really afraid of a gun ; but they, being
excessive hungry, and raging on that account, the eagerness to come at
the horses had made them senseless of danger, and if we had not, by the
continued fire, and at last by the stratagem of the train of powder,
mastered them, it had been great odds but that we had been torn to
pieces : whereas, had we been content to have sat still on horseback, and
fired as horsemen, they would not have taken the horses so much for their
own, when men were on their backs, as otherwise : and withal they told
us, that, at last, if we had stood altogether, and left our horses, they
would have been so eager to have devoured them, that we might have
come off safe, especially having our fire arms in our hands, and being so
many in number.
For my part, I was never so sensible of danger in my life ; for seeing
above three hundred devils come roaring and open-mouthed to devour us,
and having nothing to shelter us, or retreat to, I gave myself over for lost ;
and, as it was, I believe I shall never care to cross those mountains again :
I think I would much rather go a thousand leagues by sea, though I was
sure to meet with a storm once a week.
I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through
France, nothing but what other travellers have given an account of, with
much more advantage than I can. I travelled from Tholouse to Paris, and
without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover,
the 14th of January, after having had a severe cold season to travel in.
I was now come to the centre of my travels, and had in a little time
all my new discovered estate safe about me ; the bills of exchange which
I brought with me having been very currently paid.
My principal guide and privy counsellor was my good ancient widow,
who, in gratitude for the money I had sent her, thought no pains too much,
or care too great, to employ for me ; and I trusted her so entirely with
eveiy thing, that I was perfectly easy as to the security of my effects :
270 ADVENTURES OP
and, indeed, I was very happy from the beginning, and now to the end,
in the unspotted integrity of this good gentlewoman.
And now I began to think of leaving my effects with this woman, and
setting out for Lisbon, and so to the Brazils. But now another scruple
came in the way, and that was religion ; for as I had entertained some
doubts about the Roman religion, even while I was abroad, especially in
my state of solitude, so I knew there was no going to the Brazils for me,
much less going to settle there, unless I resolved to embrace the Roman
Catholic religion, without any reserve ; unless, on the other hand, I
resolved to be a sacrifice to my principles, be a martyr for religion, and
die in the Inquisition. So I resolved to stay at home, and, if I could find
means for it, to dispose of my plantation.
To this purpose I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who, in return
gave me notice that he could easily dispose of it there ; but that if I
thought fit to give him leave to offer it in my name to the two merchants,
the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brazils, who must fully
understand the value of it, who lived just upon the spot, and whom I
knew to be very rich, so that he believed they would be fond of buying it,
he did not doubt but I should make four or five thousand pieces of eight
the more of it.
Accordingly I agreed, gave him orders to offer it to them, and he did
so ; and in about eight months more, the ship being then returned, he sent
me an account that they had accepted the offer, and had remitted thirty-
three thousand pieces of eight to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon to
pay for it. In return, I signed the instrument of sale in the form which
they sent from Lisbon, and sent it to my old man, who sent me the bills
of exchange for thirty-three thousand pieces of eight for the estate;
reserving the payment of one hundred moidores a-year to him (the old
man) during his life, and fifty moidores afterwards to his son for his life,
which I had promised them, and which the plantation was to make good
as a rent- charge.
And thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adven
ture, a life of Providence's chequer-work, and of a variety which the
world will seldom be able to show the like of : beginning foolishly, but
closing much more happily than any part of it ever gave me leave so
much as to hope for,
Any one would think, that in this state of complicated good fortune, I
was past running any more hazards, and so indeed I had been, if other
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
271
circumstances had concurred : but I was inured to a wandering life, had
no family, nor many relations, nor, however rich, had I contracted much
acquaintance; and though I had sold my estate in the Brazils, yet I
could not keep that country out of my head, and had a great mind to be
upon the wing again : especially I could not resist the strong inclination
I had to see my island, and to know if the poor Spaniards were in being
there ; and how the rogues I left there had used them.
My true friend, the widow, earnestly dissuaded me from it, and so far
prevailed with me, that almost for seven years she prevented my running
abroad, during which time I took my two nephews, the children of one of
my brothers, into my care : the eldest having something of his own, I
bred up as a gentleman, and gave him a settlement of some addition to his
estate, after my decease ; the other I put out to a captain of a ship : and
after five years, finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising young fellow, I
put him into a good ship, and sent him to sea; and this young fellow
afterwards drew me in, as old as I. was, to farther adventures myself.
In the meantime, I in part settled myself here ; for, first of all, I
married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction, and
had three children, two sons and one daughter.
272 ADVENTURES OP
CHAPTER XIX.
Crusoe's reflections in England He dreams of his island, and conceives a desire to return to it,
which his wife discovers Resolves to divert his thoughts, and begins farming in Bedfordshire
On the death of his- wife, he determines to re-visit Ids island, and sets sail in an Ihdiaman, which
is to touch at the Brazils The vessel is driven by contrary winds on to the coast of Galway,
which leads to new adventures Falls in with a French merchant vessel on fire, and delivers the
crew, who are carried to Newfoundland Steers thence for the West Indies, and falls in with a
Bristol ship, the crew and passengers of which are famishing.
[HAT homely proverb used on so many occasions in England,
viz. " That what is bred in the bone will not go out of the
flesh," was never more verified than in the story of my life.
Any one would think that, after thirty-five years' affliction,
and a variety of unhappy circumstances, which few men, if any, ever
went through before, and after near seven years of peace and enjoyment in
the fulness of all things, grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed
me to have had experience of every state of middle life, and to know
which was most adapted to make a man completely happy, I say, after
all this, any one would have thought that the native propensity to
rambling, which I gave an account of in my first setting out in the world
to have been so predominant in my thoughts, should be worn out, the
volatile part be fully evacuated, or at least condensed, and I might, at
sixty-one years of age, have been a little inclined to stay at home, and
have done venturing life and fortune any more*
Nay, farther, the common motive of foreign- adventures was taken
away in me ; for I had no fortune to make I had nothing to seek : if I
had gained ten thousand pounds, I had been no richer, for I had already
sufficient for me, and for those I had to leave it to ; and that I had was
visibly increasing, for, having no great family, I could not spend the
income of what I had, unless I would set up for an expensive way of
living, such as a great family, servants, equipage, gaiety, and the like,
which were things I had no notion of, or inclination to : BO that I had
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 273
nothing indeed to do but to sit still, and fully enjoy what I had got, and
see it increase daily upon my hands.
Yet all these things had no effect upon me, or at least not enough to
resist the strong inclination I had to go abroad again, which hung about me
like a chronical distemper; particularly, the desire of seeing my new plan
tation in the island, and the colony I left there, ran in my head contin
ually. I dreamed of it all night, and my imagination ran upon it all day:
it was uppermost in all my thoughts, and my fancy worked so steadily and
strongly upon it, that I talked of it in my sleep. In short, nothing could
remove it out of my mind : it even broke so violently into all my dis
courses, that it made my conversation tiresome, for I could talk of nothing
else; all my discourse ran into it, even to impertinence, and I saw it
myself.
I have often heard persons of good judgment say, that all the stir people
make in the world about ghosts and apparitions is owing to the strength
of imagination, and the powerful operation of fancy in their minds, that
there is no such thing as a spirit appearing, or a ghost walking, and the
like: that people's poring affectionately upon the past conversation of
their deceased friends, so realises it to them, that they are capable of
fancying, upon some extraordinary circumstances, that they see them,
talk to them, and are answered by them, when, in truth, there is nothing
but shadow and vapour in the thing, and they really know nothing of the
matter.
For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are any such
things as real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are
dead; or whether there is anything in the stories they tell us of that
kind, more than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering fancies :
but this I know, that my imagination worked up to such a height, and
brought me into such excess of vapours, or what else I may call it, that I
actually supposed myself often times upon the spot, at my old castle behind
the trees saw my old Spaniard, Friday's father, and the reprobate sailors
I left upon the island nay, I fancied I talked with them, and looked at
them so steadily, though I was broad awake, as at persons just before me;
and this I did till I often frighted myself with the images my fancy
represented to me. One time, in my sleep, I had the villany of the three
pirate sailors so lively related to me by the first Spaniard and Friday's
father, that it was surprising: they told me how they barbarously
attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that they set fire to the pro-
18
274 ADVENTURES OF
visions they had laid up, on purpose to distress and starve them, things
that I had never heard of, and that were yet all of them true in fact.
But it was so warm in my imagination, and so realised to me, that, to the
hour I saw them, I could not be persuaded but that it was, or would be,
true : also how I resented it, when the Spaniard complained to me ; and
how I brought them to justice, tried them before me, and ordered them all
three to be hanged. What there was really in this shall be seen in its
place ; for however I came to form such things in my dream, and what
secret converse of spirits injected it, yet there was, I say, very much of it
true. I own, that this dream had nothing literally and specifically true ;
but the general part was so true, the base and villanous behaviour of these
three hardened rogues was such, and had been so much worse than all I
can describe, that the dream had too much similitude of the fact ; and as I
would afterwards have punished them severely, so, if I had hanged them
all, I had been much in the right, and should have been justifiable both
by the laws of God and man.
But to return to my story. In this kind of temper I lived some years ;
I had no enjoyment of my life, no pleasant hours, no agreeable diversion,
but what had something or other of this in it ; so that my wife, who
saw my mind so wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously one night, that
she believed there was some secret powerful impulse of Providence upon
me, which had determined me to go thither again; and that she found
nothing hindered my going, but my being engaged to a wife and children.
She told me, that it was true she could not think of parting with me ; but
as she was assured, that if she was dead it would be the first thing I
would do, so, as it seemed to her that the thing was determined above,
she would not be the only obstruction ; for, if I thought fit, and resolved
to go Here she found me very intent upon her words, and that I
looked very earnestly at her, so that it a little disordered her, and she
stopped. I asked her, why she did not go on, and say out what she was
going to say ? But I perceived that her heart was too full, and some
tears stood in her eyes. " Speak out, my dear," said I, " are you willing
I should go?" "No," says she, very affectionately, "I am far from
willing; but if you are resolved to go," says she, "and rather than I
would be the only hinderance, I will go with you : for though I think
it a preposterous thing for one of your years, and in your condition,
yet, if it must be," said she, again weeping, "I won't leave you; for if
it be of Heaven, you must do it ; there ia no resisting it : and if Heaven
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 275
makes it your duty to go, He will make it also mine to go with you, or
otherwise dispose of me, that I may not obstruct it."
This affectionate behaviour of my wife brought me a little out of the
vapours, and I began to consider what I was doing : I corrected my wan
dering fancy, and began to argue with myself sedately what business I
had, after threescore years, and after such a life of tedious sufferings and
disasters, and closed in so happy and easy a manner, I say, what business
had I to rush into new hazards, and put myself upon adventures fit only
for youth, and poverty to run into ?
With those thoughts, I considered my new engagement-*-that I had a
wife, one child born, and my wife then great with child of another that
I had all the world could give me, and had no need to seek hazards for gain
that I was declining in years, and ought to think rather of leaving what
I had gained than of seeking to increase it that, as to what my wife had
said, of its being a secret impulse from Heaven, and that it should be my
duty to go, I had no notion of that : so, after many of these cogitations, I
struggled with the power of my imagination, reasoned myself out of it, as
I believe people may always do in like cases, if they will ; and, in a
word, I conquered it ; composed myself with such arguments as occurred
to my thoughts, and which my present condition furnished me plentifully
with ; and, particularly, as the most effectual method, I resolved to divert
myself with other things, and to engage in some business that might
effectually tie me up from any more excursions of this kind ; for I found
the thing return upon me chiefly when I was idle, had nothing to do, or
any thing of moment immediately before me.
To this purpose I bought a little farm in the county of Bedford,
and resolved to remove myself thither. I had a little convenient house
upon it, and the land about it I found was capable of great improve
ment, and that it was many ways suited to my inclination, which de
lighted in cultivating, managing, planting, and improving of land ;
and, particularly, being an inland county, I was removed from con
versing among ships, sailors, and things relating to the remote part ot
the world.
In a word, I went down to my farm, settled my family, bought me
ploughs, harrows, a cart, waggon, horses, cows, sheep, and, Betting 'seri
ously to work, became in one half year a mere country gentleman. My
thoughts were entirely taken up in managing my servants, cultivating the
ground, enclosing, planting, etc. ; and I lived, as I thought, the most
276 ADVENTURES OF
agreeable life that nature was capable of directing, or that a man always
bred to misfortunes was capable of being retreated to.
I farmed upon my own land I had no rent to pay was limited by
no articles I could pull up or cut down as I pleased what I planted
was for myself, and what I improved was for my family ; and, having
thus left off the thoughts of wandering, I had not the least discomfort in
any part of my life as to this world. !N"ow, I thought, indeed, that I
enjoyed the middle state of life, which my father so earnestly recom
mended to me a kind of heavenly life, something like what is described
by the poet upon the subject of a country life :
" Free from vices, free from care,
Age has no pains, and youth no snare."
But in the middle of all this felicity, one blow from unforeseen Provi
dence unhinged me at once, and not only made a breach upon me, inevit
able and incurable, but drove me, by its consequence, upon a deep relapse
into the wandering disposition, which, as I may say, being born in my
very blood, soon recovered its hold of me, and, like the returns of a
violent distemper, came on with an irresistible force upon me, so that
nothing could make any more impression upon me. This blow was the
loss of my wife.
It is not my business here to write an elegy upon my wife, to give a
character of her particular virtues, and make my court to the sex by the
flattery of a funeral sermon. She was, in a few words, the stay of all my
affairs, the centre of all my enterprises, the engine that, by her prudence,
reduced me to that happy compass I was in, from the most extravagant
and ruinous project that fluttered in my head, as above, and did more to
guide my rambling genius than a mother's tears, a father's instructions, a
friend's counsel, or all my own reasoning powers, could do. I was happy
in listening to her tears, and in being moved by her entreaties, and, to
the last degree, desolate and dislocated in the world, by the loss of her.
( When she was gone, the world looked awkwardly round me ; I was
as much a stranger in it in my thoughts as I was in the Brazils when I
went first on shore, and jj&jnuch alone, except as to the assistance of ser
vants, as I was in my island. I knew neither what to do, or what not to
do ; I "TJiMjm irorM frTi"sy fhnnfl me.jme part labouring for bread, and
the other part squandering in vile excesses, or empty pleasures equally
miserable, because the end they proposed still fled from them ; for the
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 277
men of ^pleasure every day surfeited of their vice, and heaped up work for
sorrow and repentance, and the /men of labour spent their strength in
daily stragglings for bread to maintain the vital strength they laboured
with ; so living in a daily circulation of sorrow living but to work, and
^working but to live, as if daily bread were the only end of a "wearisome
life, and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread.
This put me in mind of the life I lived in my kingdom, the island,
where I suffered no more corn to grow, because I did not want it, and
bred no more goats, because I had no more use for them where the
money lay in the drawer till it grew mildewed, and had scarce the favour
to be looked upon in twenty years.
All these things, had I improved them as I ought to have done, and
as reason and religion had dictated to me, would have taught me tojsearch
farther than humaa, enjoyments for a full felicity, and thatjthere was
something which certainly was the reason and end of life, superior to all
these things'^ and which was either to be possessed, or, at least, hoped for,
on this side of the grave.
But my sage counsellor was gone ; I was like a ship without a pilot,
that could only run before the wind ; my thoughts ran all away again
into the old affair my head was quite turned with the whimsies of
foreign adventures ; and all the pleasing innocent amusements of my farm,
and my garden, my cattle and my family, which before entirely possessed
me, were nothing to me, had no relish, and were like music to one that
has no ear, or food to one that has no taste : in a word, I resolved to
leave off housekeeping, let my farm, and return to London ; and in a few
months after I did so.
When I came to London, I was still as uneasy as before; I had no
relish to the place, no employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter
about like an idle person, of whom it may be said, he is perfectly useless
in_God^creation, and it is not one farthing matter to the rest of his kind
whether he be dead or alive; This also was the thing which, of all cir
cumstances of life, was the most my aversion, who had been all my days
used to an active life ; and I would often say to myself, " A state of idle
ness is the very dregs of life :" and, indeed,__L thought I was much more
suitably employed, when I was twenty-six days making me a deal board.
It was now the beginning of the year 1693, when my nephew, whom,
as I observed before, I had brought up to the sea, and had made him
commander of a ship, was come home from a short voyage to Bilboa,
278 ADVENTURES OF
being the first he had made. He came to me, and told me, that some
merchants of his acquaintance had been proposing to him to go a voyage
for them to the East Indies and to China, as private traders. " And now,
uncle," says he, "if you will go to sea with me, I'll engage to land
you upon your old habitation in the island, for we are to touch at the
Brazils."
Nothing can be a greater demonstration of a future state, and of the
existence of an invisible world, than the concurrence of second causes
with the ideas of things which we form in our minds, perfectly reserved,
and not communicated to any in the world.
My nephew knew nothing how far my distemper of wandering was
returned upon me, and I knew nothing of what he had in his thoughts to
say, when that very morning, before he came to me, I had, in a great
deal of confusion of thought, and revolving every part of my circum
stances in my mind, come to this resolution, namely, that I would go to
Lisbon and consult with my old sea-captain ; and so, if it was rational
and practicable, I would go and see the island again, and see what was
become of my people there. I had pleased myself also with the thoughts
of peopling the place, and carrying inhabitants from hence, getting a
patent for the possession, and I know not what ; when, in the middle of
all this, in comes my nephew, as I have said, with his project of carrying
me thither, in his way to the East Indies.
I paused a while at his words, and, looking steadily at him, " What
devil," said I, " sent you this unlucky errand ?" My nephew started, as
if he had been frighted, at first ; but perceiving I was not much displeased
with the proposal, he recovered himself. "I hope it may not be an
unlucky proposal, sir," says he ; "I dare say you would be pleased to see
your new colony there, where you once reigned with more felicity than
most of your brother monarchs in the world."
In a word, the scheme hit so exactly with my temper, that is to say,
with the prepossession I was under, and of which I have said so much,
that I told him in a few words, if he agreed with the merchants, I would
go with him ; but I told him I would not promise to go any farther than
my own island. " Why, sir," says he, " you don't want to be left there
again, I hope?" "Why," said I, "can you not take me up again in
your return ?" He told me, it could not be possible that the merchants
would alloTy him to come that way with a loaden ship of such value, it
being a month's sail out of his way, and might be three or four : "besides,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 279
sir, if I should miscarry," said he, " and not return at all, then you would
"be just reduced to the condition you were in before."
This was very rational : but we both found out a remedy for it, which
was, to carry a framed sloop on board the ship, which, being taken in
pieces and shipped on board the ship, might, by the help of some car
penters, whom we agreed to carry with us, be set up again in the island
and finished, fit to go to sea in a few days.
I was not long resolving ; for indeed the importunities of my nephew
joined in so effectually with my inclination, that nothing could oppose me ;
on the other hand, my wife being dead, I had no body concerned them
selves so much for me as to persuade me one way or other, except my
ancient good friend, the widow, who earnestly struggled with me to con
sider my years, my easy circumstances, and the needless hazard of a long
voyage, and, above all, my young children : but it was all to no purpose ;
I had an irresistible desire to the voyage, and I told her I thought there
was something so uncommon in the impressions I had upon my mind for
the voyage, that it would be a kind of resisting Providence if I should
attempt to stay at home ; after which she ceased her expostulations, and
joined with me, not only in making provision for my voyage, but also in
settling my family affairs in my absence, and providing for the education
of my children.
In order to this I made my will, and settled the estate I had in such
a manner for my children, and placed in such hands, that I was per
fectly easy and satisfied they would have justice done them, whatever
might befal me ; and for their education, I left it wholly to my widow,
with a sufficient maintenance to herself for her care ; all which she richly
deserved, for no mother could have taken more care in their education, or
understood it better : and as she lived till I came home, I also lived to
thank her for it.
My nephew was ready to sail about the beginning of January 1694-5,
and I, with my man Friday, went on board in the Downs the 8th, having,
besides that sloop which I mentioned above, a very considerable cargo of
all kinds of necessary things for my colony, which, if I did not find in
good condition, I resolved to leave so.
First, I carried with me some servants, whom I purposed to place
there as inhabitants, or at least to set on work there upon my own account
while I staid, and either to leave them there, or carry them, forward, as
they should appear willing ; particularly, I carried two carpenters, and a
280 ADVENTURES OP
smith, and a very handy, ingenious fellow, who was a cooper by trade,
but was also a general mechanic ; for he was dexterous at making wheels
and hand-mills to grind corn, was a good turner, and a good pot-maker ;
he also made any thing that was proper to make of earth or of wood : in
a word, we called him our " Jack-of- all- trades."
"With these I carried a tailor, who had offered himself to go passenger
to the East Indies with my nephew, but afterwards consented to stay on
our new plantation, and proved a most necessary handy fellow as could be
desired, in many other businesses besides that of his trade; for, as I
observed formerly, necessity arms us for all employments.
My cargo, as near as I can recollect, for I have not kept an account of
the particulars, consisted of a sufficient quantity of linen, and some thin
English stuffs for clothing the Spaniards that I expected to find there, and
enough of them as, by my calculation, might comfortably supply them for
seven years. If I remember right, the materials which I carried for
clothing them, with gloves, hats, shoes, stockings, and all such things as
they could want for wearing, amounted to above two hundred pounds,
including some beds, bedding, and household stuff, particularly kitchen
utensils, with pots, kettles, pewter, brass, etc., besides, near a hundred
pounds more in ironwork, nails, tools of every kind, staples, hooks, hinges,
and every necessary thing I could think of.
I carried also a hundred spare arms, muskets, and fusils, besides some
pistols, a considerable quantity of shot of all sizes, three or four tons of
lead, and two pieces of brass cannon ; and because I knew not what time
and what extremities I was providing for, I carried a hundred barrels of
powder, besides swords, cutlasses, and the iron part of some pikes and
halberts ; so that, in short, we had a large magazine of all sorts of stores ;
and I made my nephew carry two small quarter-deck guns more than he
wanted for his ship, to leave behind if there was occasion, that when
they came there we might build a fort, and man it against all sorts of
enemies ; and indeed I at first thought that there would be need enough
of it all, and much more, if we hoped to maintain our possession of the
island, as shall be seen in the course of the story.
I had not such bad luck in this voyage as I had been used to meet
with : and therefore shall have the less occasion to interrupt the reader,
who, perhaps, may be impatient to hear how matters went with my colony ;
yet some odd accidents, cross winds, and bad weather, happened on this
first setting out, which made the voyage longer than I expected it at first ;
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 281
and I, who had never made but one voyage, namely, my first voyage to
Guinea, in which I might be said to come back again as the voyage was
first designed, began to think the same ill fate still attended me, that I
was born never to be contented with being on shore, and yet to be always
unfortunate at sea.
Contrary winds first put us to the northward, and we were obliged to
put in at Galway, in Ireland, where we lay wind-bound two and thirty
days ; but we had this satisfaction with the disaster, that provisions were
here exceedingly cheap, and in the utmost plenty ; so that while we lay
here we never touched the ship's stores, but rather added to them. Here
also I took several hogs, and two cows with their calves, which I resolved,
if I had a good passage, to put on shore in my island, but we found occa
sion to dispose otherwise of them.
We set out on the 5th of February from Ireland, and had a very fair
gale of wind for some days ; as I remember, it might be about the 20th
of February, in the evening late, when the mate having the watch, came
into the round house, and told us he saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun
fired ; and while he was telling us of it, a boy came in, and told us the
boatswain heard another. This made us all run out upon the quarter
deck, where for a while we heard nothing, but in a few minutes we saw a
282 ADVENTURES OP
very great light, and found that there was some very terrible fire at a dis
tance. Immediately we had recourse to our reckonings, in which we all
agreed that there could be no land that way in which the fire showed
itself no, not for five hundred leagues, for it appeared at west-north-west.
Upon this, we concluded it must be some ship on fire at sea ; and, as by
our hearing the noise of the guns just before we concluded it could not be
far off, we stood directly towards it, aL.d were presently satisfied we should
discover it, because the farther we sailed the greater the light appeared,
though the weather being hazy, we could not perceive any thing but the
light for a while. In about half an hour's sailing, the wind being fair for
us, though not much of it, and the weather clearing up a little, we could
plainly discern it was a great ship on fire in the middle of the sea.
I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all ac
quainted with the persons engaged in it ; I presently recollected my
former circumstances, in what condition I was in when taken up by the
Portuguese captain ; and how much more deplorable the circumstances of
the poor creatures belonging to this ship must be if they had no other
ship in company with them : upon this, I immediately ordered that five
guns should be fired, one soon after another, that, if possible, we might
give notice to them that there was help for them at hand, and that they
might endeavour to save themselves in their boat ; for though we could
see the flame in the ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.
We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship
drove, waiting for daylight ; when on a sudden, to our great terror, though
we had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air, and immediately
sunk. This was terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of
the poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the ship,
or be in the utmost distress in their boats in the middle of the ocean,
which at present, by reason it was dark, I could not see : however, to
direct them as well as I could, I caused lights to be hung out in all the
parts of the ship where we could, and which we had lanterns for, and kept
firing guns all the night long : letting them know by this, that there was
a ship not far off.
About eight o'clock in the morning we discovered the ship's boats by
the help of our perspective glasses ; and found there were two of them,
both thronged with people, and deep in the water : we perceived they
rowed, the wind being against them that they saw our ship, and did the
utmost to make us see them.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 283
We immediately spread our ancient, to let them know we saw them,
and hung a waft out, as a signal for them to come on board ; and then
made more sail, standing directly to them. In a little more than half an
hour we came up with them r and, in a word, took them all in, being no
less than sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were a great
many passengers.
Upon the whole, we found it was a French merchant ship, of three
hundred tons, homeward bound from Quebec, in the river of Canada.
The master gave us a long account of the distress of his ship, how the fire
began in the steerage by the negligence of the steersman ; but, on his
crying out for help, was, as every body thought, entirely got out : but
they soon found that some of the sparks of the first fire had gotten into
some part of the ship, so difficult to come at, that they could not effec
tually quench it ; and afterwards getting in between the timbers, and
within the ceiling of the ship, it proceeded into the hold, and mastered all
the skill and all the application they were able to exert.
They had no more to do then but to get into their boats, which, to
their great comfort, were pretty large ; being their long-boat, and a great
shallop, besides a small skin 7 , which was of no great service to them, other
than to get some fresh water and provisions into her, after they had
secured themselves from the fire. They had indeed small hope of their
lives by getting into these boats at that distance from any land ; only, as
they said well, that they were escaped from the fire, and had a possibility
that some ship might happen to be at sea, and might take them in. They
had sails, oars, and a compass ; and were preparing to make the best of
their way to Newfoundland, the wind blowing pretty fair, for it blew an
easy at south-east-by-east. They had as much provisions and water as,
with sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might support them
about twelve days ; in which, if they had no bad weather, and no con
trary winds, the captain said, he hoped he might get to the banks of
Newfoundland, and might perhaps take some fish to sustain them till they
might go on shore. But there were so many chances against them in all
these cases such as storms to overset and founder them, rains and cold to
benumb and perish their limbs, contrary winds to keep them out and
starve them that it must have been next to miraculous if they had
escaped.
In the midst of their consultations, every one being hopeless, and
ready to despair, the captain, with tears in his eyes, told me, they were
284 ADVENTURES OP
on a sudden surprised with, the joy of hearing a gun fire, and after that
four more ; these were the five guns which I caused to be fired at first
seeing the light: this revived their hearts, and gave them the notice
which, as above, I designed it should, namely, that there was a ship at
hand for their help.
It was upon the hearing these guns, that they took down their masts
and sails ; and the sound coming from windward, they resolved to lie by
till morning. Some time after this, hearing no more guns, they fired
three muskets, one a considerable while after another ; but these, the
wind being contrary, we never heard.
