very short Jumper

:
ARTES
LIBRARY
18371
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PLURIOUS UNUM
TUEBOR
"SI-QUÆRIS-PENINSULAM-AMŒNAM.
CIRCUMSPICE
!
:
GIFT OF
REGENT LLHUBBARD
Hubbard
Imag. Voy.
PR
3403
•Al
1890
THE
LIFE AND SURPRISING ADVENTURES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
"Twere well with most, if books that could engage
Their childhood, pleas'd them at a riper age ;
The man, approving what had charm'd the boy,
Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy ;
And not with curses on his art, who stole
The gem of truth from his unguarded soul.
COWPER.
MAJOR'S EDITION
!
THE LIFE
AND
SURPRISING ADVENTURES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE
OF YORK, MARINER
BY DANIEL DEFOE

WITH THIRTY-SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS
BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1890
}
Uniform with the Present Volume.
Handsomely printed and half-bound, price 2s. each.
THE ESSAYS OF ELIA.
By CHARLES LAMB.
Both Series complete in One Volume.
GASTRONOMY AS A FINE ART.
By BRILLAT-Savarin.
Translated by R. E. ANDERSON, M.A.
ANECDOTES OF THE CLERGY.
By JACOB LARWOOD.
THE EPICUREAN; and ALCIPHRON.
By THOMAS MOORE.
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
Rea.

Regent L. L. Huttand
يشونها
10-20-1924
V
PREFACE.
PREFACE has been pronounced to be, for the most
part, an impertinence; since a good book does not re-
quire, and a bad book does not deserve, one.
Every
rule, however, has its exceptions; and it is necessary
to explain the manner in which the following verses became a
part of the present work.
Several years ago the writer of them prefixed, to a volume of
his own, some verses inscribed to a friend and relative, whose
works for the rising generation are extensively known, and de-
servedly esteemed, in which he made a passing allusion to Defoe,
with other writers for children, whose volumes, in his early life,
were standards in the juvenile library.
An extract from this poem, forming stanzas 3, 4, and 5 of
the verses now printed, having been given by Wilson in his Life
of Defoe, the editor of these volumes being much struck with
their beauty, requested of his kind friend the author to amplify
them so as to form a full and appropriate introduction. The
result has only proved that neither the flowing ease of the
writer nor his willingness to oblige were unjustly anticipated.
For the edition now submitted to the public little need be
said. No apology can be requisite for any attempt to present to
readers of every age and rank a book confessedly at the very
head of its class, in a more generally attractive form than it has
ever before been offered. The new set of illustrations by which
it is embellished, being above one-third more in number than
the celebrated series by the admirable Stothard, consequently
vi
PREFACE.
includes (without omitting any main point of the story) several
subjects peculiarly suited to our present Artist's singular powers;
at the same time he has thrown into others a degree of sentiment
for which his most ardent admirers are, perhaps, little prepared.
Those who are personally acquainted with him will be not a
little pleased to recognise his own portrait in the earlier scenes of
their old favourite Robinson Crusoe.
Where a portrait of the author harmonises with, and is charac-
teristic of, the work published, it forms an appropriate embellish-
ment of it. But the portrait of Defoe, unfortunately, is much
more indicative of the historian, or the politician, than of the
author of that celebrated fiction to which he is chiefly indebted
for his fame; and to the scenes of which the embellishments
have, therefore, been confined.
For similar reasons even a sketch of his life has not been in-
cluded. Wilson's elaborate and circumstantial Biography, added
to others more brief and fugitive, leave little or nothing new to
be said of the man, nor could the most minute details of his own
life afford any apposite illustration of the life and adventures of
his hero.
It only remains to wish the reader a good appetite for, and
a healthy digestion of, the banquet here provided: it is a truly
English one; for Robinson Crusoe is to the boy's library,*
what roast beef is to John Bull's table, a national dish; its
motto is "cut and