Some time after that again, they were still more agreeably surprised
with seeing our lights, and hearing our guns, which, as I have said, I
caused to be fired all the rest of the night : this set them to work with
their oars to keep their boats ahead, at least that we might the sooner
come up with them ; and at last, to their inexpressible joy, they found we
saw them.
It is impossible for me to express the several gestures, the strange
ecstacies, the variety of postures, which these poor delivered people ran
into, to express the joy of their souls at so unexpected a deliverance.
Grief and fear are easily described sighs, te.ars, groans, and a very few
motions of head and hands, make up the sum of its variety : but an
excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thousand extravagances in it ;
there were some in tears, some raging and tearing themselves, as if they
had been in the greatest agonies of sorrow ; some stark raving and down
right lunatic ; some ran about the ship stamping with their feet, others
wringing their hands ; some were dancing, several singing, some laughing,
more crying ; many quite dumb, not able to speak a word ; others sick
and vomiting, several swooning, and ready to faint ; and a few were
crossing themselves and giving God thanks.
I would not wrong them neither there might be many that were
thankful afterward ; but the passion was too strong for them at first, and
they were not able to master it they were thrown into ecstacies and a
kind of frenzy, and so there were but a very few who were composed and
serious in their joy.
Perhaps also the case may have some addition to it, from the particu
lar circumstance of the nation they belonged to I mean the French,
whose temper is allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and more
sprightly, and their spirits more fluid, than of other nations. I am not a
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 285
philosopher to determine the cause, but nothing I had ever seen before
came up to it ; the ecstacies poor Friday, my trusty savage, was in, when
he found his father in the boat, came the nearest to it ; and the surprise
of the master, and his two companions, whom I delivered from the villains
that set them on shore on the island, came a little way towards it ; but
nothing was to compare to this, either that I saw in Friday, or any where
else in my life.
It is farther observable, that these extravagances did not show them
selves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different persons
only ; but all the variety would appear in a short succession of moments,
in one and the same person. A man that we saw this minute dumb, and,
as it were, stupid and confounded, should the next minute be dancing and
hallooing like an antic ; and the next moment a-tearing his hair, or
pulling his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like a
madman ; a few minutes after that, we should have him fall into tears,
then sick, then swooning ; and, had not immediate help been had, would
in a few moments more have been dead : and thus it was, not with one
or two, or ten, or twenty, but with the greatest part of them ; and, if I
remember right, our surgeon was obliged to let above thirty of them
blood.
There were two priests among them, one an old man, and the other a
young man ; and that which was strangest was, that the oldest man was
the worst.
As soon as he set his foot on board our ship, and saw himself safe, he
dropped down stone dead to all appearance not the least sign of life
could be perceived in him. Our surgeon immediately applied proper
remedies to recover him, and was the only man in the ship that believed
he was not dead ; and at length he opened a vein in his arm, having first
chafed and rubbed the part, so as to warm it as much as possible : upon
this, the blood, which only dropped at first, flowed something freely : in
three minutes after, the man opened his eyes ; and, about a quarter of an
hour after that, he spoke, grew better, and, in a little time, quite well.
After the blood was stopped, he walked about, told us he was perfectly
well, took a dram of cordial which the surgeon gave him, and was, what
we called, come to himself. About a quarter of an hour after this they
came running into the cabin to the surgeon, who was bleeding a French
woman that had fainted, and told him the priest was gone stark mad. It
seems he had begun to revolve the change of his circumstances in his
286 ADVENTURES OF
mind, and this put him into an ecstacy of joy ; his spirits whirled about
faster than the vessels could convey them ; the blood grew hot and fever
ish, and the man was as fit for Bedlam as any creature that ever was in
it : the surgeon would not bleed him again in that condition, but gave him
something to doze and put him to sleep, which, after some time, operated
upon him, and he waked next morning perfectly composed and well.
The younger priest behaved himself with great command of his passion,
and was really an example of a serious, well- governed mind. At his first
coming on board the ship, he threw himself flat on his face, prostrating
himself in thankfulness for his deliverance, in which I unhappily and
unseasonably disturbed him, really thinking he had been in a swoon : but
he spoke calmly, thanked me, told me he was giving God thanks for his
deliverance, begged me to leave him a few moments, and that, next to his
Maker, he would give me thanks also.
I was heartily sorry that I disturbed him, and not only left him, but
kept others from interrupting him also ; he continued in that posture
about three minutes, or a little more, after I left him, then came to me,
as he had said he would, and with a great deal of seriousness and affec
tion, but with tears in his eyes, thanked me that had, under God, given
him and so many miserable creatures their lives. I told him I had no
room to move him to thank God for it rather than me ; for I had seen
that he had done that already : but I added, that it was nothing but what
reason and humanity dictated to all men, and that we had as much reason
as he to give thanks to God, who had blessed us so far as to make us the
instruments of his mercy to many of his creatures.
After this, the young priest applied himself to his country folks
laboured to compose them, persuaded, entreated, argued, reasoned with
them, and did his utmost to keep them within the exercise of their
reason ; and with some he had success, though others were, for a time,
out of all government of themselves.
I cannot help committing this to writing, and perhaps it may be
useful to those into whose hands it may fall, in the guiding themselves in
all the extravagances of their passions ; for, if an excess of joy can carry
men out to such a length beyond the reach of their reason, what will not
the extravagances of anger, rage, and a provoked mind, carry us to?
And, indeed, here I saw reason for keeping an exceeding watch over our
passions of every kind, as well those of joy and satisfaction, as those of
sorrow and anger.
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
We were sometimes disordered by these extravagances among our ne^\
guests for the first day ; but when they had been retired, lodgings pro
vided for them all as well as our ship would allow, and they had slept
heartily, as most of them did, being fatigued and frighted, they were
quite another sort of people the next day.
Nothing of good manners, or civil acknowledgments for the kindness
shown them, was wanting ; the French, it is known, are naturally apt
enough to exceed that way. The captain and one of the priests came to
me the next day, and, desiring to speak with me and my nephew, the
commander, began to consult with us what should be done with them ;
and, first, they told us, that as we had saved their lives, so all they had
was little enough for a return to us for the kindness received. The
captain said they had saved some money, and some things of value in
their boats, catched hastily out of the flames ; and if we would accept
of it, they were ordered to make an offer of it all to us ; they only desired
to be set on shore somewhere in our way, where, if possible, they might
get a passage to Trance.
My nephew was for accepting their money at first word, and to con
sider what to do with them afterwards, but I overruled him in that part :
for I knew what it was to be set on shore in a strange country ; and if
the Portuguese captain that took me up at sea had served me so, and took
all that I had for my deliverance, I must have starved, or have been as
much a slave at the Brazils as I had been at Barbary, the being sold to a
Mahometan only excepted ; and perhaps a Portuguese is not a much
better master than a Turk, if not, in some cases, a much worse.
I therefore told the French captain that we had taken them up in
their distress, it was true ; but that it was our duty to do so, as we were
fellow creatures, and as we would desire to be so delivered, if we were in
the like or any other extremity ; that we had done nothing for them but
what we believed they would have done for us, if we had been in their
case, and they in ours ; but that we took them up to serve them, not to
plunder them ; and that it would be a most barbarous thing to take that
little from them which they had saved out of the fire, and then set them
on shore and leave them ; that this would be first to save them from
death, and tnen kill them ourselves save them from drowning, and then
abandon them to starving : and therefore I would not let the least thing
be taken from them. As to setting them on shore, I told them, indeed,
that was an exceeding difficulty to us, for that the ship was bound to the
28"
ADVENTURES OF
Indies ; and though we were driven out of our course to the west
ward a very great way, which perhaps was directed by Heaven on pur
pose for their deliverance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully to change
our voyage on this particular account ; nor could my nephew, the captain,
answer it to the freighters, with whom he was under charter-party to
pursue his voyage by way of Brazil ; and all I knew he could do for them
was, to put ourselves in the way of meeting with other ships homeward
bound from the West Indies, and get them passage, if possible, to Eng
land or France.
The first part of the proposal was so generous and kind, they could
not but be very thankful for it ; but they were in a great consternation,
especially the passengers, at the notion of being carried away to the East
Indies : they then entreated me, that seeing I was driven so far to the
westward before I met with them, I would at least keep on the same
course to the banks of Newfoundland, where it was possible I might meet
with some ship or sloop that they might hire to carry them back to
Canada, from whence they came.
I thought this was but a reasonable request on their part, and there
fore I inclined to agree to it ; for indeed I considered, that to carry this
whole company to the East Indies would not only be an intolerable
severity to the poor people, but would be ruining our whole voyage, by
devouring all our provisions ; so I thought it no breach of charter-party,
but what an unforeseen accident made absolutely necessary to us, and in
which no one could say we were to blame : for the laws of God and
nature would have forbid that we should refuse to take up two boats full
of people in such a distressed condition ; and the nature of the thing, as
well respecting ourselves as the poor people, obliged us to see them on
shore somewhere or other, for their deliverance. So I consented that we
would carry them to Newfoundland, if wind and weather would permit ;
and, if not, that I would carry them to Martinico, in the West Indies.
The wind continued fresh easterly, but the weather pretty good ; and
as it had blowed continually in the points between north-east and south
east a long time, we missed several opportunities of sending them to
France ; for we met several ships bound to Europe, whereof two were
French, from St. Christopher's; but they had been so lon beating up
against the wind, that they durst take in no passengers for fear of wanting
provisions for the voyage, as well for themselves as for those they should
take in ; so we were obliged to go on. It was about a week after this,
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
that we made the banks of Newfoundland, where, to shorten my story,
we put all our French people on board a bark, which they hired at sea
there, to put them on shore, and afterwards to carry them to France, if
they could get provisions to victual themselves with. When I say all
the French went on shore, I should remember that the young priest I
spoke of, hearing we were bound to the East Indies, desired to go the
voyage with us, and to be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel : I
readily agreed to that, for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very
good reason, as will appear afterwards ; also four of the seamen entered
themselves in our ship, and proved very useful fellows.
From hence we directed our course for the West Indies, steering away
south and south-by-east, for about twenty days together, sometimes little
or no wind at all, when we met another subject for our humanity to work
upon, almost as deplorable as that before.
It was in the latitude of twenty-seven degrees five minutes north, and
the 19th day of March, 1694-5, when we espied a sail, our course south-
east-and-by-south. We soon perceived it was a large vessel, and that she
bore up to us ; but could not at first know what to make of her, till, after
coming a little nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast, foremast,
and bowsprit, and presently she fires a gun as a signal of distress. The
weather was pretty good, wind at north-north-west, a fresh gale, and we
soon came to speak with her.
We found her a ship of Bristol bound home from Barbadoes, but had
been blown out of the road at Barbadoes a few days before she was ready
to sail, by a terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were
both gone on shore ; so that, besides the terror of the storm, they were
but in an indifferent case for good artists to bring the ship home. They
had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another terrible
.storm after the hurricane was over, which had blown them quite out of
their knowledge to the westward, and in which they had lost their masts,
as above : they told us they expected to have seen the Bahama Islands,
but were then driven away again to the south-east by a strong gale of
wind at north-north-west, the same that blew now, and having no sails to
work the ship with, but a main-course and a kind of square sail upon a
jury-foremast, which they had set up, they could not lie near the wind,
but were endeavouring to stand away for the Canaries.
But that which was worst of all, was, that they were almost starved
for want of provisions, besides the fatigues they had undergone ; their
19
290 ADVENTURES OF
bread and flesh was quite gone, they had not an ounce left in the ship,
and had had none for eleven days : the only relief they had was, their
water was not all spent, and they had about half a barrel of flour left ;
they had sugar enough ; some succades, or sweatmeats, they had at first,
out they were devoured ; and they had seven casks of rum.
There was a youth and his mother, and a maid-servant on board, who
were going passengers, and, thinking the ship was ready to sail, unhap
pily came on board the evening before the hurricane began : and, having
no provisions of their own left, they were in a more deplorable condition
than the rest ; for the seamen being reduced to such an extreme necessity
themselves, had no compassion, we may be sure, for the poor passengers ;
and they were indeed in a condition that their misery is very hard to
describe.
I had perhaps not known this part, if my curiosity had not led me,
the weather being fair, and the wind abated, to go on board the ship : the
second mate, who upon this occasion commanded the ship, had been on
board -our ship ; and he told me, indeed, that they had three passengers in
the great cabin, and that they were in a deplorable condition. " $"ay,"
says he, "I believe they are dead, for I have heard nothing of them for
above two days ; and I was afraid to inquire after them," said he, "for I
had nothing to relieve them with."
We immediately applied ourselves to give them what relief we could
spare ; and, indeed, I had so far overruled things with my nephew, that I
would have victualled them, though we had gone away to Virginia, or any
part of the coast of America, to have supplied ourselves ; but there was
no necessity for that.
But now they were in a new danger, for they were afraid of eating too
much, even of that little we gave them. The mate, or commander,
brought six men with him in his boat, but these poor wretches looked
like skeletons, and were so weak they could hardly sit to their oars ; the
mate himself was very ill, and' half-starved, for he declared he had re
served nothing from the men, and went share and share alike with them
in every bit they eat.
I cautioned him to eat sparingly, but set meat before him immediately ;
and he had not eaten three mouthfuls before he began to be sick and out
of order : so he stopped awhile, and our surgeon mixed him up something
with some broth, which he said would be to him both food and physic,
,and after he had taken it he grew better. In the meantime, I forgot not
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 291
the men I ordered victuals to be given them, and the poor creatures
rather devoured than eat it : they were so exceedingly hungry that they
were in a manner ravenous, and had no command of themselves ; and two
of them eat with so much greediness, that they were in danger of their
lives the next morning. (
The sight of these people's distress was very moving to me, and
brought to mind what I had a terrible prospect of at my first coming on
shore in my island, where I had not the least mouthful of food, or any
hopes of procuring it, besides the hourly apprehension I had of being
made the food of other creatures. But all the while the mate was thus
relating to me the miserable condition of the ship's company, I could not
put out of my thought the story he had told me of the three poor crea
tures in the great cabin namely, the mother, her son, and the maid
servant, whom he had heard nothing of for two or three days, and whom
he seemed to confess they had wholly neglected, their own extremities
being so great ; by which I understood that they had really given them
no food at all, and that therefore they must be perished, and be all lying
dead perhaps on the floor or deck of the cabin.
As I therefore kept the mate, whom we then called captain, on board
with his men to refresh them, so I also forgot not the starving crew that
were left on board, but ordered my own boat to go on board the ship, and,
with my mate and twelve men, to carry them a sack of bread and four or
five pieces of beef to boil. Our surgeon charged the men to cause the
meat to be boiled while they staid, and to keep guard in the cook-room,
to prevent the men's taking it to eat raw, or taking it out of the pot
bofore it was well boiled, and then to give every man but a little at a
time ; and by this caution he preserved the men, who would otherwise
have killed themselves with that very food that was given them on
purpose to save their lives.
At the same time, I ordered the mate to go into the great cabin, and
see what condition the poor passengers were in, and, if they were alive, to
comfort them and give them what refreshment was proper ; and the sur
geon gave a large pitcher with some of the prepared broth which he had
given the mate that was on board, and which he did not question would
restore them gradually.
I was not satisfied with this ; but, as I said above, having a great
mind to see the scene of misery, which I knew the ship itself would
present me with in a more lively manner than I could have it by report,
292 ADVENTURES OF
I took the captain of the ship, as we now called him, with me, and went
myself a little after in their "boat.
I found the poor men on board almost in a tumult to get the victuals
out of the boiler before it was ready ; but my mate observed his order, and
kept a good guard at the cook-room door, and the men he placed there,
after using all possible persuasion to have patience, kept them off by force :
however, he caused some biscuit cakes to be dipped in the pot, and
softened them with the liquor of the meat, which they call brewis, and
gave every one, one to stay their stomachs, and told them it was for their
own safety that he was obliged to give them but a little at a time. But
it was all in vain ; and had not I come on board, and their own com
mander and officers with me, and with good words, and some threats also
of giving them no more, I believe they would have broken into the cook-
room by force, and torn the meat out of the furnace for words indeed are
of a very small force to an hungry belly. However, we pacified them, and
fed them gradually and cautiously for the first time, and the next time
gave them more, and at last filled their bellies, and the men did well
enough.
But the misery of the poor passengers in the cabin was of another
nature, and far beyond the rest : for as, first, the ship's company had so
little for themselves, it was but too true that they had at first kept them
very low, and at last totally neglected them ; so that, for six or seven
days, it might be said, they had really had no food at all, and, for several
days before, very little.
The poor mother, who, as the first mate reported, was a woman of
good sense and good breeding, had spared all she could get so affection
ately for her son, that at last she entirely sank under it ; and when the
mate of our ship went in, she sat upon the floor or deck, with her back
up against the sides, between two chairs which were lashed fast, and her
head sunk in between her shoulders, like a corpse, though not quite dead.
My mate said all he could to revive and encourage her, and, with a
spoon, put some broth into her mouth : she opened her lips, and lifted
up one hand, but could not speak ; yet she understood what he said,
and made signs to him, intimating that it was too late for her, but
pointed to her child, as if she would have said they should take care of
him.
However, the mate, who was exceedingly moved with the sight, en
deavoured to get some of the broth into her mouth ; and, as he said, got
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 293
two or three spoonfuls down, though I question whether he could be sure
of it or not ; but it was too late, and she died the same night.
The youth, who was preserved at the price of his most affectionate
mother's life, was not so far gone ; yet he lay in a cabin bed as one
stretched out, with hardly any life left in him : he had a piece of an old
glove in his mouth, having eaten up the rest of it. However, being young,
and having more strength than his mother, the mate got something down
his throat, and he began sensibly to revive, though, by giving him some
time after but two or three spoonfuls extraordinary, he was very sick,
and brought it up again.
But the next care was the poor maid ; she lay all along upon the deck
hard by her mistress, and just like one that had fallen down with apo
plexy, and struggled for life : her limbs were distorted, one of her hands
was clasped round the frame of a chair, and she griped it so hard that
we could not easily make her let it go ; her other arm lay over her head,
and her feet lay both together, set fast against the frame of the cabin
table : in short, she lay just like one in the last agonies of death, and yet
she was alive too.
The poor creature was not only starved with hunger, and terrified with
the thoughts of death, but, as the men told us afterwards, was broken
hearted for her mistress, whom she saw dying two or three days before,
and whom she loved most tenderly.
"We knew not what to do with this poor girl ; for, when our surgeon,
who was a man of very great knowledge and experience, and, with great
application, recovered her as to life, he had her upon his hand as to her
senses : for she was little less than distracted for a considerable time after,
as shall appear presently.
Whoever shall read these memorandums, must be desired to consider
that visits at sea are not like a journey into the country, where sometimes
people stay a week or a fortnight at a place. Our business was to relieve
this distressed ship's crew, but not lie by for them ; and though they were
willing to steer the same course with us for some days, yet we could carry
no sail to keep pace with a ship that had no masts. However, as their
captain begged of us to help him to set up a main-topmast, and a kind
of topmast to his jury-foremast, we did, as it were, lie by him for three
or four days, and then, having given him five barrels of beef and pork,
two hogsheads of biscuit, and a proportion of peas, flour, and what other
things we could spare, and taking three casks of sugar, and some rum,
294 ADVENTURES OP
and some pieces of eight of them for satisfaction, we left them, taking on
board with us, at their own earnest request, the youth, and the maid, and
all their goods.
The young lad was about seventeen years of age, a pretty, well-bred,
modest, and sensible youth, greatly dejected with the loss of his mother,
and, as it seems, had lost his father but a few months before at Barbadoes.
He begged of the surgeon to speak to me to take him out of the ship, for
he said the cruel fellows had murdered his mother : and, indeed, so they
had, that is to say, passively ; for they might have spared a small susten
ance to the poor helpless widow, that might have preserved her life,
though it had been just to keep her alive. Eut hunger knows no friend,
no relation, no justice, no right, and therefore is remorseless, and capable
of no compassion.
The surgeon told him how far we were going, and how it would carry
him away from all his friends, and put him, perhaps, in as bad circum
stances almost as we found them that is so say, starving in the world.
He said it mattered not whither he went, if he was but delivered from
the terrible crew that he was among that the captain (by which he
meant me, for he could know nothing of my nephew) had saved his life,
and he was sure would not hurt him : and, as for the maid, he was sure,
if she came to herself, she would be very thankful for it, let us carry them
whither we would. The surgeon represented the case so affectionately to
me, that I yielded, and we took them both on board, with all their goods,
except eleven hogsheads of sugar, which could not be removed or come at ;
and as the youth had a bill of lading for them, I made his commander
sign a writing obliging him to go, as soon as he came to Bristol, to one
Mr. Eogers, a merchant there, to whom the youth said he was related,
and to deliver a letter which I wrote to him, and all the goods he had
belonging to the deceased widow, which, I suppose, was not done, for I
could never learn that the ship came to Bristol, but was, as is most pro
bable, lost at sea, being in so disabled a condition, and so far from any
land, that I am of opinion the first storm she met with afterwards she
might founder in the sea ; for she was leaky, and had damage in her hold
when I met with her.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 2S5
CHAPTER XX.
Crusoe arrives at his island, which he finds with some difficulty, having discovered, in his search
for it, that that which he previously supposed to be a continent, was, in reality, a group of
islands Friday is very joyous upon seeing the old place The first person Crusoe meets is the
Spaniard whose life he saved Friday meets with his father Crusoe discovers that the English
sailors he left behind have behaved badly The history of the island during his absence.
"WAS now in the latitude of nineteen degrees thirty-two minutes,
and had hitherto had a tolerable voyage as to weather, though
at first the winds had been contrary. I shall trouble nobody
with the little incidents of wind, weather, currents, etc., on the
rest of our voyage ; but, shortening my story for the sake of what is to
follow, shall observe that I came to my old habitation, the island, on the
10th of April, 1695. It was with no small difficulty that I found the
place : for as I came to it and went from it before on the south and east
side of the island, as coming from the Brazils, so now, coming in between
the main and the island, and having no chart for the coast, nor any land
mark, I did not know it when I saw it, or know whether I saw it or
not.
We beat about a great while, and went on shore on several islands in
the mouth of the great river Oroonoque, but none for my purpose : only
this I learnt by my coasting the shore, that I was under one great mis
take before, namely, that the continent which I thought I saw from the
island I lived in, was really no continent, but a long island, or rather a
ridge of islands, reaching from pne to the other side of the extended
mouth of that great river ; and that the savages who came to my island
were not properly those which we call Caribbees, but islanders, and other
barbarians of the same kind, who inhabited something nearer to our side
than the rest.
In short, I visited several of the islands to no purpose : some I found
were inhabited, and some were not. On one of them I found some
296 ADVENTURES OP
Spaniards, and thought they had lived there ; but, speaking with them,
I found they had a sloop lay in a small creek hard by, and that they came
thither to make salt, and catch some pearl mussels, if they could : but
they belonged to the Isle de Trinidad, which lay farther north, in the
latitude of ten and eleven degrees.
Thus, coasting from one island to another, sometimes with the ship,
sometimes with the Frenchman's shallop (which we had found a convenient
boat, and therefore kept her with their very good will), at length I came
fair on the south side of my island, and I presently knew the very coun
tenance of the place : so I brought the ship safe to an anchor broadside
with the little creek, where was my old habitation.
As soon as I saw the place, I called for Friday, and asked him if he
knew where he was ? He looked about a little, and presently clapping
his hands, cried, "Oh, yes! Oh, there! Oh, yes! Oh, there!" pointing
to our old habitation, and fell a-dancing and capering like a mad fellow ;
and I had much ado to keep him from jumping into the sea, to swim
ashore to the place.
" Well, Friday," said I, " do you think we shall find any body here
or no? and what do you think, shall we see your father?" The fellow
stood mute as a stock a good while ; but when I named his father, the
poor affectionate creature looked dejected, and I could see the tears run
down his face very plentifully. " What is the matter, Friday?" said I ;
" are you troubled because you may see your father ?" "No, no !" says
he, shaking his head, "no see him more, no ever more see again!"
" Why so," said I, " Friday ? how do you know that ?" " Oh, no ! oh,
no!" says Friday, "he long ago die, long ago, he much old man."
"Well, well," said I, "Friday, you don't know; but shall we see any
body else then?" The fellow, it seems, had better eyes than I, and he
points just to the hill above my old house ; and though we lay half a
league off, he cries out, "Me see! me see! yes, yes; me see much man
there, and there, and there." I looked, but I could see nobody no, not
with a perspective glass ; which was, I suppose, because I could not hit
the place ; for the fellow was right, as I found upon inquiry the next day,
and there were five or six men all together stood to look at the ship, not
knowing what to think of us.
As soon as Friday had told me he saw people, I caused the English
ancient to be spread, and fired three guns to give them notice we were
friends ; and about half a quarter of an hour after, we perceived a smoke
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 297
rise from the side of the creek : so I immediately ordered a boat out,
taking Friday with me, and hanging out a white flag, or a flag of truce,
I went directly on shore, taking with me the young friar I mentioned, to
whom I had told the whole story of my living there, and the manner
of it, and every particular both of myself and those that I left there,
and who was on that account extremely desirous to go with me. We
had besides about sixteen men very well armed, if we had found any
new guest there which we did not know of; but we had no need of
weapons.
As we went on shore upon the tide of flood near high water, we
rowed directly into the creek ; and the first man I fixed my eye upon was
the Spaniard whose life I had saved, and whom I knew by his face
perfectly well : as to his habit I shall describe it afterwards. I ordered
nobody to go on shore at first but myself: but there was no keeping
Friday in the boat, for the affectionate creature had spied his father at a
distance, a good way off the Spaniards, where indeed I saw nothing of
him ; and if they had not let him go on shore, he would have jumped into
the sea. He was no sooner on shore, but he flew away to his father like
an arrow out of a bow. It would have made any man shed tears, in spite
of the firmest resolution, to have seen the first transports of this poor
fellow's joy when he came to his father how he embraced him, kissed
him, stroked his face, took him up in his arms, set him down upon a tree,
and lay down by him ; then stood and looked at him, as any one would
look at a strange picture, for a quarter of an hour together ; then lay
down upon the ground, and stroked his legs, and kissed them, and then
got up again, and stared at him : one would have thought the fellow
bewitched. But it would have made a dog laugh to see how the next day
his passion ran out another way: in the morning he walked along the
shore, to and again, with his father, several hours, always leading him by
the hand as if he had been a lady ; and every now and then would come
to fetch something' or other for him from the boat, either a lump of sugar,
or a dram, or biscuit, or something or other that was good. In the after
noon his frolics ran another way, for then he would set the old man
down upon the ground, and dance about him, and make a thousa'nd antic
postures and gestures ; and all the while he did this he would be talking
to him, and telling him one story or another of his travels, and of what
happened to him abroad, to divert him. In short, if the same filial affec
tion was to be found in Christians to their parents in our parts of the
1
298 ADVENTURES OF
world, one would be tempted to say there hardly would have been any
need of the fifth commandment.
But this is a digression ; I return to my landing. It would be endless
to take notice of all the ceremonies and civilities that the Spaniards
received me with. The first Spaniard, whom, as I said, I knew very
well, was he whose life I saved he came towards the boat, attended by
one more, carrying a flag of truce also ; and he did not only not know me
at first, but he had no thoughts, no notion, of its being me that was come,
till I spoke to him. " Seignior," said I, in Portuguese, " do you not know
me ? " At which he spoke not a word ; but giving his musket to the man
that was with him, threw his arms abroad, and, saying something in
Spanish that I did not perfectly hear, came forward and embraced me,
telling me he was inexcusable not to know that face again that he had
once seen, as of an angel from Heaven sent to save his life : he said
abundance of very handsome things, as as well-bred Spaniard always knows
how and then, beckoning to the person that attended him, bade him go
and call out his comrades. He then asked me if I would walk to my old
habitation, where he would give me possession of my own house again,
and where I should see there had been but mean inprovements. So I
walked along with him. But, alas ! I could no more find the place again
than if I had never been there ; for they had planted so many trees, and
placed them in such a posture, so thick and close to one another, and in
ten years time they were grown so big, that, in short, the place was in
accessible, except by such winding and blind ways as they themselves
only who made them could find.
I asked them what put them upon all these fortifications? He told
me, I would say there was need enough of it when they had given an
account how they had passed their time since their arriving in the island,
especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone : he told
me he could not but have some satisfaction in my good fortune, when he
heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my satisfaction ; and that he
had oftentimes a strong persuasion that, one time or other, he should see
me again: but nothing that ever befel him in his life, he said, was so
surprising and afflicting to him at first, as the disappointment he was
under when he came back to the island, and found I was not there.
As to the three barbarians (so he called them) that were left behind^
and of whom he said he had a long story to tell me, the Spaniards all
thought themselves much better among the savages, only that their number
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 299
was so small. "And," says he, "had they been strong enough, we had
been long ago in purgatory ;" and with that he crossed himself upon the
breast. " But, sir," says he, " I hope you will not be displeased when I
shall tell you how, forced by necessity, we were obliged, for our own
preservation, to disarm them, and make them our subjects who would not
be content with being moderately our masters, but would be our mur
derers." I answered, "I was heartily afraid of it when I left them
there ; and nothing troubled me at my parting from the island, but that
they were not come back, that I might have put them in possession of
every thing first, and left the others in a state of subjection, as they
deserved : but if they had reduced them to it, I was very glad, and should
be very far from finding any fault with it, for I knew they were a parcel of
refractory, ungovernable villains, and were fit for any manner of mischief."
While I was saying this, came the man whom he had sent back, and
with him eleven men more. In the dress they were in, it was impossible
to guess what nation they were of; but he made all clear, both to them
and to me. First he turned to me, and pointing to them, said, "These,
sir, are some of the gentlemen who owe their lives to you;" and then
turning to them, and pointing to me, he let them know who I was ; upon
which they all came up one by one, not as if they had been sailors, and
ordinary fellows, and I the like, but really as if they had been ambas
sadors, or noblemen, and I a monarch or a great conqueror: their behaviour
was to the last degree obliging and courteous, and yet mixed with a manly,
majestic gravity, which very well became them ; and, in short, they had
so much more manners than I, that I scarce knew how to receive their
civilities, much less how to return them in kind.
The history of their coming to, and conduct in, the island after my
going away, is so remarkable, and has so many incidents which the
former part of my relation will help to understand, and which will in most
of the particulars refer to that account I have already given, that I cannot
but commit them with great delight to the reading of those that come
after me.
I shall no longer trouble the story with a relation in the first person,
which will put me to the expense of ten thousand " said I's," and " said
he's," and "he told me's," and "I told him's," and the like; but I shaU
collect the facts historically, as near as I can gather them out of my
memory from what they related to me, and from what I met with in my
conversing with them, and with the place.
300 ADVENTURES OF
In order to do this succinctly, and as intelligibly as I can, I must go
back to the circumstances in which I left the island, and which the persons
were in of whom I am to speak. At first, it is necessary to repeat, that
I had sent away Friday's father and the Spaniard, the two whose lives I
had rescued from the savages I say, I had sent them away in a large
canoe to the main, as I then thought it, to fetch over the Spaniard's com
panions whom he had left behind him, in order to save them from the like
calamity that he had been in, and in order to succour them for the present,
and that, if possible, we might together find some way for our deliverance
afterward.
When I sent them away, I had no visible appearance of, or the least
room to hope for, my own deliverance, any more than I had twenty years
before ; much less had I any foreknowledge of what after happened,
I mean of an English ship coming on shore there to fetch me off : and it
could not but be a very great surprise to them when they came back, not
only to find that I was gone, but to find three strangers left on the spot,
possessed of all that I had left behind me, which would otherwise have
been their own.
The first thing, however, which I inquired into, that I might begin
where I left off, was of their own part ; and I desired he would give me
a particular account of his voyage back to his countrymen with the boat,
when I sent him to fetch them over. He told me there was little variety
in that part, for nothing remarkable happened to them on their way,
they having veiy calm weather, and a smooth sea ; for his countrymen, it
could not be doubted, he said, but that they were overjoyed to see him
(it seems he was the principal man among them, the captain of the vessel
they had been shipwrecked in having been dead some time) : they were,
he said, the more surprised to see him, because they knew that he was
fallen into the hands of the savages, who they were satisfied would
devour him, as they did all the rest of their prisoners; that when he told
them the story of his deliverance, and in what manner he was furnished
for carrying them away, it was like a dream to them, and their astonish
ment, he said, was something like that of Joseph's brethren, when he
told them who he was, and told them the story of his exaltation in
Pharaoh's court ; but when he showed them the arms, the powder, the
ball, and the provisions that he brought them for their journey, or voyage,
they were restored to themselves, took a just share of the joy of their
deliverance, and prepared to come away with him.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 301
The first business was to get canoes; and in this they were obliged
not to stick so much to the honest part of it, but to trespass upon their
friendly savages, and to borrow two large canoes, or periaguas, on pretence
of going out a-fishing or for pleasure.
In these they came away the next morning : it seems they wanted no
time to get themselves ready, for they had no baggage, neither clothes,
nor provisions, nor any other thing in the world but what they had on
them, and a few roots to eat, of which they used to make their bread.
They were in all three weeks absent ; and in that time, unluckily for
them, I had the occasion oifered for my escape, as I mentioned in my
other part, and to get off from the island, leaving three of the most im
pudent, hardened, ungoverned, disagreeable villains behind me that any
man could desire to meet with, to the poor Spaniards' great grief and dis
appointment, you may be sure.
The only just thing the rogues did was, that when the Spaniards
came on shore, they gave my letter to them, and gave them provisions
and other relief as I had ordered them to do ; also they gave them the
long paper of directions, which I had left with them, containing the par
ticular method which I took for managing every part of my life there
the way how I baked my bread, bred up my tame goats, and planted my
corn how I cured my grapes, made my pots, and, in a word, every thing
I did : all this being written down, they gave to the Spaniards, two of
whom understood English well enough ; nor did they refuse to accommo
date the Spaniards with any thing else, for they agreed very well for some
time. They gave them an equal admission into the house, or cave, and
they began to live very sociably ; and the head Spaniard, who had seen
pretty much of my method, and Friday's father together, managed all
their affairs ; for, as for the Englishmen, they did nothing but ramble
about the island, shoot parrots, and catch tortoises, and when they came
home at night, the Spaniards provided their suppers for them.
The Spaniards would have been satisfied with this, would the others
but have left them alone, which, however, they could not find in their ^ ,
hearts to do long ; but, like the dog in the manger, they would not eat P
themselves, and would not let others eat neither. The differences, never- J
theless, were at first but trivial, and such as are not worth relating : but
at last it broke out into open war, and it began with all the rudeness and
insolence that can be imagined, without reason, without provocation, con
trary to nature, and indeed to common sense ; and though, it is true, the
302 ADVENTURES OF
first relation of it came from the Spaniards themselves, whom I may call
the accusers, yet when I came to examine the fellows, they could not
deny a word of it.
But before I come to the particulars of this part, I must supply a
defect in my former relation ; and this was, that I forgot to set down
among the rest, that just as we were weighing anchor to set sail, there
happened a little quarrel on board our ship, which I was afraid once
would turn out to a second mutiny ; nor was it appeased till the captain,
rousing up his courage, and taking us all to his assistance, parted them by
force, and making two of the most refractory fellows prisoners, he laid
them in irons : and as they had been active in the former disorders, and
let fall some ugly dangerous words the second time, he threatened to carry
them in irons to England, and have them hanged there for mutiny, and
running away with the ship.
This, it seems, though the captain did not intend to do it, frighted
some other men in the ship ; and some of them had put it in the heads of
the rest that the captain only gave them good words for the present till
they should come to some English port, and that then they should be all
put into a jail and tried for their lives.
The mate got intelligence of this, and acquainted us with it; upon
which it was desired that I, who still passed for a great man among them,
should go down with the mate and satisfy the men, and tell them, that
they might be assured, if they behaved well the rest of the voyage, all
they had done for the time past should be pardoned. So I went, and
after passing my honour's word to them, they appeared easy, and the
more so, when I caused the two men who were in irons to be released and
forgiven.
But this mutiny had brought us to an anchor for that night, the wind
also falling calm. Next morning we found that our two men, who had
been laid in irons, had stole each of them a musket and some other wea
pons what powder or shot they had we knew not and had taken the
ship's pinnace, which was not yet hauled up, and run away with her to
their companions in roguery on shore.
As soon as we found this, I ordered the long-boat on shore, with
twelve men and the mate, and away they went to seek the rogues ; but
they could neither find them, nor any of the rest, for they all fled into
the woods when they saw the boat coming on shore. The mate was once
resolved, in justice to their roguery, to have destroyed their plantations,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 303
burnt all their household stuff and furniture, and left them to shift with
out it; but having no order, he left all alone, left every thing as he
found it, and, bringing the pinnace away, came on board without them.
These two men made their number five : but the other three villains
were so much wickeder than these, that, after they had been two or three
days together, they turned their two new comers out of doors to shift for
themselves, and would have nothing to do with them ; nor could they, for
a good while, be persuaded to give them any food : as for the Spaniards,
they were not yet come.
When the Spaniards came first on shore, the business began to go
forward : the Spaniards would have persuaded the three English brutes
to have taken in their two countrymen again, that, as they said, they
might be all one family ; but they would not hear of it : so the two poor
fellows lived by themselves, and finding that nothing but industry and
application would make them live comfortable, they pitched their tents on
the north shore of the island, but a little more to the west, to be out of
the danger of the savages, who always landed on the east parts of the
island.
5ere they built two huts, one to lodge in, and the other to lay up
their magazines and stores in ; and the Spaniards having given them some
corn for seed, and especially some of the peas which I had left them, they
dug, and planted, and enclosed, after the pattern I had set for them all,
and began to live pretty well. Their first crop of corn was on the ground,
and though it was but a little bit of land which they had dug up at first,
having had but a little time, yet it was enough to relieve them, and find
them with bread or other eatables : and one of the fellows, being the
cook's mate of the ship, was very ready at making soup, puddings, and
such other preparations as the rice and the milk, and such little flesh as
they got, furnished him to do.
They were going on in this little thriving posture, when the three un
natural rogues, their own countrymen too, in mere humour, and to insult
them, came and bullied them, and told them the island was theirs ; that
the governor, meaning me, had given them possession of it, and nobody
else had any right to it ; and that they should build no houses upon
their ground, unless they would pay them rent for them.
The two men thought they had jested at first, and asked them to come
and sit down, and see what fine houses they were that they had built, and
tell them what rent they demanded : and one of them merrily told them,
304 ADVENTURES OF
if they were ground landlords, lie hoped, if they built tenements upon the
land, and made improvements, they would, according to the custom of all
landlords, grant them a long lease, and bade them go fetch a scrivener
to draw writings. One of the three, damning and raging, told them they
should see they were not in jest ; and, going to a little place at a distance,
where the honest men had made, a fire to dress their victuals, he takes a
firebrand and claps it to the outside of their hut, and very fairly sets it on
fire ; and it would have been all burnt down in a few minutes, if one of
the two had not run to the fellow, thrust him away, and trod the fire out
with his feet, and that not without some difficulty too.
The fellow was in such a rage at the honest man's thrusting him
away, that he turned upon him with a pole he had in his hand ; and had
not the man avoided the blow very nimbly, and run into the hut, he had
ended his days at once. His comrade, seeing the danger they were both
in, ran in after him, and immediately they came both out with their
muskets ; and the man that was first struck at with the pole knocked th^
fellow down who began the quarrel with the stock of his musket, and
that before the other two could come to help him ; and then seeing the rest
come, they stood together, and, presenting the other ends of their pieces
to them, bade them to stand off.
The others had fire-arms with them, too ; but one of the two honest
men, bolder than his comrade, and made desperate by his danger, told
them if they offered to move hand or foot they were all dead men, and
boldly commanded them to lay down their arms. They did not, indeed,
lay down their arms; but, seeing him resolute, it brought them to a
parley, and they consented to take their wounded man with them and
begone : and, indeed, it seems the fellow was wounded sufficiently with
the blow. However, they were much in the wrong, since they had the
advantage, that they did not disarm them effectually, as they might have
done, and have gone immediately to the Spaniards, and given them an
account how the rogues had treated them ; for the three villains studied
nothing but revenge, and every day gave them some intimation that they
did so.
But not to crowd this part with an account of the lesser part of their
rogueries, such as treading down their corn, shooting three young kids and
a she-goat, which the poor men had got to breed up tame for their store,
and, in a word, plaguing them night and day in this manner, it forced the
two men to such a desperation, that they resolved to fight them all three
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 305
the first time they had a fair opportunity. In order to this, they resolved
to go to the castle, as they called it, that was my old dwelling, where the
three rogues and the Spaniards all lived together at that time, intending
to have a fair battle, and the Spaniards should stand by to- see fair play.
So they got up in the morning before day, and came to the place, and
called the Englishmen by their names, telling a Spaniard that answered,
that they wanted to speak with them.
It happened that, the day before, two of the Spaniards having been in
the woods, had seen one of the two Englishmen, whom, for distinction, I
call the honest men ; and he had made a sad complaint to the Spaniards
of the barbarous usage they had met with from their three countrymen,
and how they had ruined their plantation, and destroyed their corn that
they had laboured so hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat,
and their three kids, which was all they had provided for their sustenance
and that, if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not assist
them again, they should be starved. "When the Spaniards came home at
night, and they were all at supper, he took the freedom to reprove the
three Englishmen, though in gentle and mannerly terms, and asked them
how they could be so cruel, they being harmless, inoffensive fellows, and
that they were putting themselves in a way to subsist by their labour, and
that it had cost them a great deal to bring things to such perfection as
they had.
One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, " What had they to do
there ? That they came on shore without leave, and that they should not
plant or build upon 1 the island; it was none of their ground." "Why,"
says the Spaniard!, very calmly, " Seignior Inglese, they must not starve."
The Englishman replied, like a true rough-hewn tarpaulin, " They might
starve, if they chose ; they should not plant nor build in that place."
"But what must they do, then, Seignior ?" says the Spaniard. Another
of the brutes returned, "Do ! why, they should be servants, and work fou
them." ' ' But how can you expect that of them ? They are not bought with
your money; you have no right to make them servants." The English
men answered, " The island was theirs, the governor had given it to them,
and no man had any thing to do there but themselves ;" and, with that,
swore by his Maker that he would go and burn all their new huts they
should build none upon their land.
"Why, Seignior," said the Spaniards, "by the same rule, we must
be your servants too." " Ay," says the bold dog, " and so you shall too,
20
306 ADVENTURES OP
before we have done with you ;" mixing two or three oaths in the proper
intervals of his speech. The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made him
no answer. However, this little discourse had heated them ; and starting
up, one says to the other I think it was he they called "Will Atkins
" Come, Jack, let us go and have the other brush with them ; we will
demolish their castle, I will warrant you ; they shall plant no colony in
our dominions."
Upon this, they were all trooping away, with every man a gun, a
pistol, and a sword, and muttered some insolent things among themselves,
of what they would do to the Spaniards, too, when opportunity offered ;
but the Spaniards, it seems, did not so perfectly understand them as to
know all the particulars, only that, in general, they threatened them
hard for taking the two Englishmen's part.
Whither they went, or how they bestowed their time that evening,
the Spaniards said they did not know, but it seems they wandered about
the country part of the night ; and then, lying down in the place which I
used to call my bower, they were weary, and overslept themselves. The
caae was this : They had resolved to stay till midnight, so to take the
poor men when they were asleep ; and they acknowledged it afterwards,
intending to set fire to their huts while they were in them, and either
burn them in them, or murder them as they came out : and, as malice
seldom sleeps very sound, it was very strange they should not have been
kept waking.
However, as the two men had also a design upon them, as I have
said, though a much fairer one than that of burning and murdering, it
happened, and very luckily for them all, that they were up and gone
abroad before the bloody-minded rogues came to their huts.
When they came thither, and found the men gone, Atkins, who, it
eems, was the forwardest man, called out to his companions, "Ha!
Jack, here's the nest; but, the birds are flown!" They mused a
a while to think what should be the occasion of their going abroad so
soon, and suggested presently that the Spaniards had given them notice
of it : and with that they shook hands and swore to one another that
they would be revenged of the Spaniards. As soon as they had made
this bloody bargain, they fell to work with the poor men's habitation
they did not set fire indeed to any thing, but they pulled down both their
houses, and pulled them so limb from limb that they left not the least
stick standing, or scarce any sign on the ground where they stood : they
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 307
tore all their little collected household stuff in pieces, and threw every
thing about in such a manner, that the poor men found afterwards some
of their things a mile off from their habitation.
When they had done this they pulled up all the young trees which
the poor men had planted pulling up the enclosure they had made to
secure their cattle and their corn : and, in a word, sacked and plun
dered every thing, as completely as a herd of Tartars would have
done.
The two men were at this juncture gone to find them out, and had
resolved to fight them wherever they had been, though they were but
two to three so that, had they met, there certainly would have been
bloodshed among them ; for they were all very stout, resolute fellows, to
give them their due.
But Providence took more care to keep them asunder, than they them
selves could do to meet for, as they had dogged one another, when the
three were gone thither, the two were here and afterwards, when the
two went to find them, the three were come to the old habitation again :
we shall see their differing conduct presently. When the three came
back like furious creatures, flushed with the rage which the work they
had been about put them into, they came up to the Spaniards, and told
them what they had done, by way of scoff and bravado ; and one of them,
stepping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been a couple of boys
at play, takes hold of his hat, as it was upon his head, and, giving it a
twirl about, fleering in his face, says to him, "And you, Seignior Jack
Spaniard, shall have the same sauce, if you do not mend your manners."
The Spaniard, who, though quite a civil man, was as brave as a man
could desire to be, and withal a strong well-made man, looked steadily at
him for a good while ; and then, having no weapon in his hand, stepped
gravely up to him, and with one blow of his fist knocked him down, as an
ox is felled with a pole-axe ; at which one of the rogues, insolent as the
first, fired his pistol at the Spaniard immediately : he missed his body
indeed, for the bullets went through his hair, but one of them touched
the tip of his ear, and he bled pretty much. The blood made the Spaniard
believe he was more hurt than he really was, and that put him into some
heat ; for before he acted all in a perfect calm, but now, resolving to go
through with his work, he stooped and took the fellow's musket whom he
had knocked down, and was just going to shoot the man who had fired at
him, when the rest of the Spaniards, being in the cave, came out, and
308 ADVENTURES OP
calling to him not to shoot, they stepped in, secured the other two, and
took their arms from them.
When they were thus disarmed, and found they had made all the
Spaniards their enemies, as well as their own countrymen, they began to
cool, and, giving the Spaniards better words, would have had their arms
again ; but the Spaniards considering the feud that was between them and
the other two Englishmen, and that it would be the best method they
could take to keep them from one another, told them they would do them
no harm, and, if they would live peaceably, they would be very willing
to assist and associate with them as they did before, but that they could
not think of giving them their arms again, while they appeared so resolved
to do mischief with them to their own countrymen, and had even threat
ened them all to make them their servants.
The rogues were not more capable to hear reason than to act reason ;
but being refused their arms, they went raving away, and raging like
madmen, threatening what they would do, though they had no fire-arms :
but the Spaniards, despising their threatening, told them they should take
care how they offered an injury to their plantation or cattle ; for if they
did, they would shoot them as they would do ravenous beasts, wherever
they found them, and if they fell into their hands alive, they should
certainly be hanged. However, this was far from cooling them : but
away they went, swearing and raging like furies of hell. As soon as they
were gone, came back the two men in passion and rage enough also,
though of another kind ; for, having been at their plantation, and finding
it all demolished and destroyed, as above, it will easily be supposed that
they had provocation enough : they could scarce have room to tell their
tale, the Spaniards were so eager to tell them theirs ; and it was strange
enough to find that three men should thus bully nineteen, and receive no
punishment at all.
The Spaniards indeed despised them, and especially having thus dis
armed them, made light of their threatenings ; but the two Englishmen
resolved to have their remedy againpt them, what pain soever it cost to
find them out.
But the Spaniards interposed here too, and told them they were
already disarmed : they could not consent that they (the two) should
pursue them with fire-arms, and perhaps kill them. "But," said the
grave Spaniard, who was their governor, "we will endeavour to make
them do you justice, if you will leave it to us ; for as there is no doubt
KOBIKSON CRUSOE. 309
but they will come to us again when their passion is over, being not able
to subsist without our assistance, we promise you to make no peace with
them, without having a full satisfaction for you : and upon this condition
we hope you will promise to use no violence with them, other than in
your defence."
The two Englishmen yielded to this very awkwardly, and with great
reluctance, but the Spaniards protested they did it only to keep them
from bloodshed, and to make all easy at last ; for, said they, we are not
so many of us here is room enough for us all, and it is a great pity we
should not be all good friends. At length they did consent, and waited
for the issue of the thing, living for some days with the Spaniards ; for
their own habitation was destroyed.
In about five days' time the three vagrants, tired with wandering,
and almost starved with hunger, came back to the grove ; and finding my
Spaniard and two more with him, walking by the side of the creek, they
came up in a very submissive humble manner, and begged to be received
again into the family. The Spaniards used them very civilly, but told them
they had acted so unnaturally by their countrymen, and so very grossly
by them (the Spaniards), that they could not come to any conclusion
without consulting the two Englishmen, and the rest ; but, however, they
would go to them, and discourse about it, and they should know in half
an hour.
After half an hour's consultation, they were called in, and a long
debate, had about them, their two countrymen charging them with the
ruin of all their labour, and a design to murder them ; all which they
owned before, and therefore could not deny now. Upon the whole, the
Spaniards acted as moderators between them; and as they had obliged
the two Englishmen not to hurt the three, while they were naked and
unarmed, so they now obliged the three to go and rebuild their fellows'
two huts, one to be of the same dimensions, and the other larger than
they were before ; also to fence their ground again, where they had pulled
up the fences ; plant trees in the room of those pulled up ; dig up the
land again for planting corn, where they had spoiled it ; and, in a word,
to restore every thing in the same state as they found it, as near as they
could, for entirely it ould not be, the season for the corn, and the
growth of the trees and hedges, not being possible to be recovered.
Well, they all submitted to this ; and as they had plenty of provisions
given them all the while, they grew very orderly, only that these three
310 ADVENTURES OP
fellows could never be persuaded to work for themselves, except now and
then a little, just as they pleased. Thus, having lived pretty well to
gether for a month or two, the Spaniards gave them their arms again, and
gave them liberty to go abroad with them as before. It was not above a
week after they had these arms, and went abroad, but the ungrateful
creatures began to be as insolent as before ; but, however, an accident
happened presently upon this, which endangered the safety of them all :
they were obliged to lay by all private resentment, and look to the pre
servation of their lives.
It happened one night that the Spaniard governor, as I call him that
is to say, the Spaniard whose life I had saved, who was now the captain/
or leader, or governor of the rest found himself very uneasy in the night,
and could by no means get any sleep : he was perfectly well in body, only
found his thoughts tumultuous, and his mind run upon men fighting, and
killing one another ; and, growing more and more uneasy, he resolved to
rise. Being thus gotten up, he looked out ; but, being dark, he could see
little or nothing : and besides, the trees which I had planted, as in my
former account is described, and which were now grown tall, intercepted
his sight, so that he could only look up and see that it was a clear star
light night; and, hearing no noise, he returned and laid him down again.
But it was all one ; he could not sleep, nor could he compose himself to
any thing like rest, but his thoughts were to the last degree uneasy, and
yet he knew not for what.
Having made some noise with rising and walking about, going out and
coming in, another of them waked, and, calling, asked who it was that
was up ? The governor told him how it had been with him. " Say you
so!" says the other Spaniard; "such things are not to be slighted, I
assure you: there is certainly some mischief working," says he, "near
us ; " and presently he asked him, " Where are the Englishmen ?" " They
are all in their huts," says he, "safe enough." It seems, the Spaniards
had kept possession of the main apartment, and had made a place where
the three Englishmen, since their last mutiny, always quartered by them
selves, and could not come at the rest. " Well," says the Spaniard,
"there is something in it, I am persuaded from my own experience; I
am certain our spirits embodied have converse with, and receive intelli
gence from, the spirits unembodied, and inhabiting the invisible world ;
and this friendly notice is given for our advantage, if we know how to
make use of it. Come," says he, "let us go out and look abroad; and
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 311
if we find nothing at all in it to justify our trouble, I'll tell you a story
to the purpose, that shall convince you of the justice of my proposing it."
In a word, they went out to go to the top of the hill, where I used to
go ; but they, being strong, and in good company, nor alone, as I was,
used none of my cautions to go up by the ladder, and then, pulling it up
after them, to go up a second stage to the top, but were going round
through the grove unconcerned and unwary, when they were surprised
with seeing a light as of fire, a very little way off from them, and hearing
the voices of men, not of one or two, but of a great number.
Whether it was the consequence of the escape of the three savages
in our last encounter, who jumped into the boat, and of whom I mentioned
that I was afraid they should go home and bring more help, that so
great a number came now together ; or whether they came ignorantly,
and by accident, on their usual bloody errand, the Spaniards could not, it
seems, understand : but whatever it was, it had been their business to
have concealed themselves, and to have fallen upon them so effectually, as
that not a man of them should have escaped, which could only have been
by getting in between them and their boats : but this presence of mind
was wanting to them, which was the ruin of their tranquillity for a great
while.
We need not doubt but that the governor, and the man with him,
surprised with this sight, ran back immediately, and raised their fellows,
giving them an account of the imminent danger they were all in, and they
again as readily took the alarm ; but it was impossible to persuade them
to stay close within where they were, but that they must all run out to
see how things ^tood.
While it was dark, indeed, they were well enough, and they had op
portunity enough, for some hours, to view them by the light of three fires
they had made at some distance from one another. What they were doing
they knew not, and what to do themselves they knew not ; for, first, the
enemy were too many ; and, secondly, they did not keep together, but
were divided into several parties, and were on shore in several places.
The Spaniards were in no small consternation at this sight ; and as
they found that the fellows ran straggling all over the shore, they made
no doubt but some of them would chop in upon their habitation, or upon
some other place where they would see the tokens of inhabitants ; and
they were in great perplexity also for fear of their flock of goats, which
would have been little less than starving them, if they should have been
312 ADVENTURES OP
destroyed. Could they have seen the savages all together in one body,
and at a distance from their canoes, they resolved, if there had been an
hundred of them, to have attacked them ; but that could not be obtained,
for there were some of them two miles off from the other, and, as it ap
peared afterwards, were of two different nations.
After having mused a great while on the course they should take, and
exerted themselves in considering their present circumstances, they re
solved at last, while it was dark, to send the old savage (Friday's father)
out as a spy to learn, if possible, something concerning them, as to what
they came for, and what they intended to do, and the like. The old man
undertook it without hesitation, and, stripping himself quite naked, as
most of the savages were, away he went. -After he had been gone an
hour or two, he brings word that he had been among them undiscovered,
that he found they were two parties, and of two several nations, who had
war with one another, and had had a great battle in their own country ;
and that both sides, having had several prisoners taken in the fight, they
were, by mere chance, landed on the same island for the devouring their
prisoners, and making merry ; but their coming so by chance to the same
place had spoiled all their mirth : that they were in a great rage at one
another, and were so near, that he believed they would fight again as soon
as daylight began to appear ; but he did not perceive that they had any
notion of any body's being on the island- but themselves. He had hardly
made an end of telling the story, when they could perceive, by the un
usual noise they made, that the two little armies were engaged in a
bloody fight.
Friday's father used all the arguments he could to persuade our people
to lie close, and not to be seen ; but it was impossible to prevail, espe
cially upon the Englishmen their curiosity was so importunate upon
their prudentials, that they must run out and see the battle : however,
they used some .caution, namely, they did not go openly just by their own
dwelling, but went farther into the woods, and placed themselves to ad
vantage, where they might securely see them manage the fight, and, as
they thought, not be seen by them; but it seems the savages did see
them, as we shall find hereafter.
The battle was very fierce, and, if I might believe the Englishmen, one
of them said he could perceive that some of them were men of great bravery,
of invincible spirits, and great policy in guiding the fight. The battle,
ttuey said, held two hours, before they could guess which party would be
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 313
beaten; but then that party which was nearest our people's habitation
began to appear weakest, and after some time more, some of them began
to fly : and this put our men again into a great consternation, lest any of
those that fled should run into the grove before their dwelling for shelter,
and thereby involuntarily discover the place, and that, by consequence, the
pursuers should do the like in search of them. Upon this they resolved
that they would stand armed within the wall, and, whoever came into the
grove, ,they should sally out over the wall and kill them so that, if pos
sible, not one should return to give an account of it. They ordered also,
that it should be done with their swords, or by knocking them down with
the stock of the musket, not by shooting them, for fear of raising an alarm
by the noise.
As they expected, it fell out : three of the routed army fled for life,
and, crossing the creek, ran directly into the place, not in the least know
ing whither they went, but running as into a thick wood for shelter.
The scout they kept to look abroad gave notice of this within with this
addition, to our men's great satisfaction, namely, that the conquerors
had not pursued them, or seen which way they were gone. Upon this,
the Spaniard governor, a man of humanity, would not suffer them to kill
the fugitives ; but sending three men out by the top of the hill, ordered
them to go round and come in behind them, surprise, and take them
prisoners ; which was done. The residue of the conquered people fled
to their canoes and got off to sea ; the victors retired, and made no pursuit,
or very little, but, drawing themselves into a body together, gave two
great screaming shouts, which they supposed were by way of triumph,
and so the fight ended : and the same day, about three o'clock in the after
noon, they also marched to their* canoes. And thus the Spaniards had
their island again free to themselves, the fight was over, and they saw
no savages in several years after.
After they were all gone, the Spaniards came out of their den, and,
viewing the field of battle, they found about two-and-thirty dead men
upon the spot. They found not one wounded man that was not stone
dead ; for either these savages stay by their enemy till they have quite
killed them, or they carry all the wounded men, that are not quite dead,
away with them.
This deliverance tamed our Englishmen for a great while : the sight
had filled them with horror, and the consequence appeared terrible to the
last degree, especially upon supposing that some time or other they should
314 ADVENTURES OF
fall into the hands of those creatures, who would not only kill them as
enemies, but kill them for food, as we kill our cattle. This, as I said,
tamed even the three English brutes I have been speaking of, and, for a
great while after, they were very tractable, and went about the common
business of the whole society well enough planted, sowed, reaped, and
began to be all naturalised to the country ; but sometime after this, they
fell all into such simple measures again as brought them into a deal of
trouble.
They had taken three prisoners, as I had observed ; and these three
being lusty, stout young fellows, they made them servants, and taught
them to work for them : and as slaves they did well enough ; but they
did not take their measures with them as I did with my man Friday,
namely, to begin with them upon the principle of having saved their lives,
and" then instructed them in .the rational principles of life, much less of
religion, civilising and reducing them by kind usage and affectionate
arguings ; but as they gave them their food every day, so they gave them
their work too, and kept them fully employed in drudgery enough : but
they failed in this by it, that they never had them to assist them and
fight for them, as I had my man Friday, who was as true to me as the
very flesh upon my bones.
But to come to the family part. Being all now good friends (fox com
mon danger, as I said above, had effectually reconciled them), they began
to consider their general circumstances; and the first thing that came
under their consideration was, whether, seeing the savages particularly
haunted that side of the island, and that there were more remote and
retired parts of it equally adapted to their way of living, they should not
rather remove their habitation.
After long debate, it was conceived that they should not remove
their habitation, because they thought they might hear from their gover
nor again, meaning me ; and if I should send any one to seek them, I
would be sure to direct them on that side, where, if they should find the
place demolished, they would conclude the savages had killed them all, and
they were gone, and so their supply would go away too. But as to their
corn and cattle, they agreed to remove them into the valley where my
cave was, where the land was as proper to both, and where indeed there
was land enough : however, upon second thoughts, they altered one part
of that resolution too, and resolved only to remove part of their cattle
thither, and plant part of their corn there ; and so, if one part was de-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 315
stroyed, the other might be saved : and one piece of prudence they used,
which it was very well they did, namely, that they never trusted these
three savages which they had taken prisoners with knowing any thing of
the plantation they had made in that valley, 'or of any cattle they had
there, much less of the cave there, which they kept in case of necessity
as a safe retreat ; and thither they carried also the two barrels of powder
which I had left them at my coming away.
But, however, they resolved not to change their habitation ; yet they
agreed that, as I had carefully covered it first with a wall and fortification
and then with a grove of trees, so, seeing their safety consisted entirely in
their being concealed, of which they were now fully convinced, they set
to work to cover and conceal the place yet more effectually than before.
I return to the story. They lived two years after this in perfect
retirement, and had no more visits from the savages. They had indeed an
alarm given them one morning, which put them in a great consternation ;
for some of the Spaniards being out early one morning on the west side, or
rather end, of the island which by the way was that end where I never
went, for fear of being discovered they were surprised by seeing above
twenty canoes of Indians just coming on shore.
They made the best of their way home in hurry enough, and giving
the alarm to their comrades, they kept close all that day and the next,
going out only at night to make observations ; but they had the good luck
to be mistaken, for wherever the savages went, they did not land at that
time on the island, but pursued some other design.
And now they had another broil with the three Englishmen, one of
which, a most turbulent fellow, being in a rage at one of the three slaves
which I mentioned they had taken, because the fellow had not done
something right which he bade him do, and seemed a little untractable in
his showing him, drew a hatchet out of a frogbelt in which he bore it by
his side, and fell upon him, the poor savage, not to correct him, but to kill
him. One of the Spaniards, who was by, seeing him give the fellow a
barbarous cut with the hatchet, which he aimed at his head, but struck
into his shoulder, so that he thought he had cut the poor creature's arm
off, ran to him, and, entreating him not to murder the poor man, clapped
in between him and the savage to prevent the mischief.
The fellow, being enraged the more at this, struck at the Spaniard with
his hatchet, and swore he would serve him as he intended to serve the
savage ; which the Spaniard perceiving, avoided the blow, and with a
316
ADVENTURES OF
shovel which he had in his hand (for they were working in the field about
the corn-land) knocked the brute down : another of the Englishmen,
running at the same time to help his comrade, knocked the Spaniard
down, and then two Spaniards more came to help their man, and a third
Englishman fell upon them. They had none of them any fire-arms, or
any other weapon but hatchets and other tools, except the third English-
man : he had one of my old rusty cutlasses, with which he made at the
last Spaniards, and wounded them both. This fray set the whole family
in an uproar, and, more help coming in, they took the three Englishmen
prisoners. The next question was, what should be done with them?
They had been so often mutinous, and were so furious, so desperate, and
so idle withal, that they knew not what course to take with them, for
they were mischievous to the highest degree, and valued not what hurt
they did any man ; so that, in short, it was not safe to live with them.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 317
The Spaniard who was governor, told them, in so many words, that if
they had been his own countrymen he would have hanged them all for
all laws and all governors were to preserve society, and those who were
dangerous to society ought to be expelled out of it ; but, as they were
Englishmen, and that it was to the generous kindness of an Englishman
that they all owed their preservation and deliverance, he would use them
with all possible lenity, and would leave them to the judgment of the
other two Englishmen, who were their countrymen.
One of the two honest Englishmen then stood up, and said they
desired it might not be left to them : " For," says he, "I am sure we ought
to sentence them to the gallows ;" and with that gives an account how
Will Atkins, one of the three, had proposed to have all the five Englishmen
join together, and muraer all the Spaniards when they were in their sleep.
When the Spanish governor heard this, he calls to Will Atkins:
" How ! Seignior Atkins," says he, " will you murder us all ? "What have
you to say to that?" That hardened villain was so far from denying it,
that he said it was true, and declared they would do it still before
they had done with them. "Well, but Seignior Atkins," said the
Spaniard, " what have we done to you that you would kill us ? And
what would you get by killing us ? And what must we do to prevent you
killing us ? Must we kill you, or will you kill us ? Why will you put us
to the necessity of this, Seignior Atkins ?" asks the Spaniard very calmly
and smiling.
Seignior Atkins was in sucfe a rage at the Spaniard's making a jest of
it, that had he not been held by three men, and withal had no weapons
with him, it was thought he would have attempted to have killed the
Spaniard in the middle of all the company.
This hairbrained carriage obliged them to consider seriously what was
to be done. After a long debate, it was agreed, first, that they should be
disarmed, and not permitted to have either a gun, or powder, or shot, or
sword, or any weapon, and should be turned out of the society, and left
to live where they would, and how they could, by themselves ; but that
none of the rest, either Spaniards or English, should converse with them,
speak with them, or have any thing to do with them ; that they should be
forbid to come within a certain distance of the place where the rest dwelt ;
and that, if they offered to commit any disorder, so as to spoil, burn, kill,
or destroy any of the corn, plantings, buildings, fences, or cattle belonging
to the society, they should die without mercy.
318 ADVENTURES OP
The governor, a man of great humanity, musing upon the sentence,
considered a little upon it, and, turning to the two honest Englishmen,
said, " Hold, you must reflect that it will he long ere they can raise corn
and cattle of their own, and they must not starve we must therefore
allow them provisions." So he caused to be added, that they should have
a proportion of corn given them to last them eight months, and for seed
to sow, by which time they might be supposed to raise some of their own ;
that they should have six milch-goats, four he goats, and six kids, given
them, as well for present subsistence as for a store ; and that they should
have tools given them for their work in the field such as six hatchets,
an axe, a saw, and the like; but they should have none of these tools
or provisions unless they would swear solemnly that they would not
hurt or injure any of the Spaniards with them, or their fellow English
men.
Thus they dismissed them the society, and turned them out to shift
for themselves. They went away sullen and refractory, as neither con
tented to go away or to stay ; but as there was no remedy, they went pre
tending to go and choose a place where they should settle themselves, to
plant and live by themselves, and some provisions were given them, but
no weapons.
They lived in this separate condition about six months, and had got in
their first harvest, but when the rainy season came on, for want of a cave
in the earth, they could not keep their grain dry : so they came and
begged the Spaniards to help them, which they very readily did, and in
four days worked a great hole in the side of the hill for them, big enough
to secure their corn and other things from the rain.
About three quarters of a year after this separation, a new frolic took
these rogues, which, together with the former villany they had committed,
brought mischief enough upon them, and had very near been the ruin of
the whole colony.
The three fellows came down to the Spaniards one morning, and, in
very humble terms, desired to be admitted to speak with them: the
Spaniards very readily heard what they had to say, which was this that
they were tired of living in the manner they did, that they were not
handy enough to make the necessaries they wanted, and that, having no
help, they found they should be starved ; but, if the Spaniards would give
them leave to take one of the canoes which they came over in, and give
them arms and ammunition proportioned to their defence, they would go
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 319
over to the main, and seek their fortune, and so deliver them from the
trouble of supplying them with any other provisions.
The Spaniards told them, with great kindness, that, if they were re
solved to go, they should not go like naked men, and be in no condition
to defend themselves ; and that, though they could ill spare their fire
arms, having not enough for themselves, yet they would let them have
two muskets, a pistol, and a cutlass, and each man a hatchet, which
they thought sufficient for them.
In a word, they accepted the offer; and, having baked them bread
enough to serve them a month, and givenfthem as much goat's flesh as
they could eat while it was sweet, and a great basket full of dried grapes,
a pot 'full of fresh water, and a young kid alive to kill, they boldly set
out in a canoe for a voyage over the sea, where it was at least forty miles
broad. The boat was, indeed, a large one, and would have very well car
ried fifteen or twenty men, and, therefore, was rather too big for them to
manage ; but, as they had a fair breeze, and the flood-tide with them,
they did well enough. They had made a mast of a long pole, and a sail
of four large goat-skins dried, which they had sewed or laced together,
and away they went merrily enough: the Spaniards called after them,
" Bon veajo," and no man ever thought of seeing them any more.
After twenty-two days' absence, one of the two honest Englishmen
being abroad upon his planting work, sees three strange men coming to
wards him, two of them with guns upon their shoulders. Away runs the
Englishman, as if he was bewitched, and came, frighted and amazed, to
the governor Spaniard, and tells him they were all undone, for there were
strangers landed upon the island, he could not tell who. The Spaniard,
pausing awhile, says to him, " How do you mean, you cannot tell who ?
They are savages, to be sure." "JN"o, no," says the Englishman, "they
are men in clothes, with arms." " Nay, then," says the Spaniard, " why
are you concerned ? If they are not savages, they must be friends ; for
there is no Christian nation upon earth but will do us good rather than
harm."
"While they were debating thus, came the three Englishmen, and,
standing without the wood which was new planted, hallooed to them;
they presently knew their voices, so all the wonder of that kind ceased.
But now the admiration was turned upon another question, namely, what
could be the matter, and what made them come back again.
It was not long before they brought the men in : and, inquiring where
320 ADVENTURES OP
they had been, and what they had been doing, they gave them a full
account of their voyage in a few words namely, that they reached the
land in two days, or something less ; but, finding the people alarmed at
their coming, and preparing with bows and arrows to fight them, they
durst not go on shore, but sailed on to the northward six or seven hours,
till they came to a great opening, by which they perceived that the land
they saw from our island was not the main, but an island ; that, entering
that opening of the sea, they saw another island on the right hand north,
and several more west, and, being resolved to land somewhere, they put
over to one of the islands which lay west, and went boldly on shore ; that
they found the people very courteous and friendly to them, and they gave
them several roots-, and some dried fish, and appeared very sociable ; and
the women, as well as the men, were very forward to supply them with
any thing they could get for them to eat, and brought it to them a great
way upon their heads.
They continued here for four days, and inquired, as well as they could
of them by signs, what nations were this way and that way, and were
told of several fierce and terrible people that lived almost every way, who,
as they made known by signs to them, used to eat men ; but, as for them
selves, they said that they never eat men or women, except only such as
they took in the wars, and then they owned that they made a great feast,
and eat their prisoners.
The Englishmen inquired when they had a feast of that kind, and
they told them two moons ago, pointing to the moon, and then to two
fingers ; and that their great king had* two hundred prisoners now, which
he had taken in his war, and they were feeding them to make them fat
for the next feast. The Englishmen seemed mighty desirous to see those
prisoners, but the others, mistaking them, thought they were desirous to
have some of them to- carry away for their own eating ; so they beckoned
to them, pointing to the setting of the sun, and then to the rising ; which
was to signify that the next morning, at sun-rising, they would bring some
for them: and accordingly, the next morning they brought down five
women and eleven men, and gave them to the Englishmen to carry with
them on their voyage, just as we would bring so many cows and oxen
down to a sea-port town to victual a ship.
To refuse the prisoners, would have been the highest affront to the
savage gentry that offered them, and what to do. with them they knew
not. However, upon some debate, they resolved to accept of them ; and,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 321
in return, they gave the savages that brought them one of their hatchets,
an old key, a knife, and six or seven of their bullets, which, though they
did not understand, they seemed extremely pleased with ; and then, tying
the poor creatures' hands behind them, they (the people) dragged the
prisoners into the boat for our men.
Having taken their leave, with all the respect and thanks that could
well pass between people, where on either side they understood not one
word they could say, the Englishmen put off with their boat, and came
back towards the first island, where, when they arrived, they set eight of
their prisoners at liberty, there being too many of them for their occasion.
In their voyage they endeavoured to have some communication with
their prisoners, but it was impossible to make them understand any thing ;
nothing they could say to them, or give them, or do for them, but was
looked upon as going about to murder them; they first of all unbound
them, but the poor creatures screamed at that, especially the women, as
if they had just felt the knife at their throats ; for they immediately con
cluded they were unbound on purpose to be killed. If they gave them
any thing to eat, it was the same thing ; then they concluded it was for
fear they should sink in flesh, and so not be fat enough to kill ; if they
looked at one of them more particularly, the party presently concluded it
was to see whether he or she was fattest or fittest to kill first ; nay, after
they had brought them quite over, and begun to use them kindly and
treat them well, still they expected every day to make a dinner or supper
for their new masters.
When the three wanderers had given this unaccountable history or
journal of their voyage, the Spaniard asked them where their new family
was? and being told that they had brought them on shore, and put
them into one of their huts, and were come to beg some victuals for them,
they (the Spaniards) and the two other Englishmen that is to say, the
whole colony resolved to go all down to the place and see them, and did
so, and Friday's father with them.
When they came into the hut, there they sat all bound; for when
they had brought them on shore they bound their hands, that they might
not take the boat and make their escape there, I say, they sat, all of
them stark naked. First, there were three men, lusty, comely fellows,
well-shaped, with straight and fair limbs, about thirty or thirty-five years
of age ; and five women, whereof two might be from thirty to forty, two
more not above twenty-four or twenty-five, and the fifth, a tall, comely
21
322 ADVENTURES 01
maiden, about sixteen or seventeen. The women were well-favoured,
agreeable persons, both in shape and features, only tawny ; and two of
them, had they been perfect white, would have passed for handsome
women even in London itself, having very pleasant, agreeable counte
nances, and of a very modest behaviour, especially when they came after
wards to be clothed, and dressed, as they called it, though that dress was
very indifferent, it must be confessed.
The first thing they did was to cause the old Indian, Friday's father,
to go in and see first if he knew any of them, and then if he understood
any of their speech. As soon as the old man came in, he looked seriously
at them, but knew none of them, neither could any of them understand a
word he said, or a sign he could make, except one of the women. How
ever, this was enough to answer the end, which was to satisfy them that
the men into whose hands they were fallen were Christians, that they
abhorred the eating of men or women, and that they might be sure they
would not be killed. As soon as they were assured of this, they dis
covered such a joy, and by such awkward and several ways, as is hard to
describe, for it seems they were of several nations.
The woman, who was their interpreter, was bid to ask them if they
were willing to be servants, and to work for the men who had brought
them away to save their lives ? at which they fell a dancing ; and pre
sently one fell to taking up this, and another that any thing that lay next,
to carry on their shoulders, to intimate that they were willing to work.
The governor, who found that the having women among them would
presently be attended with some inconveniency, and might occasion some
strife, and perhaps blood, asked the three men what they intended to do
with these women, and how they intended to use them, whether as ser
vants or as wives ? One of the Englishmen answered very boldly and
readily, that they would use them as both. To which the governor said,
" I am not going to restrain you from it, you are your own masters as to
that ; but this I think is but just, for avoiding disorders and quarrels
among you, and I desire it of you for that reason only, namely, that you
will all engage that, if any of you take any of these women as a wife, he
shall take but one." All this appeared so just, that every one agreed to
it without any difficulty.
Then the Englishmen asked the Spaniards if they designed to take
any of them ? But every one answered, No. Some of them said they had
wives in Spain ; and the others did not like women that were not Chris-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 323
tians : and all together declared that they would not touch one of them,
which was an instance of such virtue as I have not met with in all my
travels. On the other hand, to he short, the five Englishmen took them
every one a wife ; and so they set up a new form of living, for the
Spaniards and Friday's father lived in my old habitation, which they had
enlarged exceedingly within : the three servants, which they had taken in
the late battle of the savages, lived with them ; and these carried on the
main part of the colony, supplying all the rest with food, and assisting
them in any thing as they could, or as they found necessity required.
But the wonder of this story was, how five such refractory, ill-matched
fellows, should agree about these women, and that two of them should not
pitch upon the same woman, especially seeing two or three of them were,
without comparison, more agreeable than the others : but they took a good
way enough to prevent quarrelling among themselves ; for they set the
five women by themselves in one of their huts, and they went all into the
other hut, and drew lots among them who should choose first. He that
drew to choose first, went away by himself to the hut where the poor
creatures were, and fetched out her he chose ; and it was worth observing,
that he that chose first took her that was reckoned the homeliest and the
oldest of the five, which made mirth enough among the rest ; and even
the Spaniards laughed at it : but the fellow considered better than any of
them, that it was application and business that they were to expect as
sistance in as much as any thing else ; and she proved the best wife in the
parcel.
When they had all chosen their wives, the men went to work, and the
Spaniards came and helped them ; and in a few hours they had built them
every one a new hut or tent for their lodging apart. The three wicked
ones had pitched farthest off, and the two honest ones nearer, but both on
the north shore of the island, so that they continued separate as before :
and thus my island was peopled in three places, and, as I might say, three
towns were begun to be planted.
And here it is very well worth observing, that, as it often happens in
the world (what the wise ends of God's providence are in such a disposition
of things, I cannot say), the two honest fellows had the two worst wives ;
and the three reprobates, that were scarce worth hanging, that were fit
for nothing, and neither seemed born to do themselves good, nor any one
else, had three clever, diligent, careful, and ingenious wives not that the
two first were ill wives as to their temper or humour, for all the five were
324 ADVENTURES OP
most willing, quiet, passive, and subjected creatures, rather like slaves
than wives ; but my meaning is, they were not alike capable, ingenious,
or industrious, or alike cleanly and neat.
As to the three reprobates, as I justly call them, though they were
much civilised by their new settlement, compared to what they were
before, and were not so quarrelsome, having not the same opportunity, yet
one of the certain companions of a profligate mind never left them, and
that was their idleness. It is true, they planted corn and made fences ;
but Solomon's words were never better verified than in them " I went
by the vineyard of the slothful, and it was overgrown with thorns ; " for
when the Spaniards came to view their crop, they could not see it in some
places for weeds : the hedge had several gaps in it, where the wild goats
had gotten in and eaten up the corn ; perhaps here and there a dead bush
was crammed in to stop them out for the present, but it was only shutting
the stable-door after the steed was stolen : whereas, when they looked on
the colony of the other two, there was the very face of industry and suc
cess upon all they did ; there was not a weed to be seen in all their corn,
or a gap in any of their hedges ; and they, on the other hand, verified
Solomon's words in another place : " The diligent hand maketh rich ; "
for everything grew and thrived, and they had plenty within and without ;
they had more tame cattle than the others, more utensils and necessaries
within doors, and yet more pleasure and diversion too. The diligent lived
well and comfortably, and the slothful lived hard and beggarly ; and so, I
believe, generally speaking, it is all over the world.
But now I come to a scene different from all that had happened before,
either to them or me ; and the origin of the story was this : Early one
morning there came on shore five or six canoes of Indians, or savages, call
them which you please ; and there is no room to doubt that they came
upon the old errand of feeding upon their slaves : but that part was now
so familiar to the Spaniards, and to our men too, that they had nothing to
do but to give notice to all the three plantations to keep within doors,
and not to show themselves, only placing a scout in a proper place, to
give notice when the boats went off to sea again.
This was, without doubt, very right ; but a disaster spoiled all these
measures, and made it known among the savages that there were inha
bitants there, which was, in the end, the desolation of almost the whole
eoLony. After the canoes with the savages were gone off, the Spaniards
peeped abroad again, and some of them had the curiosity to go to the
KOBINSON CKUSOE. 325
place where they had been, to see what they had been doing. Here, to
their great surprise, they found three savages left behind, and lying fast
asleep upon the ground. The Spaniards were greatly surprised at this
sight, and perfectly at a loss what to do. After some consultation, they
resolved upon this, that they would lie still a while longer, till, if possible,
these three men might be gone : but then the governor Spaniard recol
lected that the three savages had no boat, and that if they were left to
rove about the island, they would certainly discover that there were in
habitants in it, and so they should be undone that way. Upon this, they
went back again, and there lay the fellows fast asleep still; so they
resolved to awaken them, and take them prisoners ; and they did so, and
away they carried them, first to the bower, where was the chief of their
country work, and afterwards to the habitation of the two Englishmen. Here
they were set to work, though it was not much they had for them to do ;
and, whether it was by negligence in guarding them, or that they thought
the fellows could not mend themselves, I know not, but one of them
ran away, and, taking into the woods, they could never hear of him
more.
They had good reason to believe he got home again soon after in
some other boats or canoes of savages, who came on shore three or four
weeks afterwards, and who, carrying on their revels as usual, went off
again in two days time. This thought terrified them exceedingly ; for
they concluded, and that not without good cause indeed, that if this
fellow got safe home among his comrades, he would certainly give them
an account that there were people in the island, as also how weak and
few they were. The first testimony they had that this fellow had given
intelligence of them was, that, about two months after this, six canoes
of savages, with about seven, or eight, or ten men in a canoe, came
rowing along the north side of the island, where they never used to come
before, and landed, about an hour after sunrise, at a convenient place
about a mile from the habitation of the two Englishmen, where this
escaped man had been kept.
"When the poor frighted men had secured their wives and goods,
they sent one of the slaves they had of the three who came with the
women, and who was at their place by accident, away to the Spaniards
with all speed, to give them the alarm, and desire speedy help ; and, in
the meantime, they took their arms and what ammunition they had,
and retreated towards the place in the wood where their wives were
326 ADVENTURES OP
sent, keeping at a distance, yet so that they might see, if possible, which
way the savages took.
They had not gone far hut that, from a rising ground, they could see
the little army of their enemies come on directly to their habitation,
and in a moment more could see all their huts and household stuff
flaming up together, to their great grief and mortification ; for they had
a very great loss, and to them irretrievable, at least for some time. They
kept their station for a while, till they found the savages, like wild
beasts, spread themselves all over the place, rummaging every place
they could think of in search for prey, and, in particular, for the people,
of whom it plainly appeared they had intelligence.
The two Englishmen, seeing this, thought it proper to make another
retreat about half a mile further, believing, as it afterwards happened,
that the farther they strolled, the fewer would be together. The next
halt was at the entrance into a very thick gro'wn part of the woods,
and where an old trunk of a tree stood, which was hollow and vastly
large ; and in this tree they both took their standing, resolving to see
what might offer. They had not stood there long, but two of the
savages appeared running directly that way, and, a little way farther,
they espied three more coming after them, and five more beyond them,
all coming the same way : besides which, they saw seven or eight more
at a distance, running another way ; for, in a word, they ran every way,
like sportsmen beating for their game.
The poor men were now in great perplexity, but, after a very short
debate, they resolved to stand them there, and, if they were too many
to deal with, then they would get to the top of the tree, from whence
they doubted not to defend themselves, fire excepted, as long as their
ammunition lasted. They next considered whether they should fire at
the two first, or wait for the three, and so take the middle party, by
which the two and the five that followed would be separated ; at length
they resolved to let the two first pass by, unless they should spy them
in the tree, and come to attack them. The two first savages also con
firmed them in this resolution, by turning a little from them towards
another part of the wood ; but the three, and the five after them, came
forwards directly to the tree, as if they had known the Englishmen were
there. As the savages came on, they plainly saw that one of the three
was the runaway savage that had escaped from them, and they resolved
that, if possible, he should not escape, though they should both fire j so
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 327
the other stood ready with his piece, that, if he did not drop at the first
shot, he should be sure to have a second. But the first was too good a
marksman to miss his aim ; for, as the savages kept near one another a
little behind in a line, he fired, and hit two of them directly ; the fore
most was killed outright, being shot in the head ; the second, which was
the runaway Indian, was shot through the body and fell, but was not
quite dead ; and the third had a little scratch in the shoulder, perhaps by
the same ball that went through the body of the second, and being dread
fully frighted, though not much hurt, sat down upon the ground, scream
ing and yelling in a hideous manner.
The five that were behind, more frighted with the noise than sensible
of their danger, stood still at first ; for the woods made the sound a thou
sand times bigger than it really was, the echoes rattling from one side to
another. However, all being silent again, and they not knowing what
the matter was, came on unconcerned to the place where their com
panions lay ; and here the poor ignorant creatures, not sensible that they
were within reach of the same mischief, stood all of a huddle over the
wounded man, inquiring, as may be supposed, how he came to be hurt.
Our two men, having them all thus in their power, and the first having
loaded his piece again, resolved to let fly both together among them, and,
singling out by agreement which to aim at, they shot together, and killed/
or very much wounded, four of them ; the fifth, frighted even to death,
though not hurt, fell with the rest ; so that our men, seeing them all fall
together, thought they had killed them all. This belief made our two
men come boldly out from the tree before they had charged their guns
again, which was a wrong step, and they were under some surprise when
they came to the place and found no less than four of the men alive, and
of them two very little hurt, and one not at all : this obliged them to fall
Upon them with the stocks of their muskets ; and first they made sure of
the runaway savage that had been the cause of all the mischief, and
of another that was hurt in his knee, and put them out of their pain.
Then the man that was not hurt at all came and kneeled down to them
with his two hands held up, and made piteous moan to them by gestures
and signs for his life that they could understand.
They signified to him to sit down at the foot of a tree thereby ; and
one of the Englishmen, with a piece of rope-twine which he had by chance
in his pocket, tied his feet fast together, and his hands behind him, and
there they left him, and made with what speed they could after the other
328 ADVENTURES OP
two which were gone before, fearing they, or any more of them, should
find the way to their covered place 'in the woods, where their wives, and
the few goods they had left, lay. They came once in sight of the two
men, but it was at a great distance ; however, they had the satisfaction to
see them cross over a valley towards the sea, the quite contrary way from
that which led to their retreat ; and, being satisfied with that, they went
back to the tree where they left their prisoner, but he was gone, and the
two pieces of rope-yarn with which they had bound him lay just at the
foot of the tree.
They were now in as great a concern as before, not knowing how near
the enemy might be, or in what numbers ; so they resolved to go away to
the place where their wives were, to see if all was well there. When
they came thither, they found the savages had been in the wood, and very
near the place, but had not found it ; for indeed it was inaccessible, by
the trees standing so thick, unless the persons seeking it had been directed
by those that knew it, which these were not. "While they were here,
they had the comfort of seven of the Spaniards coming to their assistance :
the other ten men, with their servants and Friday's father, were gone in
a body to defend their bower, and the corn and cattle that were kept
there. With the seven Spaniards came one of the savages, who, as I said,
were their prisoners formerly, and with them also came the savage whom
the Englishmen had left bound hand and foot at the tree ; for it seems
they came that way, saw the slaughter of the seven men, and unbound
the eighth, and brought him along with them.
The two Englishmen were now so encouraged, that they could not
satisfy themselves to stay any longer there ; but, taking five of the
Spaniards and themselves, with four muskets and a pistol among them,
and two stout quarter- staves, away they went in quest of the savages.
And first they came to the tree where the men lay that had been killed ;
but it was easy to see that some more of the savages had been there, for
they had attempted to carry their dead men away, and had dragged two
of them a good way, but had given it over. From thence they advanced
to the first rising ground, where they had stood and seen their camp
destroyed, and where they had the mortification still to see some of the
smoke. They then resolved to go -.forward towards their plantation; but
a little before they came thither, coming in sight of the sea-shore, they
plainly saw the savages all embarking again in their canoes.
The poor Englishmen being now twice ruined, and all their improve-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 329
merits destroyed, the rest all agreed to come and help them to rehuild, and
to assist them with needful supplies. Their three countrymen, who were
not yet noted for having the least inclination to do any thing good, yet, as
soon as they heard of it came and offered their help and assistance, and
did very friendly work for several days to restore their habitations, and
make necessaries for them ; and thus, in a little, they were set upon their
legs again.
It was five or six months after this, when, on a sudden, they were
invaded with a most formidable fleet of no less than twenty-eight canoes,
full of savages, armed with bows and arrows, great clubs, wooden swords,
and such like engines of war ; and they brought such numbers with them,
that, in short, it put all our people into the utmost consternation. These
new invaders, leaving their canoes at the east end of the island, came
ranging along the shore directly towards the plantation of the two
Englishmen, to the number of two hundred and fifty, as near as our men
could judge. Our army was but small indeed ; but, that which was
worse, they had not arms for all their number neither. The whole
account, it seems, stood thus : first, as to men
17 Spaniards.
5 Englishmen.
1 Old Friday, or Friday's father.
3 Slaves, taken with the women, who proved very faithful.
3 Other slaves, who lived with the Spaniards.
~29
To arm these they had
11 Muskets.
5 Pistols.
3 Fowling-pieces.
5 Muskets, or fowling-pieces, which were taken by me from
the mutinous seamen whom I reduced.
2 Swords.
3 Old halberts.
~29
To their slaves they did not give either musket or fusil, but they had
every one a halbert, or a long staff, like a quarter-staff, with a great spike
of iron fastened into each end of it, and by his side a hatchet ; also every
one of our men had hatchets. Two of the women could not be prevailed
upon, but they would come into the fight, and they had bows and arrows
which the Spaniards had taken from the savages when the first action
happened, where the Indians fought with one another.
330 ADVENTURES OP
The Spaniard governor commanded the whole ; and William Atkins,
who, though a dreadful fellow for wickedness, was a most daring bold
fellow, commanded under him. The savages came forward like lions, and
our men, which was the worst of their fate, had no advantage in their
situation, only that Will Atkins, who now proved a most useful fellow,
with six men, was planted just behind a small thicket of bushes, as an
advanced guard, with orders to let the first of them pass by, and then fire
into the middle of them ; and, as soon as he had fired, to make his retreat
round a part of the wood, and so come in behind the Spaniards where they
stood, having a thicket of trees all before them.
When the savages came on, they ran straggling about every way in
heaps, out of all manner of order, and Will Atkins let about fifty of them
pass by him ; then, seeing the rest come in a very thick throng, he ordered
three of his men to fire, having loaded their muskets with six or seven
bullets a-pieee, about as big as pistol bullets. How many they killed or
wounded they knew not ; but the consternation and surprise was inex
pressible among the savages, who were frighted to the last degree, to hear
such a dreadful noise, and see their men killed, and others hurt, but see
nobody' that did it ; when, in the middle of their fright, William Atkins
and his other three let fly again among the thickest of them ; and, in less
than a minute, the first three, being loaded again, gave them a third
volley.
Had William Atkins and his men retired as soon as they had fired, or
had the rest of the body been at hand to have poured in their shot con
tinually, the savages had been effectually routed ; for the terror that was
among them came principally from this, namely, that they were killed by
the gods with thunder and lightning, and could see nobody that hurt
them : but William Atkins, staying to load again, discovered the cheat,
and some of the savages, spying them, came upon them behind, wounded
Atkins himself, and killed one of his fellow Englishmen with their arrows,
as they did afterwards one Spaniard and one of the Indian slaves who
came with the women. Our men, being thus hard laid at, retreated to a
rising ground in the wood ; and the Spaniards, after firing three volleys
upon them, retreated also : for the number of the savages was so great
that, though above fifty of them were killed, and more than so many
wounded, yet they came on in the teeth of our men, fearless of danger,
and &hot their arrows like a cloud.
The Spaniard governor having drawn his little body up together upon
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 331
a rising ground, Atkins, though he was wounded, would have had him
march, and charge them all together at once : hut the Spaniard replied,
" Seignior Atkins, you see how their wounded men fight, let them alone
till morning ; all these wounded men will he stiff and sore with their
wounds, and faint with the loss of hlood, and so we shall have the fewer
to engage." The advice was good ; but Will Atkins replied merrily,
".That's true, Seignior, and so shall I too ; and that's the reason I would
go on while I am warm." " Well, Seignior Atkins," says the Spaniard,
"you have hehaved gallantly, and done your part ; we will fight for you,
if you cannot come on : hut I think it hest to stay till morning." So they
waited.
But as it was a clear moonlight night, and they found the savages in
great disorder about their dead and wounded men, and a great hurry and
noise among them where they lay, they afterwards resolved to fall upon
them in the night. One of the two Englishmen, in whose quarter it was
where the fight began, led them round between the woods and the sea
side, westward; and, turning short south, they came so near where the
thickest of them lay, that, before they were seen or heard, eight of them
fired in among them, and did dreadful execution upon them : in half a
minute more eight others fired after them, pouring in their small shot in
such a quantity that abundance were killed and wounded ; and all this
while they were not able to see who hurt them, or which way to fly.
The Spaniards charged again with the utmost expedition, and then
divided themselves into three bodies, and resolved to fall in among them
all together. The savages stood altogether, but were in the utmost con
fusion, hearing the noise of our men shouting from three quarters together :
they would have fought if they had seen us, but our men gave them no
time, but, running up to them, fired among them three ways, and then
fell in with the butt ends of their muskets, their swords, armed staves,
and hatchets ; and laid about them so well that, in a word, they set up a
dismal screaming and howling, flying to save their lives which way soever
they could. Our men were tired with the execution, and killed, or mor
tally wounded, in the two fights, about one hundred and eighty of them ;
the rest, being frighted out of their wits, scoured through the woods and
over the hills with all the speed that fear and nimble feet could help
them to do, and they got all together to the sea-side, where they landed
and where their canoes lay. But it blew a terrible storm of wind that
evening from the sea- ward, so that it was impossible for them to put off :
332 ADVENTURES OP
their canoes were most of them driven hy the surge of the sea so high
upon the shore, that it required infinite toil to get them off ; and some of
them were dashed to pieces against the heach, or against one another.
Our men, though glad of their victory, yet got little rest that night ;
but, having refreshed themselves as well as they could, they resolved to
march to that part of the island where the savages were fled. "When they
came in view of the place where the remains of the savages' army lay,
there appeared about one hundred still : their posture was generally sit
ting upon the ground, with their knees up towards their mouth, and the
head put between the hands, leaning down upon the knees. The Spaniard
governor ordered two muskets to be fired without ball, to alarm them :
this he did, that by their countenance he might know what to expect
namely, whether they were still in heart to fight, or were so heartily
beaten, as to be dispirited and discouraged, and so he might manage
accordingly.
This stratagem took ; for, as soon as the savages heard the first gun
and saw the flash of the second, they started upon their feet in the
greatest consternation imaginable ; and, as our men advanced, they ran
screaming and yawling away up the hills into the country.
At first our men had much rather the weather had been calm, and
they had all gone away to sea. But Will Atkins proved the best counsellor
in this case. His advice was, to take the advantage that offered, and clap
in between them and their boats, and so deprive them of the capacity of
ever returning any more to plague the island. He told them they had
better have to do with one hundred men than with one hundred nations ;
that, as they must destroy their boats, so they must destroy the men, or
be all of them destroyed themselves. In a word, he showed them the
necessity of it so plainly, that they all came into it : so they went to
work immediately with the boats, and, getting some dry wood together
from a dead tree, they tried to set some of them on fire ; but they were so
wet, that they would scarce burn. However, the fire so burned the upper
part, that it soon made them unfit for swimming in the sea as boats.
When the Indians saw what they were about, some of them came run
ning out of the woods, and, coming as near as they could to our men,
kneeled down, and made pitiful gestures and strange noises, begging to
have their boats spared, and that they would be gone, and never return
thither again.
But our men were now satisfied that they had no way to preserve
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 333
themselves, or to save their colony, but effectually to prevent any of these
people from ever going home again ; so that, letting them know that they
should not have any mercy, they fell to work with their canoes, and de
stroyed them every one that the storm had not destroyed "before : at the
sight of which the savages raised a hideous cry in the woods, which our
people heard plain enough, after which they ran about the island like
distracted men.
Nor did the Spaniards, with all their prudence, consider that, while
they made those people thus desperate, they ought to have kept good
guard at the same time upon their plantations ; for though the Indians
did not find their main retreat, yet they found out my plantation at the
bower, and pulled it all to pieces, and all the fences and planting about
it ; trod all the corn under foot ; tore up the vines and grapes, being just
then almost ripe ; and did our men an inestimable damage.
Though our men were able to fight them upon all occasions, yet they
were in no condition to pursue them, or hunt them up and down ; for, as
they were too nimble of foot for our men when they found them single, so
our men durst not go about single for fear of being surrounded with their
numbers. The first thing they concluded, when they saw what their
circumstances were, was that they would, if possible, drive them up to
the farther part of the island, south-east, that, if any more savages came
on shore, they might not find one another ; then that they would daily
hunt and harass them, and kill as many of them as they could come at, till
they had reduced the number ; and, if they could at last tame them and
bring them to any thing, they would give them corn, and teach them how
to plant, and live upon their daily labour. In order to this they followed
them, and so terrified them with their guns, that in a few days, if any of
them fired a gun at an Indian, if he did not hit him, he would fall down for
fear ; and so dreadfully frighted they were, that they kept out of sight
farther and farther, till at last our men, following them, and every day
almost killing and wounding some of them, they kept up in the woods
and hollow places so much that it reduced them to the utmost misery for
want of food ; and many were afterwards found dead in the woods with
out any hurt, but merely starved to death.
When our men found this, it made their hearts relent, and pity moved
them, especially the Spaniard governor, who was the most generous-
minded man that ever I met with in my life ; and he proposed, if pos
sible, to take one of them alive, and bring him to understand what they
334 ADVENTURES OF
meant, so far as to be able to act as interpreter, and to go among them
and see if they might be brought to some conditions that might be de
pended upon, to save their lives, and do us no spoil.
It was some time before any of them could be taken ; but, being weak
and half-starved, one of them was at last surprised, and made a prisoner.
They brought old Friday to him, who told him how kind the others
would be fo them all; that they would not only save their lives, but
would give them a part of the island to live in, and corn to plant, and
bread for their present subsistence, provided they would give satisfaction
that they should keep in their own bounds, and not come beyond them,
to injure or prejudice others. Old Friday bade the fellow go and talk
with the rest of his countrymen, and hear what they said to it, assuring
them that if they did not agree immediately, they should all be destroyed.
The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in number to
about thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the first offer, upon which
twelve Spaniards and two Englishmen, well armed, and three Indian
slaves, and old Friday, marched to the place where they were. The
three Indian slaves carried them a large quantity of bread, and some rice
boiled up to cakes and dried in the sun, and three live goats ; and they
were ordered to go to the side of a hill, where they sat down, eat the pro
visions very thankfully, and were the most faithful fellows to their words
that could be thought of; for, except when they came to beg victuals and
directions, they never came out of their bounds, and there they lived
when I came to the island, and I went to see them.
They had taught them to plant corn, make bread, breed tame goats,
and milk them ; they wanted nothing but wives, and they would soon
have been a nation. Our men taught them to make wooden spades, such
as I made for myself, and gave among them twelve hatchets, and three or
four knives ; and there they lived, the most subjected innocent creatures
that were ever heard of. After this, the colony enjoyed a perfect tran
quillity with respect to the savages, till I came to revisit them, which was
in about two years. Not but now and then some canoes of savages came
on shore for their triumphal, unnatural feasts ; but, as they were of several
nations, and, perhaps, had never heard of those that came before, or the
reason of it, they did not make any search or enquiry after their country
men ; and if they had, it would have been very hard for them to have
found them out.
BOBINSON CRUSOE. 335
CHAPTER XXL
The islanders are greatly relieved by the arrival of Crusoe, who furnishes them with tools of all
kinds The Spaniards recount their adventures among the savages before they came to the
island, and describe their joy at being delivered Will Atkins, who had been the ringleader of
the English sailors in their evil doings, having shown a better disposition, the Spaniards take
him. and his companions into their confidence The island is divided into three colonies The
French priest, whom Crusoe had brought out of the ship relieved by him at sea, proposes certain
reforms Conversion of Will Atkins' Indian wife The English sailors are married A religious
conversation Crusoe leaves the island in a hopeful condition.
[HITS, I think, I have given a full account of all that hap
pened to my return, at least that was worth notice. My
coming was a particular relief to these people, because we
furnished them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick
axes, and all things of that kind which they could want. With the help
of these tools they were so very handy, that they came at last to build up
their huts, or houses, very handsomely, raddling, or working it up like
basket-work all the way round, which was a very extraordinary piece of
ingenuity, and looked very odd, but was an exceedingly good fence, as
well against heat as against all sorts of vermin ; and our men were so
taken with it, that they got the wild savages to come and do the like for
them : so that when I came to see the two Englishmen's colonies, they
looked, at a distance, as if they lived all like bees in a hive ; and, as for
Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, necessary, and
sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as I believe
was never seen. This fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several
things which he had no knowledge of : he made himself a forge, with a
pair of wooden bellows to blow the fire ; he made himself charcoal for his
work, and he formed out of one of the iron crows a middling good anvil
to hammer upon : in this manner he made many things, but especially
hooks, staples and spikes, bolts and hinges.
As for religion, I don't know that there was any thing of that kind
336 ADVENTURES OP
among them ; they pretty often, indeed, put one another in mind that
there was a God, by the very common method of seamen, namely, swear
ing by His name : nor were their poor, ignorant, savage wives, much the
better for having been married to Christians, as we must call them ; for,
as they knew very little of God themselves, so they were utterly incapable
of entering into any discourse with their wives about a God, or to talk
any thing to them concerning religion. The utmost of all the improve
ment which I can say the wives had made from them was, that they had
taught them to speak English pretty well ; and all the children they had,
which were near twenty in all, were taught to speak English, too, from
their first learning to speak, though they at first spoke it in a very broken
manner, like their mothers. The mothers were all a good sort of well-
governed, quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to one
another, mighty observant and subject to their masters I cannot call
them husbands and wanted nothing but to be well instructed in the
Christian religion, and to be legally married.
Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and pretty
much of my five runagate Englishmen, I must say something of the
Spaniards, who were the main body of the family, and in whose story
there are some incidents also remarkable enough. I had a great many
discourses with them about their circumstances when they were among
the savages : they told me readily that they had no instances to give of
their application or ingenuity in that country; that they were a poor,
miserable, dejected handful of people ; that, if means had been put into
their hands, they had yet so abandoned themselves to despair, arid so sunk
under the weight of their misfortunes, that they thought of nothing but
starving. One of them, a grave and* very sensible man, told me it was
remarkable that Englishmen had a greater presence of mind in their dis
tress than any people that he ever met with that their unhappy nation,
and the Portuguese, were the worst men in the world to struggle with mis
fortunes; for, that their first step in dangers, after common efforts are
over, was always to despair lie down under it and die, without rousing
their thoughts up to proper remedies for escape. They gave me dismal
accounts of the extremities they were driven to ; how sometimes they
were many days without any food at all, the island they were upon being
inhabited by a sort of savages that lived more indolent, and for that reason
were less supplied with the necessaries of life than they had reason to be
lieve others were in the same part of the world ; and yet they found that
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 337
these savages were less ravenous and voracious than those who had better
supplies of food.
Then they gave me an account how the savages, whom they lived
among, expected them to go out with them into their wars ; but, being
without powder and shot, when they came on the field of battle, they
were in a worse condition than the savages themselves, for they neither
had bows nor arrows, nor could they use those the savages gave them, so
that they could do nothing but stand still and be wounded with arrows,
till they came up to the teeth of their enemy ; till at last they found the
way to make themselves large targets of wood, which they covered with
skins of wild beasts, and these covered them from the arrows of the
savages ; that notwithstanding these, they were sometimes in great danger,
and were once five of them knocked down together with the clubs of the
savages, which was the time when one of them was taken prisoner, that
is to say, the Spaniard whom I had relieved ; that at first they thought
he had been killed, but when afterwards they heard he was taken prisoner,
they were under the greatest grief imaginable, and would willingly have
all ventured their lives to have rescued him.
They described, most affectionately, how they were surprised with joy
at the return of their friend and companion in miseiy, and how they were
astonished at the sight of the relief I sent them, and at the appearance of
loaves of bread, things they had not seen since their coming to that
miserable place. And, after all, they would have told me something of
the joy they were in at the sight of a boat and pilots to carry them away
to the person and place from whence all these new comforts came ; but it
was impossible to express it bywords, for their excessive joy driving them
to unbecoming extravagances, they had no way to describe them but by
telling me that they bordered upon lunacy. All these things made me
more sensible of the relation of these poor men, and more affected with it.
Having thus given a view of the state of things as I found them, I
must relate the heads of what I did for these people, and the condition in
which I left them. I entered into a serious discourse with the Spaniard,
whom I called governor, about their stay in the island. I told them I
came to establish them there, not to remove them ; and then I let them
know that I had brought with me relief of sundry kinds for them ; that
I had been at a great charge to supply them with all things necessary, as
well for their convenience as their defence ; and that I had such parti
cular persons with me, as well to increase and recruit their number, as by
22
338 ADVENTURES OF
the particular and necessary employments which they were bred to, being
artificers, to assist them in those things in which at present they were to
seek. They were all together when I talked thus to them : and before I
delivered to them the stores I had brought, I asked them, one by one, if
they had entirely forgot and buried the first animosities that had been
among them, and could shake hands with one another, and engage in a
strict friendship and union of interest, so that there might be no more
misunderstandings or jealousies. William Atkins, with abundance of
frankness and good humour, said they had met with afflictions enough to
make them all sober, and enemies enough to make them all friends ; that,
for his part, he was very willing and desirous of living on terms of entire
friendship and union with them, and would do any thing that lay in his
power to convince them of it ; and as for going to England, he cared not
if he did not go thither these twenty years.
The Spaniards said they had indeed at first disarmed and excluded
William Atkins and his two countrymen, for their ill conduct, but that
xltkins had behaved himself so bravely in the great fight they had with
the savages, and on several occasions since, and had showed himself so
faithful to, 'and concerned for, the general interest of them all, that they
had forgotten all that was past, and thought he merited as much to be
trusted with arms, and supplied with necessaries, as any of them ; and that
they had testified their satisfaction in him, by committing the command
to him, next to the governor himself : and, as they had an entire confi
dence in him and all his countrymen, they most heartily embraced the
occasion of giving me this assurance, that they would never have any
interest separate from one another.
Upon these frank and open declarations of friendship, we appointed
the next day to dine altogether ; and, indeed, we made a splendid feast,
at which we were very innocently merry: I brought out my cargo of goods,
wherein, that there might be no dispute about dividing, I showed them
that there was sufficient for them all. Having distributed these among
them, I presented to them the people I had brought with me, particularly
the tailor, the smith, and the two carpenters, all of them most necessary
people ; but above all, my general artificer, than whom they could not
name any thing that was more needful to them : and the tailor, to show
his concern for them, went to work immediately, and made them every
one a shirt the first thing he did ; and, which was still more, he taught
the women not only how to sew and stitch, and use the needle, but made
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 339
them assist to make the shirts for their husbands, and for all the rest.
As for the carpenters, they took in pieces all my clumsy unhandy things,
and made them clever convenient tables, stools, bedsteads, cupboards,
lockers, shelves, and every thing they wanted of that kind.
Then I brought them out all my store of tools, and gave every man a
digging spade, a shovel, and a rake, and to every separate place a pick-axe,
a crow, a broad axe, and a saw ; always appointing that, as often as any
were broken, or worn out, they should be supplied, without grudging, out
of the general stores that I left behind. Nails, staples, hinges, hammers,
chisels, knives, scissors, and all sorts of tools and iron- work, they had
without tale, as they required ; and, for the use of the smith, I left two
tons of unwrought iron for a supply.
My magazine of powder and arms which I brought them was such,
even to profusion, that they could not but rejoice at them ; for now they
could march, as I used to do, with a musket upon each shoulder, if there
was occasion, and were able to fight a thousand savages, if they had but
some little advantages of situation, which also they could not miss of if
they had occasion.
I carried on shore with me the young man whose mother was starved
to death, and the maid also : she was a sober, well-educated, religious
young woman, and behaved so inoffensively, that every one gave her
a good word. After a while, seeing things so well ordered, and in so fine
a way of thriving upon my island, and considering that they had neither
business nor acquaintance in the East Indies, nor reason for taking so long
a voyage, both of them desired I would give them leave to remain on the
island, and be entered among my family, as they called it. I agreed to
it readily, and they had a little plot of ground allotted to them, where
they had three tents or houses set up, surrounded with a basket-work,
palisaded like Atkins's, and adjoining to his plantation. And now the
other two Englishmen moved their habitation to the same place, and so
the island was divided into three colonies, and no more ; namely, the
Spaniards, with old Friday and the first servants, at my old habitation
under the hill, which was, in a word, the capital city ; and never was
there such a little city in a wood, and so hid, I believe, in any part of the
world. The other colony was that of Will Atkins, where there were four
Englishmen I had left there, with their wives and children ; three
savages that were slaves ; the widow and children of the Englishman that
was killed, and the young man and the maid ; and, by the way, we made
340 ADVENTURES OF
a wife of her also before we went away. There were also the two
carpenters and the tailor, whom I brought with me for them ; also the
smith, and my other man, whom I called " Jack-of-all-trades," who was
himself as good almost as twenty men, for he was not only a very in
genious fellow, but a very merry fellow ; and before I went away, we
married him to the honest maid that came with the youth in the ship,
whom I mentioned before.
And now I speak of marrying, it brings me naturally to say something
of the French ecclesiastic, that I had brought with me out of the ship's
crew whom I took at sea. It is true, this man was a Eoman ; but justice
demands of me to give him a due character ; and I must say he was
a grave, sober, pious, and most religious person ; exact in his life, exten
sive in his charity, and exemplary in almost every thing he did. The
first hour that I began to converse with him, after he had agreed to
go with me to the East Indies, I found reason to delight exceedingly in
his conversation. He gave me a most diverting account of his life, and of
adventures which had befallen him ; and particularly this was very
remarkable, namely, that during the voyage he was now engaged in, he
had the misfortune to be five times shipped and unshipped, and never to
go to the place whither any of the ships he was in were at first designed.
But I shall not make digressions into other men's stories, which have
no relation to my own. I return to what concerns our affairs in the
island. He came to me one morning and told me, with a very grave
countenance, that he had for two or three days desired an opportunity of
some discourse with me, which he hoped might, in some measure, corres
pond with my general design, which was the prosperity of my new colony,
and perhaps might put it, at least more than he yet thought it was, in the
way of God's blessing. " There are three things," said he, " which, if I am
right, must stand in the way of God's blessing upon your endeavours here,
and which I should rejoice to see removed. First, you have here four
Englishmen, who have fetched women from among the savages, and have
taken them as their wives, and yet are not married to them after any
stated legal manner, as the laws of God and man require ; and therefore
.are yet living in adultery. To this, sir," says he, " I know you will
object, that there was no clergyman or priest of any kind, or of any pro
fession, to perform the ceremony ; nor any pen and ink, or paper, to write
down a contract of marriage, and have it signed between them. And I
know also, sir, what the Spaniard governor has told you I mean of the
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 341
agreement that lie obliged them, to make when they took these women,
namely, that they should choose them out by consent, and keep separately
to them; which, by the way, is nothing of a marriage, no agreement
with the women as wives, but only an agreement among themselves,
to keep them from quarrelling. Now, sir," says he, " these men may
when they please, or when occasion presents, abandon these women, dis
own their children, leave them to perish, and take other women and
marry them whilst these are living." And here he added, with some
warmth, " How, sir, is God honoured in this unlawful liberty ? And how
shall a blessing succeed your endeavours in this place, however good
in themselves, and however sincere in your design, while these men, who
at present are your subjects, under your absolute government and do-
minion, are allowed by you to live in open adultery ?"
I thought to have gotten off with my young priest by telling him
that all that part was done when I was not here, and they had lived so
many years with them now, that it was past remedy. " Sir," says he,
" asking your pardon for such freedom, you are right in this that it
being done in your absence, you could not be charged with that part of the
crime. But I beseech you, flatter not yourself that you are not therefore
under an obligation to do your uttermost now to put an end to it. Let
the time past lie on whom it will, all the guilt for the future will
lie entirely upon you. Because it is certainly in your power now to put
an end to it, and in nobody's power but yours,"
I imagined that, by putting an end to it, he meant that I should part
them, and not suffer them to live together any longer ; and I said to him
I could not do that by any means, for that it would put the whole island
in confusion. He seemed surprised that I should so far mistake him.
" No, sir," said he, " I do not mean that you should separate them, but
legally and effectually marry them now. And, sir, as my way of marry
ing may not be so easy to reconcile them to, though it will be as effectual
even by your own laws, so your way may be as well before God, and as
valid among men I mean by a written contract signed by both man and
woman, and by all the witnesses present ; which all the- laws of Europe-
would decree to be valid."
I was amazed to see so much true piety, and so much sincerity of zeal,
besides the unusual impartiality in his discourse as to his own party or
church, and such a true warmth for the preserving people that he had no>
knowledge of or relation to, from transgressing the laws of God. But
342 ADVENTURES OF
recollecting what he had said of marrying them by a written contract, I
told him I granted all that he had said to be just, and on his part very
kind ; that I would discourse with the men upon the point when I came
to them, and I knew no reason why they should scruple to let him marry
them all ; which I knew would be granted to be as authentic and valid in
England, as if they were married by one of our own clergymen. He
then said that, notwithstanding these English subjects of mine, as he
called them, had lived with these women for almost seven years, and had
taught them to speak English, and even to read it, and that they were, as
he perceived, women of tolerable understanding, and capable of instruc
tion, yet they had not to this hour taught them any thing of the Christian
religion ; no, not so much as to know that there was a God or a worship,
or in what manner God was to be served, or that their own idolatry, and
worshipping they knew not whom, was false and absurd. This, he said,
was an unaccountable neglect, and what God would certainly call them to
an account for : and, perhaps, at last take the work out of their hands.
He spoke this very affectionately and warmly. "I am persuaded," says
he, "had those men lived in the savage country whence their wives came,
the savages would have taken more pains to have brought them to be
idolaters, and to worship the devil, than any of these men, so far as I can
see, has taken with them to teach them the knowledge of the true God.
Now, sir," said he, ''though I do not acknowledge your religion, or you
mine, yet we should be all glad to see the devil's servants and the sub
jects of his kingdom taught to know the general principles of the Chris
tian religion, that they might at least hear of God, and of a Redeemer,
and of the resurrection, and of a future state things which we all believe :
they had at least been so much nearer coming into the bosom of the true
church, than they are now in the public profession of idolatry and devil-
worship."
I could hold no longer ; I took him in my arms, and embraced him
with an exc^s of passion. "How far," said I to him, "have I been
from understanding the most essential part of a Christian, namely, to love
the interest of the Christian church, and the good of other men's souls !
I scarce have known what belongs to being a Christian." " Oh, sir, do
not say so," replied he; "this thing is not your fault." "No," said I ;
" but why did I never lay it to heart as well as you ?" " It is not too
late yet," said he; "be not too forward to condemn yourself." "But
what can be done now?" said I; "you see I am going away." "Will
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 343
you give me leave," said he, "to talk with, these poor men about it?"
" Yes, with all my heart," said I, " and I will oblige them to give heed
to what you say, too." " As to that," said he, " we must leave them to
the mercy of Christ ; but it is our business to assist them, encourage
them, and instruct them."
Then he went on to say, "It is a maxim, sir, that is, or ought to be,
received among all Christians, of what church or pretended church soever,
namely, that Christian knowledge ought to be propagated by all possible
means, and on all possible occasions. It is on this principle that ou
church sends missionaries into Persia, India, and China; and that our
clergy, even of the superior sort, willingly engage in the most hazardous
voyage, and the most dangerous residence among murderers and barba
rians, to teach them the knowledge of the true God, and to bring them
over to embrace the Christian faith. Now, sir, you have an opportunity
here to have six or seven-and-thirty poor savages brought over from
idolatry to the knowledge of God, their Maker and Redeemer, that I
wonder how you can pass by such an occasion of doing good, which is
really worth the expense of a man's whole life." He laid it home upon
my conscience, whether the blessing of saving seven-and-thirty souls was
not worth my venturing all I had in the world for ? I was not so sen
sible of that as he was, and I returned upon him thus : " Why, sir, it is a
valuable thing indeed to be an instrument in God's hands to convert
seven-and-thirty heathens to the knowledge of Christ ; but as you are an
ecclesiastic, and are given over to that work, so that it seems naturally to
fall into the way of your profession, how is it then that you do not rather
offer yourself to undertake it, than press me to it?"
Upon this he faced about, just before me, as he walked along, and,
putting me to a full stop, made me a very low bow: " I most heartily
thank God, and you, sir," says he, " for giving me so evident a call to so
blessed a work ; and, if you think yourself discharged from it, and desire
me to undertake it, I will most readily do it, and think 4t a happy re
ward for all the hazards and difficulties of such a broken, disappointed
voyage as I have met with, that I have dropped at last into so glorious a
work. But since you will honour me with putting me into this work, I
have one humble petition to you besides." "What is that?" said I,
"Why," says he, "it is that you will leave your man Friday with
me, to be my interpreter to them, and to assist me ; for without some
help I cannot speak to them, or they to me."
344 ADVENTURES OP
I was sensibly touched at his requesting Friday, because I could not
think of parting with him, and that for many reasons. He had been the
companion of my travels : he was not only faithful to me, but sincerely
affectionate to the last degree ; and I had resolved to do something con
siderable for him if he outlived me, as it was probable he would. ' Then
I knew that as I had bred Friday up to be a Protestant, it would quite
confound him to bring him to embrace another profession ; that he would
never, while his eyes were open, believe that his old master was a heretic,
and would be damned ; and this might in the end ruin the poor fellow's
principles, and so turn him back again to his first idolatry. I therefore
told him I could not say that I was willing to part with Friday on any
account ; that I had promised I would never put him away, and he had
promised and engaged to me that he would never leave me unless I put
him away. He seemed much concerned at this ; for he had no rational
access to these poor people, seeing he did not understand one word of
their language, nor they one word of his. To remove this difficulty, I
told him Friday's father had learned Spanish, which I found he also
understood, and he should serve him for an interpreter. So he was much
better satisfied, and nothing could persuade him but he would stay to
endeavour to convert them. But Providence gave another and a very
happy turn to all this.
I sent for the Englishmen all together ; began to talk to them of the
scandalous life they led, and gave them a full account of the notice the
clergyman had already taken of it ; and, arguing how unchristian and
irreligious a life it was, I first asked if they were married men or
bachelors ? They soon explained their condition to me, and showed me
that two of them were widowers, and the other three were single men or
bachelors. I asked them with what conscience they could take these
women, and call them their wives, and have so many children by them,
and not be married lawfully to them ? They all gave me the answer that
I expected namely, that there was nobody to marry them; that they
agreed before the governor to keep them as their wives, and they thought,
as things stood with them, they were as legally married as if they had
been married by a parson, and with all the formalities in the world.
I told them, that no doubt they were married in the sight of God, and
were bound in conscience to keep them as their wives ; but that the laws
of men being otherwise, they might pretend they were not married, and
so desert the poor women and children hereafter ; and that unless I was
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 345
assured of their honest intent, I could do nothing for them ; and that
unless they would give some assurances that they would marry the
women, I could not think it was convenient they should continue together
as man and wife.
All this passed as I expected; and they told me, especially Will
Atkins, who seemed now to speak for the rest, that they loved their
wives as well as if they had heen born in their own native country, and
would not leave them on any account whatever. The priest was not with
me at that moment, hut was not far off. So, to try him farther, I told
him I had a clergyman with me, and if he was sincere, I would have him
married the next morning, and "bade him consider of it, and talk with the
rest. He said, as for himself, he need not consider of it at all, for he was
very ready to do it, and believed they would be all willing also. So we
parted : I went back to my clergyman, and Will Atkins went in to talk
with his companions. Before I went from their quarter, they all came to
me, and told me they had been considering what I had said ; that they
were very glad to hear that I had a clergyman in my company, and they
were willing to give me the satisfaction I desired, and to be formally
married as soon as I pleased, for they were far from desiring to part from
their wives, and that they meant nothing but what was honest when they
chose them. So I appointed them to meet me the next morning, and that
in the meantime they should let their wives know the meaning of the
marriage law, and that it was not only to prevent any scandal, but also to
oblige them that they should not forsake them whatever might happen.
The women were easily made sensible of the meaning of the thing, and
were very well satisfied with it ; so they failed not to attend all together at
my apartment next morning, where I brought out my clergyman. When
he came to them, he let them know that I had acquainted him with their.y
circumstances, and with the present design ; that he was very willing to
perform that part of his function, and marry them as I had desired, but
that, before he could do it, he must ta^ke the liberty to talk with them.
He told them that, in the sight of all different men, and in the sense of
the laws of society, they had lived all this while in an open adultery ;
and that it was true that nothing but the consenting to marry, or effectu
ally separating them from one another now, could put an end to it ; but
there was a difficulty in it too, with respect to the laws of Christian
matrimony, which he was not fully satisfied about, namely, that of marry
ing one that is a professed Christian to a savage, an idolater, and a
346 ADVENTURES OF
heathen, one that is not baptised ; and yet that he did not see that there
was time left for it to endeavour to persuade the women to be baptised, or
to profess the name of Christ, whom they had, he doubted, heard nothing
of, and without which they could not be baptised. He told them he
doubted they were but indifferent Christians themselves ; that they had
but little knowledge of God or his ways, and therefore he could not
expect that they had said much to their wives on that head yet ; but
unless they would promise him to use their endeavours with their wives
to persuade them to become Christians, and would, as well as they could,
instruct them in the knowledge and belief of God that made them, and to
worship Jesus Christ that redeemed them, he could not marry them.
They heard all this very attentively, and they told me it was very
true what the gentleman had said, that they were but very indifferent
Christians themselves, and that they had never talked to their wives
about religion. " Oh, sir," says Will Atkins, "how should we teach
them religion? Why, we know nothing ourselves; and besides, sir,"
said he, " should we go to talk to them of God, and Jesus Christ, and
heaven, and hell, it would be to make them laugh at us, and ask us what
we believe ourselves ; and if we should tell them we believe all the things
we speak of to them, such as of good people going to heaven, and wicked
people to the devil, they would ask us where we intended to go ourselves,
who believe all this, and yet are such wicked fellows, as we indeed are :
why, sir," said Will, " 'tis enough to give them a surfeit of religion, at
first hearing : folks must have some religion themselves, before they pre
tend to teach other people." "Why, truly, Atkins," said I, "I am
afraid thou speakest too much truth ;" and with that I let the clergyman
know what Atkins had said, for he was impatient to know. " Oh !" said the
^priest, " tell him there is one thing will make him the best minister in the
world to his wife, and that is repentance, for none teach repentance like
true penitents. He wants nothing but to repent, and then he will be so
much the better qualified to instruct his wife : he will then be able to
tell her that there is not only a God, and that he is the just rewarder of
good and evil, but that he is a merciful Being, and, with infinite goodness
and long-suffering, forbears to punish those that offend waiting to be
gracious, and willing not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should
return and live ; that he often suffers wicked men to go on a long time,
and even reserves damnation to the general day of retribution ; that it is
a clear evidence of God and of a future state, that righteous men receive
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 347
not their reward, or wicked men their punishment, till they come into
another world ; and this will lead him to teach his wife the doctrine of
the resurrection, and of the last judgment : let him but repent for him
self, he will be an excellent preacher of repentance to his wife."
I repeated all this to Atkins, who looked very serious all the while,
and who, we could easily perceive, was more than ordinarily affected with
it. "I knew all this, master," says he, "and a great deal more ; but I
han't the impudence to talk thus to my wife, when God and my own con
science knows, and my wife will be an undeniable evidence against me,
that I have lived as if I had never heard of God, or a future state, or any
thing about it : and 'to talk of my repenting, alas !" (and with that he
fetched a deep sigh, and I could see that tears stood in his eyes) " 'tis past
all that with me."
I told the clergyman word for word what he said. The zealous,
affectionate man, could not refrain tears also : but, recovering himself, he
said to me, " Ask him but one question : Is he easy that it is too late, or
is he troubled, and wishes it were not so ?" I put the question fairly
to Atkins ; and he answered with a great deal of passion, " How could
any man be easy in a condition that certainly must end in eternal
destruction?"
The clergyman shook his head, with a great concern in his face, when
I told him all this ; but, turningxejuick to me upon it, said, " If that be
his case, you may assure him it is not too late ; Christ will give him
repentance, and we that are Christ's servants are commanded to preach
mercy at all times, in the name of Jesus Christ, to all those that sincerely
repent; so that 'tis never too late to repent."
I told Atkins all this, and he heard me with great earnestness ; but it
seemed as if he turned off the discourse to the rest ; for he said to me he^
would go and have some talk with his wife : so he went out a while, and
we talked to the rest. I perceived they were all stupidly ignorant as to
matters of religion much as I was when I went rambling away from my
father, and yet that there were none of them backward to hear what had
been said ; and all of them seriously promised that they would talk with
their wives about it, and do their endeavour to persuade them to turn
Christians.
Upon this discourse, and the men promising to persuade their wives to
embrace Christianity, he married the three couple ; but "Will Atkins and
his wife were not yet come in. After this, the clergyman waiting a while,
348 ADVENTURES OP
was curious to know where Atkins was gone ; and turning to me, says,
" I entreat you, sir, let us walk out here and look ; I dare say we shall
find this poor man somewhere or other, talking seriously with his wife,
and teaching her already something of religion." I began to be of the
same mind ; so we went out together, and I carried him a way which
none knew but myself, and where the trees were so thick set, as that it
was not easy to see through the thicket of leaves, and far harder to see in
than to see out ; when, coming to the edge of the wood, I saw Atkins, and
his tawny savage wife, sitting under the shade of a bush, very eager in
discourse. I stopped short till my clergyman came up to me, and then,
having shown him where they were, we stood and looked very steadily at
them a good while. We observed him very earnest with her, pointing up
to* the sun, and to every quarter of the heavens ; then down to the earth,
then out to the sea ; then to himself, then to her, to the woods, to the
trees. " Now," says my clergyman, " you see my words are made good ;
the man preaches to her mark him now he is telling her that our God
has made him, and her, and the heavens, the earth, the sea, the woods,
the trees, etc." " I believe he is," said I. Immediately we perceived
Will Atkins start up upon his feet, fall down upon his knees, and lift up
both his hands ; we supposed he said something, but we could not hear
him it was too far off for that ; he did not continue kneeling half a
minute, but comes and sits down again hjp his wife, and talks to her again.
We perceived then the woman very attentive, but whether she said any
thing or no, we could not tell. While the poor fellow was upon his knees,
I could see the tears run plentifully down my clergyman's cheeks, and I
could hardly forbear myself ; but it was a great affliction to us both that
we were not near enough to hear any thing that passed between them.
Well, however, we could come no nearer, for fear of disturbing them :
so we resolved to see an end of this piece of still conversation, and it spoke
loud enough to us without the help of voice. He sat down again, as
I have said, close by her, and talked again earnestly to her, and two or
three times we could see him embrace her passionately ; another time we
saw him take out his handkerchief and wipe her eyes, and then kiss her
again, with a kind of transport very unusual ; and after several of these
things, we saw him on a sudden jump up again and lend her his hand to
help her up, when immediately leading her by the hand a step or two,
they both kneeled down together, and continued so about two minutes.
My friend could bear it no longer, but cries out aloud, " St. Paul,
ROBINSON CRUSOE. . 349
St. Paul, behold, he prayeth !" This continued about half a quarter of an
hour, and then they walked away too, so that we could see no more
of them in that situation. As "Will Atkins and his wife were gone,
our business there was over ; so we went back our own way ; and when
we came back, we found them waiting to be called in. I then dis
covered that Atkins whose father, it turned out, was a clergyman had
been himself affected by the words of the priest, and that he had brought
his wife to embrace the knowledge of Christ and of redemption by Him,
with joy, and faith, and with an affection and a surprising degree of
understanding scarce to be imagined, much less to be expressed ; and, at
her own request, she was baptised. As soon as this was over, the priest
married them : and after the marriage was over, he turned himself to
"Will Atkins, and, in a very affectionate manner, exhorted him not only
to persevere in that good disposition he was in, but to support the con
victions that were upon him, by a resolution to reform his life ; told him
it was in vain to say he repented, if he did not forsake his crimes ; repre
sented to him, how God had honoured him with being the instrument of
bringing his wife to the knowledge of the Christian religion ; and that he
should be careful he did not dishonour the grace of God ; and that if he
did, he would see the heathen a better Christian than himself the savage
converted, and the instrument cast away.
But my clergyman had not done yet ; his thoughts hung continually
upon the conversion of the thirty-seven savages, and fain he would have
staid upon the island to have undertaken it : but I convinced him, first,
that his undertaking was impracticable in itself ; and secondly, that, per
haps, I could put it into a way of being done in his absence, to his satis
faction ; of which by and bye.
Having thus brought the affairs of the island to a narrow compass, I
was preparing to go on board the ship, when the young man whom I had
taken out of the famished ship's company, came to me, and told me he
understood I had a clergyman with me, and that I had caused the
Englishmen to be married to the savages whom they called wives ; that
he had a match too, which he desired might be finished before I went,
between two Christians, which he hoped would not be disagreeable to me.
I was impatient to know who was the person to be married ; upon which
he told me it was my " Jack-of- all-trades," and his maid Susan. I was
most agreeably surprised when he named the match ; for indeed I had
thought it very suitable. The character of the man I have given you
350 ADVENTURES OF
already ; and as for the maid, she was a very honest, modest, sober, and
religious woman ; had a good share of sense ; was agreeable in her per
son ; spoke very handsomely, and to the purpose ; was handy and house
wifely, an excellent manager, and fit, indeed, to have been governess to
the whole island. We married 'them the same day.
It now came into my thoughts that I had hinted to my friend, the
clergyman, that the work of converting the savages might perhaps be set
on foot in his absence to his satisfaction, and I told him that now I
thought it was put in a fair way; for the savages, being thus divided
among the Christians, if they would but every one of them do their part
with those which came under their hands, I hoped it might have a very
good effect. This they engaged to do. When I came to Will Atkins's
house, I found the young woman I have mentioned above and Atkins's
wife were become intimates ; and this prudent and religious young woman
had perfected the work "Will Atkins had begun ; and though it was not
above four days after what I have related, yet the new baptised savage
woman was made such a Christian, as I have seldom heard of any like
her in all my observation or conversation in the world. I took a Bible in
my pocket, and when I came to the tent, or house, I found the young
woman and Atkins's baptised wife had been discoursing of religion
together (for William Atkins told it me with a great deal of joy). I
asked if they were together now ? and he said, Yes ; so I went into the
house, and he with me, and we found them together, very earnest in
discourse.
We talked a little, and I did not perceive they had a book among
them, though I did not ask, but I put my hand in my pocket, and pulled
out my Bible. "Here," said I to Atkins, "I have brought you an as
sistant that, perhaps, you had not before." The man was so confounded
that he was not able to speak for some time ; but, recovering himself, he
takes it with both his hands, and, turning to his wife, " Here, my dear,"
says he, " did not I tell you our God, though he lives above, could hear
what we said ? Here is the book I prayed for, when you and I kneeled
down under the bush : now God has heard us, and sent it." When he
had said thus, the man fell in such transports of passionate joy that,
between the joy of having it and giving God thanks for it, the tears ran
down his face like a child that was crying. The woman was surprised,
and she firmly believed that God had sent the book upon her husband's
petition. It is true that providentially it was so, but I believe it would
A RELIGIOUS CONVERSATION.
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
351
have been no difficult matter at that time to have persuaded the poor
woman that an express messenger came from heaven to bring that indi
vidual book.
But I return to my disposition of things among the people. I did not
think fit to let them know any thing of the sloop I had framed, and
which I thought of setting up among them ; for had I set up the sloop,
and left it among them, they would, upon very light disgust, have
separated, and gone away from one another ; or perhaps have turned
pirates, and so made the island a den of thieves, instead of a plantation of
sober and religious people, as I intended it to be ; nor did I leave the two
pieces of brass cannon that I had on board, or the two quarter-deck guns,
for the same reason : I thought they had enough to qualify them for a
defensive war, against any that should invade them ; but I was not to set
them up for an offensive war, or to encourage them to go abroad to attack
others. I reserved the sloop and the guns for their service another way.
I have now done with the island. I left them all in good circum
stances, and in a nourishing condition, and went on board my ship again
the 5th day of May, having been five-and-twenty days among them.
352
ADVENTURES OF
CHAPTER XXII.
Crusoe encounters a fleet of Indian canoes at sea The savages attack his vessel Friday is killed
Crusoe arrives at Brazil, -where he gets his sloop set up, and despatches it, laden with live
stock, to his island Sets sail for the East Indies Touches at Madagascar, where they are well
received hy the natives The crime of one of the sailors is avenged by his death, whereupon
the crew commence a general massacre, which Crusoe vainly attempts to stay On resuming the
voyage, he reproaches the sailors, who at length mutiny, and leave him on shore at Bengal.
[HE next day, giving them a salute of five guns at parting,
we set sail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints, in the
Brazils, in about twenty-two days ; meeting nothing remark
able in our passage. But the third day, towards evening,
the sea smooth, and the weather calm, we saw the sea, as it were,
covered towards the land with something very black, not being able to
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 353
discover what it was ; but after some time, our chief mate going up the
main shrouds a little way, and looking at them by the perspective, cried
out, it was an army. I could not imagine what he meant by an army,
and spoke a little hastily, calling the fellow a fool, or some such word.
"Nay, sir," says he, "don't be angry, for it is an army and a fleet
too ; for I believe there are a thousand canoes, and you may see them
paddle along, and they are coming towards us, too, apace, and full of
men."
I was a little surprised at this, and so, indeed, was my nephew, the
captain ; for he had heard such terrible stories of them in the island, that
he could not tell what to think of it, but said two or three times we
should all be devoured. I must confess, considering we were becalmed,
and the current set strong towards the shore, I liked it the worse. How
ever, I bade him not to be afraid, but bring the ship to an anchor, as
soon as we came so near as to know that we must engage them.
The weather continued calm, and they came on apace towards us ; so
I gave orders to come to an anchor, and furl all our sails, get the boats
out, and fasten them, one close by the head, and the other by the stern,
and man them both well, and wait the issue in that posture : this I did
that the men in the boats might be ready, with sheet and buckets, to put
out any fire these savages might endeavour to fix upon the outside of the
ship. In this posture we lay by for them, and in a little while they came
up with us : but never was such a horrid sight seen by Christians. My
mate was much mistaken in his calculation of their number ; the most we
could make of them, when they came up, being about one hundred and
twenty-six canoes, and some of them had sixteen or seventeen men in
them, some more, and the least six or seven.
"When they came nearer to us, they seemed to be struck with wonder
and astonishment. They came boldly up, however, very near to us, and
seemed to go about to row round us ; but we called to our men in the
boats not to let them come too near them. This very order brought us
to an engagement with them without our designing it ; for five or six of
their large canoes came so near our long-boat, that our men beckoned with
their hands to them to keep back, which they understood very well, and
went back ; but at their retreat about five hundred arrows came on board
us from those boats, and one of our men in the long-boat was very much
wounded. I called to them not to fire by any means ; but we handed
down some deal boards into the boat, and the carpenter presently set up a
23
354 ADVENTURES OP
kind of a fence, like waist boards, to cover them from the arrowa of the
savages, if they should shoot again.
About half an hour afterwards they came all up in a body astern
of us and I easily found they were some of my old friends, the same sort
of savages that I had been used to engage with : in a little time more
they rowed somewhat farther out to sea, till they came directly broadside
with us, and then rowed down straight upon us, till they came so near,
that they could hear us speak. Upon this, I ordered all my men to keep
close, and make all our guns ready ; but being so near as to be within
hearing, I made Friday go out upon the deck, and call out aloud to them
in his language, to know what they meant, which accordingly he did.
Whether they understood him or not, that I know not ; but immediately
Friday cried out they were going to shoot, and, unhappily for him, they
let fly about three hundred of their arrows, and to my inexpressible grief
killed poor Friday, no other man being in their sight. The poor fellow
was shot with no less than three arrows, and about three more fell very
nigh him ; such unlucky marksmen they were !
I was so enraged at the loss of my old servant, the companion of all
my sorrows and solitudes, that I immediately ordered five guns to be
loaded with small shot, and four with great, and gave them such a broad
side as they had never had in their lives before, to be sure.
They were not above half a cable's length off when we fired. I can
neither tell how many we killed, nor how many we wounded ; but sure
such a fright and hurry never was seen among such a multitude ; there
were thirteen or fourteen of their canoes split and overset in all, and the
men all set a-swimming ; the rest, frighted out of their wits, scoured
away as fast as they could, taking but little care to save those whose
boats were split or spoiled with our shot ; so I suppose that they were
many of them lost. Our men took up one poor fellow swimming for
his life, above an hour after they were all gone ; nor did we ever see the
rest any more, for a breeze of wind springing up the same evening, we
weighed and set sail for the Brazils.
Our prisoner was so sullen that he would neither eat nor speak ; and
we all fancied he would starve himself to death. But I took a way to cure
him ; for I made them take him and 'turn him into the longboat, and
make him believe they would toss him into the sea again, and so leave
him where they found him, if he would not speak : nor would that do,
but they really did throw him into the sea, and came away from him ;
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 355
and then he followed them, for he swam like a cork, and called to them
in his tongue, though they knew not one word of what he said. How
ever, at last they took him in again, and then he began to be more tract
able. In time our men taught him some English, and he told us that
they were going with their kings to fight a great battle. "When he said
kings, we asked him how many kings ? He said, " There were five
nation, and that they all joined to go against two nation," "We asked
him, " What made them come up to us ?" He said, " To makee te great
wonder look." Where it is to be observed, that all those natives, as also
those of Africa, when they learn English, they also add two e j & at the
end of the words where we use one, and place the accent upon the last of
them as makee, takee, and the like ; and we could not break them off it,
nay, I could hardly make Friday leave it off, though at last he did.
And now I name the poor fellow once more, I must take my last leave
of him poor honest Friday ! We buried him with all decency and
solemnity possible, by putting him into a coffin, and throwing him into
the sea ; and I caused them to fire eleven guns for him : and so ended the
life of the most grateful, faithful, honest, and most affectionate servant
that ever man had.
We now went away with a fair wind for Brazil, and, in about twelve
days' time, we made land in the latitude of five degrees south of the Line,
being the north-eastermost land of all that part of America. We kept oa
south-by-east, in sight of the shore, four days, when we made the Cape
St. Augustine, and in three days came to an anchor off the bay of All
Saints, the old place of my deliverance, from whence came both my good
and evil fate.
It was with great difficulty that we were admitted tfr hold the least
correspondence on shore. Not my partner himself, who was alive, and
made a great figure among them, not my two merchant trustees, nor the
fame of my wonderful preservation in the island, could obtain me that
favour; but my partner, remembering that I had given five hundred
moidores to the prior of the monastery of the Augustines, and three
hundred and seventy-two to the poor, went to the monastery, and obliged
the prior that then was to go to the governor and beg leave for me
presently, with the captain, and one more, besides eight seamen, to come
on shore, and no more, and this upon condition absolutely capitulated
for, that we should not offer to land any goods out of the ship, or to cany
any person away without licence.
356 ADVENTURES OF
They were so strict with us as to landing any goods, that it was with
extreme difficulty that I got on shore three bales of English goods, such
as fine broad-cloths, stuffs, and some linen, which I had brought for a
present to my partner. He was a very generous, broad-hearted man,
though, like me, he came from little at first ; and though he knew not
that I had the least design of giving him any thing, he sent me on board
a present of fresh provisions, wine, and sweetmeats, worth abov thirty
moidores, including some tobacco, and three or four fine medals in gold.
But I was even with him in my present, which, as I have said, consisted
of fine broad-cloths, English stuffs, lace, and fine Hollands. AJlso, I
delivered him about the value of one hundred pounds sterling, in the
same goods, for other uses ; and I obliged him to set up the sloop which
I had brought with me from England, as I have said, for the use of my
colony, in order to send the refreshments I intended to my plantation.
Accordingly he got hands and finished the sloop in a very few days,
for she was already framed ; and I gave the master of her such instruc
tions as he could not miss the place ; nor did he miss it, as I had an
account from my partner afterwards. I got him soon loaded with the
small cargo I had sent them ; and one of our seamen, that had been on
shore with me there, offered to go with the sloop, and settle there, upon
my letter to the governor Spaniard to allot him a sufficient quantity of
land for a plantation, and giving him some clothes, and tools for his
planting work, which he said he understood, having been an old planter
in Maryland, and a buccaneer into the bargain. I encouraged the fellow
by granting all he desired ; and, as an addition, I gave him the savage
whom we had taken prisoner of war to be his slave^ and ordered the
governor Spaniard to give him his share of every thing he wanted, with
the rest.
"When we came to fit this man out, my old partner told me there was
a certain very honest fellow, a Brazil planter of his acquaintance, who
had fallen into the displeasure of the church, and had been obliged to
conceal himself for fear of the Inquisition ; that tie would be very glad of
such an opportunity to make his escape, with his wife and two daughters ;
and if I would let them go to the island, and allot them a plantation,
he would give them a small stock to begin with, for the officers of the
Inquisition had seized all his effects and estate. I granted this presently,
and joined my Englishman with them ; and we concealed the man and
his 'wife and daughters on board our ship till the sloop put out to go to.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 357
sea ; and then (having put all their goods on board some time before),
we put them on board the sloop after she was got out of the bay.
Our seaman was mightily pleased with this new partner ; and their
stock, indeed, was much alike rich in tools and in preparations for a farm :
but nothing to begin with, but as above. However, they carried over
with them (which was worth all the rest) some materials for planting
sugar-canes, with some plants of canes, which he (I mean the Portugal
man) understood very well. Among the rest of the supplies for my
tenants in the island, I sent them, by this sloop, three milch cows and
five calves, about twenty-two hogs among them, three sows big with pig,
and two mares and a horse.
For my Spaniards, according to my promise, I engaged three Portugal
women to go ; and recommended it to them to marry them, and use them
kindly. I could have procured more women, but I remembered that the
poor persecuted man had two daughters, and there were but five of the
Spaniards that wanted; the rest had wives of their own, though in
another country.
All this cargo arrived safe, and, as you may easily suppose, very
welcome to my old inhabitants, who were now (with this addition) be
tween sixty and seventy people, besides little children, of which there
were a great many. I found letters at London from- them all, by way of
Lisbon, when I came back to England, being sent back to the Brazils by
this sloop.
I have^.ow_done with my island, and all manner of discourse about it ;
and whoever reads the rest of my memorandums, would do well to furn
his thoughts entirely from it, and expect to read only of the follies of an
old man, not warned by his own harms, much less by those of other men,
to beware of the like ; not eooled by almost forty years' misery and dis
appointments ; not satisfied with prosperity beyond expectations; not
made cautious by affliction and distress beyond imitation.
I had no more business to go to the East Indies, than a man at full
liberty, and having committed no- crime, has to go to the turnkey at
Newgate, and desire him to lock him up among the prisoners there, and
starve him. Had I taken a small vessel fron* Bngland, and gone directly
to the island had I loaded her, as I did the other vessel, with all the
necessaries for the plantation, and for my people took a patent for the
government there, to have secured my property, in subjection only to that
of England, which, to be sure, I might have obtained, had I done this,
358 ADVENTURES OP
and staid there myself, I had at least acted like a man of common sense :
but I was possessed with a wandering spirit, scorned all advantages,
pleased myself with being the patron of these people I had placed there,
and doing for them in a kind of haughty majestic way, Hke an old
patriarchal monarch. But I never so much as pretended to plant in the
name of any government or nation, or to acknowledge any prince, or to
call my people subjects to any one nation more than another, nay, I
never so much as gave the place a name, but left it as I found it, belong
ing to no man, and the people under no discipline or government but my
own. I rambled from them and came thither no more : the last letters I
had from any of them were by my partner's means, who sent me word,
though I had not the letter till five years after it was written, that they
went on but poorly, were malcontent with their long stay there that
Will Atkins was dead that five of the Spaniards were come away and
that they begged of him to write to me to think of the promise I had
made to fetch them away, that they might see their own country again
before they died.
But I was gone a wild-goose chase, indeed, and they who will have
any more of me, must be content to follow me through a new variety of
follies, hardships, and wild adventures.
But it is no time now to enlarge any farther upon the reason or
absurdity of my own conduct. I was embarked for the voyage, and the
voyage I went. I shall only add here, that my honest and truly pious
clergyman left me here : a ship being ready to go to Lisbon, he asked me
leave to go thither ; being still, as he observed, bound never to finish any
voyage he began. Had I gone with him, I had never had so many things
to be thankful for, and you had never heard of the second part of the
Travels and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe ; so I must leave here the
fruitless exclaiming at myself, and go on with my voyage.
From the Brazils, we made directly away over the Atlantic Sea to the
Cape of Good Hope, and had a tolerably good voyage, our course generally
south-east ; now and then a storm, and some contrary winds. But my
disasters at sea were at an end my future rubs and cross events were to
befal me on shore. "We made no stay at the Cape longer than was
needful to take in fresh water, but made the best of our way for the coast
of Coromandel. "We touched first at the island of Madagascar, where we
fared very well with them a while. It happened one evening when we
went on shore, that a greater number of their people came down than
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 359
usual, but all was very friendly and civil, and all was quiet ; and we
made us a little tent, or hut, of some boughs of trees, and lay on shore all
that night. I was not so well satisfied to lie on shore as the rest ; and the
boat lying at an anchor about a stone's cast from the land, with two men
in her to take care of her, I made one of them come on shore, and, getting
some boughs of trees to cover us also in the boat, I spread the sail on the
bottom of the boat, and lay on board, under the cover of the branches of
the trees, all night. About two o'clock in the morning, we heard one of
our men make a terrible noise on the shore, calling out for God's sake to
bring the boat in, and come and help them, for they were all like to be
murdered ; at the same time I heard the firing of five muskets, which was
the number of the guns they had, and that three times over. Bousing
immediately from sleep with the noise, I caused the boat to be thrust in,
and resolved, with three fusils we had on board, to land and assist our
men. Our men were but nine in all, and only five had fusils ; the rest,
indeed, had pistols and swords, but they were of small use to them. We
took up seven of our men, three of them being very ill wounded ; and
while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in as much
danger as they were in on shore; for the people poured their arrows in
upon us so thick, that we were fain to barricade the side of the boat
up with the benches, and two or three loose boards which we had in
the boat.
In this condition we lay, and could not tell how to weigh our anchor,
or set up our sail, because we must needs stand up in the boat, and they
were as sure to hit us as we were to hit a bird in a tree with small shot.
We made signals of distress to the ship, and my nephew, the captain,
hearing our firing, and by glasses perceiving the posture we lay in, and
that we fired towards the shore, pretty well understood us ; and, weighing
anchor with all speed, he stood as near the shore as he durst with the ship,
and then sent another boat with ten hands in her to assist us. One of the
men, taking the end of a tow line in his hand, swam on board us, and made
the line fast to the boat, upon which we slipt our little cable, and, leaving
our anchor behind, they towed us out of the reach of the arrows. As
soon as we were got from between the ship and the shore, that she could
lay her side to the shore, we ran along just by them, and we poured in a
broadside among them, loaded with pieces of iron and lead, small bullets,
and such stuff, besides the great shot, which made a terrible havock
among them.
860 ADVENTURES OP
"When we were got on board, our supercargo, who had been often in
those parts, said he was sure the inhabitants would not have touched us
if we had not done something to provoke them to it. At length it came
out, namely, that an old woman, who had come to sell us some milk, had
brought it within our poles, with a young woman with her, who also
brought some roots or herbs ; and while the old woman was selling us the
milk, one of our men offered some rudeness to the girl that was with her,
at which the old woman made a great noise. However, the seaman would
not quit his prize, but carried her out of the old woman's sight among the
trees, it being almost dark. The old woman went away without her, and,
as we suppose, made an outcry among the people she came from, who,
upon notice, raised this great army upon us in three or four hours ; and it
was great odds but we had been all destroyed.
One of our men was killed with a lance that was thrown at him just
at the beginning of the attack, as he sallied out of the tent we had made ;
the rest came off free, all but the fellow who was the occasion of all the
mischief, who paid dear enough for his black mistress. We could not
hear what became of him a great while : we lay upon the shore two days
after, though the wind presented, and made signals for him ; made our
boat sail up shore and down shore several leagues, but in vain.
I could not satisfy myself, however, without venturing on shore once
more. It was the third night after the action, that I had a great mind to
learn, if I could by any means, what mischief we had done, and how the
game stood on the Indian side. We took with us twenty stout fellows as
any in the ship, besides the supercargo, and myself ; and we landed two
hours before midnight, at the same place where the Indians stood drawn
up the evening before. We divided our men into two companies, and we
marched up, one body at a distance from the other, to the field of battle.
At first we could see nothing, it being very dark ; but by-and-bye our
boatswain, that led the first party, stumbled and fell over a dead body.
llere we concluded to halt till the moon began to rise, and then we could
easily discern the havoc we had made among them. We told two-and-
thirty bodies upon the ground, whereof two were not quite dead. When
we had made, as I thought, a full discovery of all we could come at the
.knowledge of, I was for going on board again ; but the boatswain and his
party sent me word, that they were resolved to make a visit to the
Indian town, where it might be they might find Thomas Jeffrys there
that was the man's name we had lost. So away they went, and though
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 361
the attempt was desperate, and such as none but madmen would have
gone about, yet, to give them their due, they went about it warily as well
as boldly. Their chief design was plunder ; but a circumstance, which
none of them were aware of, set them on fire with revenge. When they
came to the few Indian houses, which they thought had been the town,
they were under a great disappointment ; for there were not above twelve
or thirteen houses. However, they resolved to leave those houses, and
look for the town as well as they could. They went on a little way, and
found a cow tied to a tree, and they untied her, and the cow went
on before them directly to the town, which consisted of above two hun
dred houses, or huts. Here they found all profoundly secure as sleep and
a country that had never seen an enemy of that kind could make them.
Upon this, they resolved to divide themselves into three bodies, and to set
three houses on fire in- three parts of the town, and as the men came out,
to seize them and bind them. "While they were animating one another to
the work, three of them that were a little before the rest, called out aloud,
and told them they had found Thomas Jeffrys ; they all ran up to the
place, and so it was indeed, for there they found the poor fellow hanged
up naked by one arm, and his throat cut. There was an Indian house
just by the tree, where they found sixteen or seventeen of the principal
Indians. The sight of their poor mangled comrade so enraged them, that
they swore to one another they would be revenged, and to work they
went immediately. In a quarter of an hour they set the town on fire in
four or five places, and as soon as the fire began to blaze, the poor frighted
creatures began to rush out to save their lives, but met with their fate in
the attempt.
My nephew, the captain, who was roused by his men, seeing such
a fire, was very uneasy, not knowing what the matter was. A thousand
thoughts oppressed his mind concerning me and the supercargo, what
should become of us ; and at last he takes another boat, and with thirteen
men and himself, comes on shore to me. He was surprised to see me and
the supercargo in the boat with no more than two men, and he was
impatient to know what was doing, for the noise continued, and the flame
increased. In a word, the captain told me he would go and help his men,
let what would come, and so away went he. Nor was I any more able to
stay behind ; so, in short, the captain ordered two men to row back the
pinnace, and fetch twelve men more from the ship, leaving the long boat
at an anchor ; and that when they came back, six men should keep the
362 ADVENTURES OF
two boats, and six more come after us, so that he left only sixteen men in
the ship.
Being now on the march, we felt little of the ground we trod on ; and,
heing guided by the fire, we kept no path, but went directly to th'e place
of the flame. If the noise of the guns was surprising to us before, the
cries of the poor people were now quite of another nature, and filled us
with horror. However, we went on, and at length came to the town,
though there was no entering the streets of it for the fire. The first
object that we met with was the ruins of a hut, or house ; and just before
it, lay four men and three women killed ; and, as we thought, one or two
more lay in the heap among the fire. In short, these were such instances
of a rage altogether barbarous, and of a fury something beyond what was
human, that we thought it impossible our men could be guilty of it. But
this was not all ; we saw the fire increased forward, and the cry went on
just as the fire went on, so that we were in the utmost confusion. We
advanced a little way farther, and beheld, to our astonishment, three
women naked, crying in a most dreadful manner, and flying as if they had
indeed had wings, and after them sixteen or seventeen men, natives, in
the same terror and consternation, with three of our English butchers
for I can call them no better in the rear, who, when they could overtake
them, fired in among them and one that was killed by their shot fell down
in our sight. When the rest saw us, believing us to be their enemies, and
that we would murder them as well as those that pursued them, they set
up a most dreadful shriek, especially the women, and two of them fell
down, as if already dead, with the fright.
My very soul shrank within me, and my blood ran chill in my veins,
when I saw this ; and I believe had the three English sailors that pursued
them come on, I had made our men kill them all. However, we took
some ways to let the poor flying creatures kn,ow that we would not hurt
them, and immediately they came up to us, and kneeling down, with their
hands lifted up, made piteous lamentations to us to save them, which we
let them know we would do : whereupon they kept all together in a
huddle close behind us for protection. I left my men drawn up together
charging them to hurt nobody, but if possible to get at some of our people
and see what devil it was possessed them, and what they intended to do ;
and, in a word, to command them off and went among those flying people,
taking only two of our men with me. And there was indeed a piteous
spectacle among them : some of them had their feet terribly burnt with
CRUSOE RESCUING THE INDIANS.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 363
trampling and running through, the fire, others their hands burnt ; one of
the women had fallen down in the fire, and was almost burnt to death
before she could get out again ; two or three of the men had cuts in their
backs and thighs, from our men pursuing, and another was shot through
the body, and died while I was there.
I would fain have learnt what the occasion of all this was, but I could
not understand one word they said, though by signs I perceived that some
of them knew not what was the occasion themselves. I went back to my
own men : I told them my resolution, and commanded them to follow me ;
when, in the very moment, came four of our men, with the boatswain at
their head, covered with blood and dust, when our men hallooed to them
as loud as they could halloo, and with much ado one of them made them
hear. As soon as the boatswain saw us, he set up a halloo, like a shout of
triumph, for having, as he thought, more help come. " Captain," says he,
" noble captain, I am glad you are come ; we have not half done yet !
Villains ! hell-hound dogs ! I will kill as many of them as poor Tom has
hairs upon his head. "We have sworn to spare none of them ; we will root
out the very name of them from the earth." Raising my voice, that
I might silence him a little, " Barbarous dog!" said I, "what are you
doing ? I won't have one creature touched more upon pain of death. I
charge you upon your life to stop your hands, and stand still here, or you
are a dead man this minute."
" Why, sir," says he, " do you know what you do, or what they have
done ? If you want a reason for what we have done, come hither ;" and
with that he showed me the poor fellow hanging upon a tree with his
throat cut.
I confess I was urged then myself, and at another time should have
been forward enough ; but I thought they had carried their rage too far,
and thought of Jacob's words to his sons Simeon and Levi, " Cursed be
their anger, for it was fierce ; and their wrath, for it was cruel." But I
had now a new task upon my hands ; for when the men I carried with
me saw the sight as I had done, I had as much to do to restrain them as
I should have had with the others ; nay, my nephew himself fell in with
them, and told me, in their hearing, that he was only concerned for fear
of the men being overpowered. Upon these words away ran eight of my
men with the boatswain and his crew, to complete their bloody work ;
and I, seeing it quite out of my power to restrain them, came away pen
sive and sad, for I could not bear the sight.
364 ADVENTURES OP
I got nobody to come back with me but the supercargo and two men,
and with these I walked back to the boats. Immediately I took the
pinnace and went aboard, and sent her back to assist the men in what
might happen. By the time the men got to the shore again with the
pinnace, our men began to appear ; they came dropping in some and some,
not in two bodies, and in form, as they went out, but all in heaps, strag
gling here and there in such a manner that a small force of resolute men
might have cut them all off. But the dread of them was upon the whole
country. The people were amazed and surprised, and so frighted, that I
believe a hundred of them would have fled at the sight of but five of our
men.
I was very angry with my nephew, the captain, and indeed with all
the men, in my mind, but with him in particular, as prompting rather
than cooling the rage of his men in so bloody and cruel an enterprise.
The next day we set sail. I always, after that time, told our men God
would blast the voyage, for I looked upon the blood they shed that night
to be murder in them. The boatswain defended this quarrel when we
were afterwards on board. He said it was true that we seemed to break
the truce, but really had not, and that the war was begun the night
before by the natives themselves, who had shot at us, and killed one of
our men without any just provocation ; so that, as we were in a capacity
to fight them, we might also be in a capacity to do ourselves justice upon
them in an extraordinary mamaer.
We were now bound to the gulf of Persia, and from thence to the
coast of Coramandel, only to touch at Surat ; but the chief of the super
cargo's design lay at the Bay of Bengal. The first disaster that befel us
was in the Gulf of Persia, where five of our men, venturing on shore on
the Arabian side of the Gulf, were surrounded by the Arabs, and either
all killed or carried away into slavery. I began to upbraid them with
the just retribution of Heaven in this case ; but the boatswain very
warmly told me he thought I went farther in my censures than I could
show any warrant for in Scripture, and referred to the thirteenth of St.
Luke, verse 4th, where our Saviour intimates that those men on whom
the tower of Siloam fell were not sinners above all the Galileans : but
that which indeed put me to silence in this case was, that none of these
five men, who were now lost, were of the number of those who went on
shore to the massacre of Madagascar.
But my frequent preaching to them on this subject had worse conse-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 365
quences than I expected ; and the boatswain, who had been the head of
the attempt, came up boldly to me one time, and told me that, unless
I would resolve to have done with it, and also not to concern myself
farther with him, or any of his affairs, he would leave the ship, for he did
not think it was safe to sail with me among them.
I told him that I did confess I had all along opposed the massacre of
Madagascar, for such I would always call it ; and that I was a consider
able owner of the ship, and in that claim I conceived I had a right to
speak, even farther than I had yet done, and would not be accountable to
him or any onq else. He made but little reply to me at, that time, and I
thought that affair had been over. We were at this time in the road to
Bengal; and being willing to see the place, I went on shore with the
supercargo, in the ship's boat, to divert myself ; and towards evening was
preparing to go on board, when one of the men came to me, and told me
he would not have me trouble myself to come down to the boat, for they
had orders not to carry me on board. I immediately went and found out
the supercargo, and told him the story, and entreated him to go imme
diately on board the ship in an Indian boat and acquaint the captain of
it. But I might have spared this intelligence, for before I had spoken to
him on shore, the matter was effected on board : the boatswain, the
gunner, the carpenter, and, in a word, all the inferior officers, as soon as I
was gone off in the boat, came up to the quarter deck and desired to
speak with the captain ; and there the boatswain, making a long harangue,
told the captain in a few words that, as I was now gone peaceably on
shore, they were loath to use any violence with me, which, if I had not
gone on shore, they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have
gone. They therefore thought fit to tell him that, as they shipped them
selves to serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it
faithfully ; but, if I would not quit the ship, or the captain oblige me to
quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail no farther with him.
When my nephew, the captain, who came to me on shore, told me this,
I said he should not be concerned at all, for I would stay on shore^: I
only desired he would send me all my necessary things on shore, and leave
me a sufficient sum of money, and I would find my way to England as
well as I could. So the matter was over in a very few hours ; the men
returned to their duty, and I began to consider what course I should steer.
366 ADVENTURES OP
CHAPTER XXIII.
At Bengal, Crusoe meets with an English merchant, with whom he enters into partnership, and
makes a voyage to Siam and China They return to Bengal, where they purchase a> Dutch
coasting vessel, which they afterwards discover the crew had run away with Their new pur
chase brings them into danger, as they are mistaken for pirates, and chased by English and
Dutch boats They beat off their pursuers, and set sail for Cochin China, where they have an
encounter with the natives They arrive at Quinchang, where they part from their ship Crusoe
visits Nankin and Pekin, and travels with a caravan of merchants through Tartary and Russia
Winters in Siberia Sails from Archangel to Hamburg Arrives in England, after an absence of
nearly eleven years, and determines to wander no more.
WAS now alone in the remotest part of the world, for I was
near three thousand leagues, by sea, farther off from England
than I was at my island ; only, it is true, I might travel here,
by land, over the Great Mogul's country to Surat; might go
from thence to Bassora by sea, up the Gulf of Persia, and from thence
might take the way of the caravans, over the deserts of Arabia to Aleppo
and Scanderoon, and from thence by sea again to Italy, and so overland
into France. I had another way before me, which was to wait for some
English ships, which were coming to Bengal from Achin, on the island of
Sumatra, and get passage on board them for England.
Here I had the particular pleasure, speaking by contrarieties, to see
the ship set sail without me a treatment, I think, a man in my circum
stances scarce ever met with, except from pirates running away with the
ship, and setting those that would not agree with their villany on shore.
However, my nephew left me two servants, or rather, one companion and
one servant : the first was clerk to the purser, whom he engaged to go
with me ; and the other was his own servant. I took me also a good
lodging in the house of an English woman, where several merchants
lodged, some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, and one Englishman.
After a long stay here, the English merchant, who lodged with me, and
with whom I had contracted an intimate acquaintance, came to me one
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 367
morning. " Countryman," says he, " I have a project to communicate
to you, which, as it suits with my thoughts, may, for aught I know, suit
with yours also, when you shall have thoroughly considered it.
If you will put a thousand pounds to my thousand pounds, we will
hire a ship here, the first we can get to our minds. You shall be captain,
I'll be merchant, and we will go a trading voyage to China ; for what
should we stand still for ? The whole world is in motion ; all the
creatures of God, heavenly bodies and earthly, are busy and diligent : why
should we be idle ? There are no drones," says he, " living in the world
but men: why should we be of that number?" I liked this proposal
very well ; and the more because it seemed to be expressed with so much
good- will, and in so friendly a manner. It was, however, some time
before we could get a ship to our mind ; and, when we got a vessel, it was
not easy to get English sailors. However, after some time we got a mate,
a boatswain, and a gunner, English ; a Dutch carpenter, and three Portu
guese foremastmen : with these we found we could do well enough,
having Indian seamen, such as they are, to make up.
We made the voyage to Achin, in the island of Sumatra, first ; and
from thence to Siam, where we exchanged some of our wares for opium,
and some for arrack,. the first a commodity which bears a great price
among the Chinese, and which, at that time, was very much wanted there.
In a word, we went up to Susham, made a very great voyage, were eight
months out, and returned to Bengal. I got so much money by the first
adventure, and such an insight into the method of getting more, that, had
I been twenty years younger, I should have been tempted to have staid
here, and sought no farther for making my fortune ; but what was all this
to a man on the wrong side of threescore, that was rich enough, and came
abroad more in obedience to a restless desire of seeing the world than a
covetous desire of getting on in it ? I was come into a part of the world
which I never was in before and that part, in particular, which I had
heard much of and was resolved to see as much of it as I could.
But my fellow-traveller and I had different notions.. My new friend
kept himself to the nature of the thing, and would have been content to
have gone, like a carrier's horse, always to the same inn, backward and
forward, provided he could, as he called it, find his account in it : on the
other hand, mine, as old as I was, was the notion of a mad rambling boy,
that never cares to see a thing twice over. But this was not all. I had
a kind of impatience upon me to be nearer home, and yet the most
368 ADVENTURES OF
unsettled resolution imaginable which way to go. In the interval of
these consultations, my friend, who was always on the search for business,
proposed another vayage to me, namely, among the Spice Islands ; and to
bring home a load of cloves from the Manillas, or thereabouts. We were
not long in preparing for this voyage, which we made very successfully,
touching at Borneo, and several islands whose names I do not remember,
and came home in about five months. We sold our spice, which was
chiefly cloves, and some nutmegs, to the Persian merchants, who carried
them away for the Gulf ; and, making near five of one, we really got a
great deal of money.
A little while after this there came in a Dutch ship from Batavia ; she
was a coaster, and of about two hundred tons burden : the men, as they
pretended, having been so sickly that the captain had not men enough to
go to sea, he lay by at Bengal, and gave public notice that he would sell
his ship. This came to my ears before my new partner heard of it ; and I
had a great mind to buy it. So I went home to him, and told him of it :
he considered a while, for he was no rash man neither ; but, musing some
time, he replied, " She is a little too big ; but, however, we will have
her." Accordingly, we bought the ship, and took possession ; when we
had done so, we resolved, to entertain the men, if we could, to join them
with those we had, for the pursuing our business; but, on a sudden they
not having received their wages, but their share of the money, as we after
wards learnt not one of them was to be found. A few days after, I came
to know what sort of fellows they were ; for, in short, their history was
that this man they called captain was the gunner only, not the com
mander ; they had been a trading voyage, in which they were attacked on
shore by some of the Malaccans, who had killed the captain and three of
his men ; and, after the captain was killed, these men had run away with
the ship, and had brought her in at the Bay of Bengal, leaving the mate
and five men more on shore.
"We picked up some English seamen here after this, and some Dutch,
and we now resolved for a second voyage for cloves, etc., among the
Philippine and Molucca isles ; and, in short, I spent, from first to last, six
years in this country, trading from port to port, backward and forward,
and with very good success ; and was now, the last year, with my partner,
going in the ship above mentioned, on a voyage to China, but designing
first to go to Siam, to buy rice. In this voyage, being by contrary winds
obliged to beat up and down a great while in the straits of Malacca, and
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 369
among the islands, we were no sooner got clear of those difficult seas, but
we found our ship had sprung a leak, and we were not able to find out
where it was. This forced us to make for some port ; and my partner,
who knew the country better than I did, directed the captain to put into
the river of Cambodia; for I had made the English mate, one Mr.
Thomson, captain, not being willing to take the charge of the ship upon
myself.
While we were here, and going often on shore for refreshment, there
comes to me one day an Englishman, who was, it seems, a gunner's mate
on board an English East India ship, which rode in the same river.
" Sir," says he, " I have something to tell you that very nearly concerns
you." " If it very nearly concerns me," said I, " and not yourself, what
moves you to tell it me ?" " I am moved," said he, "by the imminent
danger you are in ; and for aught I see, you have no knowledge of it."--
" I know no danger I am in," said I, " but that my ship is leaky, and I
cannot find it out ; but I propose to lay her aground to-morrow, to see if
I can find it." " But, sir," says he, "leaky or not leaky, find it or not
find it, you will be wiser than to lay your ship on shore to-morrow, when
you hear what I have to say to you-. The town of Cambodia lies about
fifteen leagues up this river, and there are two large English ships about
five leagues on this side, and three Dutch ?" " "Well," said I, " and what
is that to me?" "Well, sir," says he, "if you do not put to sea inv
mediately, you will be attacked by five longboats full of men ; and,
perhaps, if you are taken, you will be hanged for a pirate, and the
particulars be examined into afterwards. I suppose you know well
enough that you were with this ship at Sumatra; that there your cap
tain was murdered by the Malaccans, with three of his men ; and that you,
or some of those that were on board with you, ran away with the ship,
and are "since turned PIRATES. This is the sum of the story, and you will
all be seized as pirates, and executed with very little ceremony, if they
get you in their power. If you have any regard for your life, and the
lives of all your men, put out to sea, without fail, at high water."
"Well," said I, "you have been very kind in this: what shall I do
for you to make you amends?" "Sir," says he, "I have nineteen
months' pay due to me on board the ship , which I came out
of England in, and the Dutchman that is with me has seven months'
pay due to him ; if you will make good our pay to us, we will go along
with you ; if you find nothing more in it, we will desire no more ; but if
24
370 ADVENTURES OP
we do convince you that we have saved your life, and the ship, and the
lives of all the men in her, we will leave the rest to you."
I consented to this readily, find went immediately on board, and the
two men with me. As soon as I came to the ship's side, my partner, who
was on board, came on the quarter-deck, and called to me with a great
deal of joy, " ho ! ho ! we have stopped the leak !" " Say you so ?"
said I ; " thank God ; but weigh the anchor, then, immediately." He
was surprised ; but called the captain, and he immediately ordered the
anchor to be got up, and we stood out to sea : then I called him into the
cabin, and told him the story at large. Presently a seaman comes to the
cabin door, and calls out to us that the captain bade him tell us we were
chased. " Chased !" said I, "by whom, and by what ?" " By five sloops,
or boats," said the fellow, "full of men." We made ready for fight, but
;.all this while kept out to sea, with wind enough, and could see five large
longboats, following us, with all the sail they could make. Two of these
boats, which we could see were English, had outsailed the rest, and gained
upon us considerably ; upon which we fired a gun without a shot, and we
put out a flag of truce as a signal for parley, but they kept crowding after
us till (they came within shot. Upon thjs we took in our white flag, they
having made no answer to it, hung out the red flag, and fired at them
with shot. It was all one : they crowded after us, and endeavoured to
come under our stern, so to board us on our quarter ; upon which I
ordered to bring the ship to, so that they lay upon our broadside, when
immediately we fired five guns at them one of which carried away the
stem of the hindermost boat. "While this was doing, one of the three boats
that was behind made up to the boat which we had disabled, to relieve
her, and we could afterwards see her take out the men : we called again
to the foremost boat, but she crowded close under our stern. Upon
this our gunner ran out his two chase guns, and fired ,at her ; then we
weared the ship again, and brought our quarter to bear upon them, and,
firing three guns more, we found the boat was split almost to pieces.
Upon this I immediately manned out our pinnace, with orders to pick up
some of the men. Our men in the pinnace followed 1 their orders, and took
up three men, one of whom was drowning. As soon as they were on board,
we crowded all the sail we could, and the boats gave over their chase.
Being thus delivered from a danger, I took care that we should change
our course, and not let any one imagine whither we were going : so we
stood out to sea eastward, quite out of the course of all European ships.
ROBINSON CKUSOE. 371
"We now began to consult with the two seamen, and inquire what the
meaning of all this should be ? The Dutchman told us that the fellow
that sold us the ship, as we said, was no more than a thief that had
run away with her ; that the captain was treacherously murdered by the
natives on the coast of Malacca, with three of his men ; and that he, this
Dutchman, and four more, got into the woods, where they wandered
about, till at length he made his escape, and swam off to a Dutch
ship. He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the
seamen belonging to the ship had arrived, having deserted the rest in
their travels, and gave an account that the fellow who had run away
with the ship sold her at Bengal to a set of pirates, which were gone
a-cruising in her.
It was my partner's opinion that w-e should go directly back to Bengal,
from whence we came, because there we could give an account of our
selves, and could prove where we were when the ship put in, whom we
bought her of, and the like. I was some time of that opinion ; but, after
a little more serious thinking, I told him I thought it was a very great
hazard for us to attempt returning to Bengal, for we should be sure to be
waylaid.
This danger a little startled my partner, and we immediately resolved
to go away to the coast of Tonquin, and so on to China. After a tedious
and irregular course, we came within sight of the coast of Cochin China,
and resolved to put into a small river, which, however, had depth enough
of water for us. This happy step was our deliverance ; for the next morn
ing there came into the Bay of Tonquin two Dutch ships ; and a third
without any colours spread out, but which we believed to be a Dutch
man, passed by at two leagues' distance, steering for the coast of China ;
and in the afternoon went . by two English ships, steering the same
course. The place we were in was wild and barbarous, the people
thieves, even by occupation or profession.
I have observed above that our ship sprang a leak at sea, and that it
was stopped unexpectedly ; yet, as we did not find the ship so perfectly
tight and sound as we desired, we resolved, while we were in this place,
to lay her on shore, if possible, to find out where the leaks were. Ac
cordingly, having lightened the ship, we tried to bring her down, that we
might come at her bottom. The inhabitants came wondering down to
the shore to look at us ; and not seeing our men, who were at work
on her bottom with stages, and with their boats on the off side, they
372
ADVENTURES OF
presently concluded that the ship was cast away. On this supposition,
they came all about us, with ten or twelve large boats, intending,
no doubt, to plunder the ship. I called to the men who worked upon
the stages to get up the side into the ship, and bade those in the
boat to row round and come on board ; but, before they could do as they
were ordered, the Cochin- Chinese were upon them, and boarded our long-
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 373
boat, and began to lay hold of the men as their prisoners. The first man
they laid hold of was an English seaman, a stout, strong fellow, who,
having a musket in his hand, never offered to fire it, but laid it down in
the boat, like a fool, as I thought. But he understood his business better
than I could teach him ; for he grappled the Pagan, and dragged him by
main force out of their own boat into ours, where, taking him by the two
ears, he beat his head so against the boat's gunnel, that the fellow died
instantly in his hands ; and, in the meantime, a Dutchman, who stood
next, took up the musket, and, with the butt-end of it, so laid about
him, that he knocked down five who attempted to enter the boat. But
this was little towards resisting thirty or forty men. An accident, how
ever, gave our men a complete victory. Our carpenter, being prepared to
grave the outside of the ship, as well as to pay the seams where he
caulked her to stop the leaks, had got two kettles just let down into the
boat one filled with boiling pitch, and the other with rosin, tallow, and
oil ; and the man that tended the carpenter had a great iron ladle in his
hand : two of the enemy's men entered the boat just where the fellow
stood, and he immediately saluted them with a ladleful of the stuff
boiling hot, which so burnt and scalded them, being half naked, that they
roared out like two bulls, and, enraged with the fire, leaped both into the
sea. The carpenter saw it, and, stepping forward himself, takes one of
their mops, and dipping it in the pitch-pot, he and his man threw it
among them so plentifully, that, of all the men in three boats, there was
not one that was not scalded and burnt with it, and made such a howling
and crying that I never heard a worse noise, and, indeed, nothing like
it. All the while this was doing, my partner and I, who managed the
rest of the men on board, had, with great dexterity, brought the ship
almost to rights ; and, having got the guns into their places again, the
gunner called to me to bid our boat get out of the way, for he would let
fly among them. I bade him not offer to fire, for the carpenter would do
the work without him ; but bade him heat another pitch-kettle, which
our cook, who was on board, took care of. But the enemy was so terrified
with what they met with in their first attack, that they would not come
on again ; and some of them that were farthest off, seeing the ship swim,
as it were, upright, began, as we supposed, to see their mistake, and gave
over the enterprise, finding it was not as they expected. The next day,
having finished our work within board, and finding our ship was perfectly
healed of all her leaks, we set sail. We kept on north-east, as if we
374 ADVENTURES OP
would go to the Manillas or the Philippine Islands, and this we did that
we might not fall into the way of any European ships; and then we
steered north again, till we came to the latitude of twenty-two degrees
twenty minutes, by which means we made the island of Formoso directly,
where we came to an anchor, in order to get water and fresh provisions.
From hence we sailed still north, keeping the coast of China at an equal
distance, till we knew we were beyond all the ports of China where our
European ships usually come. Being now come to the latitude of thirty
degrees, we resolved to put into the first trading port we should come at ;
and, standing in for the shore, a boat came off two leagues to us, with an
old Portuguese pilot on board, who came to offer his services, which,
indeed, we were very glad of, and took him on board.
I had conversation with the pilot, who, it seems, knew the whole
story of the attack of the Dutchman, and I told him it was our ship they
followed and attacked, believing us to be pirates. Learning from him
after we came to anchor at the south-west point of the great Gulf of
Nanquin, whither I had pressed him to carry us, that the two Dutch
ships had gone to Nanquin, I asked the old pilot if there was no
creek or harbour which I might put into, and pursue my business with
the Chinese privately, and be in no danger of the enemy. He told
me, if I would sail to the southward about two-and-forty leagues, there
was a little port called Quinchang, where the fathers of the mission
usually landed from Macao, on their progress to teach the Christian reli
gion to the Chinese, and where no European ships ever put in.
"We all agreed to go back to this place, and we weighed the next day,
having only gone twice on shore, where we were to get fresh water. We
came to the other port (the wind being contrary) not till five days ; but
it was very much to our satisfaction, and I was joyful, and I may say
thankful, when I set my foot safe on shore, resolving, and my partner too,
that if it was possible to dispose of ourselves and effects any other way
though not every way to our satisfaction, we would never set foot on
board that unhappy vessel again. When we came on shore, the old pilot,
who was now our friend, got us a lodging, and a warehouse for our goods.
Besides this, he brought us acquainted with three missionary Eomish
priests, who were in the town, and who had been there some time, con
verting the people to Christianity. One of these was a Frenchman, whom
they called Father Simon; he was a jolly, well- conditioned man, very
free in his conversation, not seeming so serious and grave as the other two
KOBINSON CRUSOE. 375
did, one of whom was a Portuguese, and the other a Gtenoese. This
Erench priest was appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of the mis
sion, to go up to Pekin, the royal seat of the Chinese Emperor, and waited
only for another priest, who was ordered to come to him from Macao, to
go along with him ; and we scarce ever met together but he was inviting
me to go that journey with him, telling me, how he would show me all
the glorious things of that mighty empire, and amongst the rest, the
greatest city in the world.
Dining with the missionary one day, I showed some little inclination
to go with him ; and he pressed me and my partner very hard, and with
a great many persuasions, to consent. But we had our ship and our
merchandise to dispose of. At length our prospects began to clear up a
little. Our old Portuguese pilot brought a Japan merchant to us, who
bought all our opium, and gave us a very good price for it. I proposed
to him to deal with us for our ship also, and he consented to hire her to
go to Japan, saying that on his return he would buy the ship. But after
this, we, on the proposition of my partner, made over half the ship to the
young man whom my nephew had left with me as a companion, and took
a writing from him obliging him to account to us for the other half. So
away he went to Japan.
We were now on- shore in China-, destitute of all manner of prospect
of return ! But in about four months' time there was to be another fair
at that place where we were, and then we might possibly find some
Chinese junks or vessels from Nanquin, that would be to be sold, and
would carry us and our goods whither we pleased. Upon these hopes we
resolved to continue here ; but, to divert ourselves, we took two or three
journies into the country. Eirst, we went ten days' journey to see the
city of Nanquin a city well worth seeing, indeed. I had also a mind
to see the city of Pekin, which I had heard so much of, and Eather Simon
importuned me daily to do it. At length his time of going away being
set, it was necessary that we should resolve either to go, or not to go ; so
I referred him to my partner, and left it wholly to his choice, who at
length resolved it in the affirmative, and we prepared for our journey.
"We set out with very good advantage, as to finding the way ; for we got
leave to travel in the retinue of one of their mandarins,, a kind of viceroy,,
or principal magistrate. We were five-and-twenty days travelling to
Pekin, through a country infinitely populous, but miserably cultivated r
the husbandry, economy, and the way of living, all very miserable,, though
376
ADVENTURES OP
they boast so much of the industry of the people. The pride of these
people is infinitely great, and exceeded by nothing but their poverty,
which adds to that which I call their misery.
My friend, Father Simon, and I, used to be very merry upon these
occasions, to see the beggarly pride of those people. For example, coming
by the house of a country gentleman, as Father Simon called him, about
ten leagues off from the city of Nanquin, we had, first of all, the honour
to ride with the master of the house about two miles : the state he rode in
was a perfect Don Quixotism, being a mixture of pomp and poverty.
The habit of this greasy Don was very proper for a scaramouch,
or merryandrew, being a dirty calico, with all the tawdry trappings of a
fool's coat, such as hanging sleeves, taffety, and cuts and slashes almost on
every side ; it covered a rich taffety vest, as greasy as a butcher, and
which testified that his honour must needs be a most exquisite sloven.
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
377
His horse was a poor, lean, starved, hobbling creature, such as in Eng
land might sell for about thirty or forty shillings ; and he had two slaves
followed him on foot, to drive the poor creature along : he had a whip in
his hand, and he belaboured the beast as fast about the head as his slaves
did about the tail ; and thus he rode by us with about ten or twelve ser
vants, and we were told he was going from the city to his country seat,
about half a league before us. We travelled on gently, but this figure of
a gentleman rode away before us ; and as we stopped at a village about an
hour, to refresh us, when we came by the country seat of this great man,
we saw him in a little place before his door, eating his repast ; it was a
kind of garden, but he was easy to be seen, and we were given to
understand that the more we looked on him the better he would be
pleased.
He sat under a tree, something like the palmetto tree, which effectually
shaded him over the head, and on the south side ; but under the tree also
was placed a large umbrella, which made that part look well enough ; he
sat lolling back in a great elbow chair, being a heavy corpulent man, and
his meat being brought him by two women slaves : he had two more,
whose office, I think, few gentlemen in Europe would accept of their ser
vice in, namely, one fed the squire with a spoon, and the other held the
378 m ADVENTURES OP
dish with one hand, and scraped off what he let fall upon his worship's
beard and taffety vest, with the other ; while the great fat brute thought
it below him to employ his own hands in any of those familiar offices
which kings and monarchs would rather do than be troubled with the
clumsy fingers of their servants.
I took this time to think what pain men's pride puts them to, and how
troublesome a haughty temper, thus ill-managed, must be to a man of
common sense ; and, leaving the poor wretch to please himself with our
looking at him, as if we admired his pomp, whereas we really pitied and
contemned him, we pursued our journey to Pekin.
At length we arrived at Pekin. I had nobody with me but the youth
whom my nephew the captain had given me to attend me as a servant,
and who proved very trusty and diligent ; and my partner had nobody with
him but one servant, who was a kinsman. As for the Portuguese pilot,
he being desirous to see the court, we gave him his passage, that is to say
bore his charges, for his company, and to use him as an interpreter for he
understood the language of the country, and spoke good French and a
little English ; and, indeed, this old man was a most useful implement to
us every where ; for we had not been above a week at Pekin, when he
came laughing, and told us there was a great caravan of Muscovy and
Polish merchants in the city, and that they were preparing to set out
on their journey, by land, to Muscovy, within four or five weeks. We
then went to consult together what was to be done, and I and my partner
agreed, that, if our Portuguese pilot would go with us, we would bear
his charges to Moscow, or to England, if he pleased. He received the
proposal like a man transported, and told us he would go with us over
the whole world.
It was the beginning of February, our style, when we set out from
Pekin. The company was very great, and, as near as I can remember,
made between three and four hundred horses and camels, and upwards of
a hundred and twenty men, very well armed, and provided for all events.
"We consisted of people of several nations, such as the Muscovites chiefly,
for there were about sixty of them who were merchants or inhabitants of
Moscow, though of them some were Livonians ; and, to our particular
satisfaction, five of them were Scots, who appeared also to be men of great
experience in business and very good substance.
"When we had travelled one day's journey, the guides, who were five
in number, called all the gentlemen and merchants, that is to say, all the
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 379
passengers, except the servants, to a great council, as they termed it. At
this great council, every one deposited a certain quantity of money to a
common stock, for the necessary expense of "buying forage on the way,
where it was not otherwise to be had, and for satisfying the guides,
getting horses, and the like. And here they constituted the journey,
as they called it, namely, they named captains and officers to draw
us all up, and give the command in case of an attack ; and gave every
one their turn of command. In two days more we passed the great
China wall, made for a fortification against the Tartars. And here I
began to find the necessity of keeping together in a caravan, as we
travelled, for we saw several troops of Tartars roving about. Our
leader for the day gave leave for about sixteen of us to go a-hunting, as
they call it : and what was this but hunting of sheep ! However, it
may be called hunting too ; for the creatures are the wildest and swiftest
of foot that ever I saw of their kind, : only they will not run a great way ;
and you are sure of sport when you begin the chase, for they appear
generally by thirty or forty in a flock, and, like true sheep, always keep
together when they fly.
In pursuit of this odd sort of game, it was our hap to meet with about
forty Tartars, who, as soon as they saw us, one of them blew a kind of
horn very loud, but with a barbarous sound that I had never heard before
and, by the way, never care to hear again. "We all supposed this was to
call their friends about them; and so it was, for in less than half a
quarter of an hour, a troop of forty or fifty more appeared at about a
mile distance ; but our work was over first, as it happened.
One of the Scots merchants of Moscow happened to be amongst us ;
and as soon as he heard the horn, he told us, in short, that we had nothing
to do but to charge them immediately, without loss of time ; and, drawing
us up in a line, he asked if we were resolved ? We told him we were
ready to follow him ; so he rode directly up to them. They stood gazing
at us like a mere crowd, drawn up in no order ; but, as soon as they saw
us advance, they let fly their arrows, which, however, missed us very
happily : it seems they mistook not their aim, but their distance ; for their
arrows all fell a little short of us, but with so true an aim, that had
we been about twenty yards nearer, we must have had several men
wounded, if not killed. Immediately we halted ; and, though it was at a
great distance, we fired, and sent them leaden bullets for wooden arrows,
following our shot full gallop, resolving to fall in among them sword in
380 ADVENTURES OF
hand for so our bold Scot that led us directed. As soon as we came up
to them, we fired our pistols in their faces, and then drew ; but they fled
in the greatest confusion imaginable. "We had, however, this misfortune
namely, that all our mutton that we had in chase got away.
"We were all this while in the Chinese dominions, and therefore the
Tartars were not so bold as afterwards ; but, in about five days, we
entered a vast great wild desert, which held us three days' and nights'
march. I asked our guides whose dominion this was in ? and they told
me this was a kind of border that might be called JSTo Man's Land, being
part of the great Karakathy, or Grand Tartary, but that, however, it was
reckoned to China ; that there was no care taken here to preserve it from
the inroads of thieves, and therefore it was reckoned the worst desert in
the whole march, though we were to go over some much larger.
In passing this wilderness, which, I confess, was at the first view very
frightful to me, we saw two or three times little parties of the Tartars,
but they seemed to be upon their own affairs, and to have no design upon
us ; and so, like the man who met the devil, if they had nothing to say to
us, we had nothing to say to them : we let them go.
"We travelled near a month after this, the ways being not so good as
at first, though still in the dominions of the emperor of China, but lay,
for the most part, in villages, some of which were fortified, because of the
incursions of the Tartars.
"We wanted about two days' journey of the fortified city of JS'aum,
when messengers were sent express to every part of the road, to tell
all travellers and caravans to halt, till they had a guard sent to them ;
for that an unusual body of Tartars, making ten thousand in all, had
appeared in the way, about thirty miles beyond the city. Accordingly,
two days after, we had two hundred soldiers sent us from a garrison of the
Chinese on our left, and three hundred more from the city of Naum, and
with those we advanced boldly. We were entered upon a desert of about
fifteen or sixteen miles over, when behold, by a cloud of dust they raised,
we saw an enemy was at hand. The Tartars came on, and an innume
rable company they were. A party of them came on first, and when
within gunshot, our leader ordered the two wings to advance swiftly
and give them a salvo on each wing, which was done ; and, wheeling off
to the left, they gave over the design.
Two days after this we came to the city of Naum, or !N"aumn. After
this we passed several great rivers, and two dreadful deserts, one of which
ROBINSON CKUSOE. 381
we were sixteen days passing over; and, on the 13th of April, we came
to the frontiers of the Muscovite dominions. As we entered into the
Muscovite dominions, we were very visibly obliged to the care the Czar
of Muscovy has taken to have cities and towns built in as many
places as are possible to place them, where his soldiers keep garrison
something like the stationary soldiers placed by the Romans in the
remotest countries of their empire ; though wherever we came at these
towns and stations, the garrisons and governor were Russians, and
professed mere pagans, sacrificing to idols, and worshipping the sun,
moon, and stars, or all the host of heaven : and were, of all the
heathens and pagans that ever I met with, the most barbarous, ex
cept only that they did not eat man's flesh, as our savages of America
did. In a village near Nertzinskay, I had the curiosity to go and
see their way of living, which is most brutish and insufferable : they
had, I suppose, a great sacrifice that day j for there stood out upon an old
stump of a tree an idol made of wood, frightful as any thing we can think
of to represent the devil that can be made. It had a head certainly not
so much as resembling any creature that the world ever saw ears as big
as goats' horns, and as high eyes as big as a crown piece, and a nose like
a crooked ram's horn and a mouth extended four-cornered, like that of a
lion, with horrible teeth, hooked like a parrot's under bill. Its upper
garment was of sheep-skins, with the wool outward ; a great Tartar
bonnet on the head, with two horns growing through it : it was about
eight feet high, yet had no feet or legs, or any other proportion of parts.
This scarecrow was set up at the outside of the village ; and, when I came
near to it, there were sixteen or seventeen creatures lying flat on
the ground round this formidable block of shapeless wood. A little
way off from this monster, and at the door of a tent or hut, stood
three butchers I thought they were such ; for when I came nearer
to them, I found they had long knives in their hands, and in the middle
of the tent appeared three sheep killed, and one young bullock or steer.
But these, it seems, were sacrifices to that senseless log of an idol ; and the
three men, priests belonging to it ; and the seventeen prostrated wretches
were the people who brought the offering, and were making their prayers.
I confess I was more moved at their stupidity, and this brutish wor
ship of a hobgoblin, than ever I was at anything in my life. I rode up to
the image, or monster call it what you will and with my sword cut the
bonnet that was on its head in two in the middle, so that it hung down
382 ADVENTURES OP
by one of the horns : and one of our men, that was with me, took hold of
the sheep-skin that covered it, and pulled at it, when, behold, a most
hideous outcry and howling ran through the village, and two or three hun
dred people came about my ears, so that I was glad to scour for it, for we
saw some had bows and arrows. But I resolved, from that moment, to
visit them again.
Our caravan rested three nights at the town, so we had some leisure
here to put my design in execution. I communicated my project to the
Scots merchant of Moscow. He laughed at me at first, but finding me
resolute, he told me that he would go with me ; but he would go first and
bring a stout fellow, one of his countrymen, to go also with us. He
brought me a Tartar's robe, or gown of sheep-skins, and a bonnet, with a
bow and arrows, and had provided the same for himself and his country
man, that the people, if they saw us, should not be able to determine who
we were.
All the first night we spent in mixing up some combustible matter
with aquavitae, gunpowder, and such other materials as we could get ;
and having a good quantity of tar in a little pot, about an hour after
night we set out upon our expedition. We came to the place about eleven
o'clock at night, and found that the people were at their rest ; only, that
in the great hut, or tent, as we called it, where we saw the three priests
whom we mistook for butchers, we saw a light ; and, going up close to the
door, we heard people talking, as if there were five or six of them. "We
determined on making them our prisoners ; and, tying their hands, com
pelled them to stand and see their idol destroyed, which we accomplished
by means of the combustibles we had brought with us.
In the morning we appeared among our fellow travellers, exceedingly
busy in getting ready for our journey, and no one could suggest that we
had been anywhere but in our beds. But it did not end so. Next day
there came a great multitude of the country people to the town gates,
demanding satisfaction of the Russian governor for insulting their priests,
and burning their great Cham-Chi-Thaunga, for so they called the mon
strous creature they worshipped. The governor gave them all the good
words imaginable; and at last, to appease them, told them there was
a caravan gone to Russia that morning, and that it was perhaps some of
this company that had done them the injury. Then he sent after us, inti
mating that if any in our caravan had done it, they should make their
escape ; and that whether we had done it or no, we should make all the
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 383
haste forward that was possible. The captain of the caravan took the
hint, and we travelled two days and two nights, without any considerable
stop, and then we lay at a village called Plothus. Prom thence we
hastened on towards Jarawena ; but on the second day's march across the
desert, by the clouds of dust behind us, we began to be sensible we were
pursued. The third day, when we had encamped, the enemy came upon
us in great numbers, and we only escaped them through the cunning of a
Cossack of Jarawena ; who, telling our leader he would send these people
away to Sibeilka, rode away from our rear, and, taking a great circuit
about, came to the army of Tartars, as if he had been sent express to them,
and told them that the people who had burnt their Cham-Chi-Thaunga
were gone to Sibeilka with a caravan of miscreants, that is to say Chris
tians, and that they were resolved to burn the god Seal Isarg, belonging
to the Tonguses. Upon this, away the Tartars drove in a violent hurry,
and in less than three hours they were entirely out of our sight. So we
passed safely on to Jarawena, and from thence through a frightful desert
to a country pretty well inhabited.
I have nothing material to say of my particular affairs, till I came to
Tobolski, the capital of Siberia, where I let the caravan go, and made pro
vision to winter. This being the country where the state criminals of
Muscovy are all banished, the city was full of noblemen, princes, and
gentlemen, with several of whom I made acquaintance.
About the latter end of May I began to make all ready to pack up, and
proposed to a certain prince, a banished minister of the Czar, that, as I
went in the nature of a caravan, and could encamp every night where
I would, he might easily pass with me uninterrupted to Archangel, where
I could secure him on board an English or Dutch ship, and carry him off
safe along with me. He heard me very attentively, declined my offer, but
asked me if I had kindness enough to offer the same to another person in
whom he had a great share of concern. I told him, if he would please to
name the person to me, I would give him an answer. Thereupon he said
it was his only son ; I made no hesitation, but told him I would do it.
It was in the beginning of June when I left this remote place, with
my young lord, and a faithful Muscovite, or rather Siberian, servant he
had with him. On the 18th of July we all arrived safe at Archangel, but
were obliged to stay at this place five weeks for the arrival of the ships.
"We sailed from Archangel on the 20th of August, in a Hamburgher and
arrived in the Elbe the 13th of September. Here my partner and I
384
ADVENTURES OP ROBINSON CRUSOE.
found a very good sale for our goods ; and, dividing the produce, my share
amounted to three thousand four hundred and seventy-five pounds seven
teen shillings and three pence. Here the young lord took leave of us,
and went up the Elbe, in order to go to the Court of Yienna, where he
resolved to seek protection.
To conclude, having staid near four months at Hamburgh, I came
from thence overland to the Hague, where I embarked in the packet, and
arrived in London the 10th of January,. 1705, having been gone from Eng
land ten years and nine months. And here, resolving to harass myself
no more, I am preparing for a longer journey than all these, having lived
seventy-two years a life of infinite variety, and learnt sufficiently to know
the value of retirement, and the blessing of ending our days in peace.
STEPHEN AUSTIN, PKINTJKB, HERTFOBD.
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
PR Defoe, Daniel
34-^3 The adventures of. .'Robin son
Al Crusoe
1862
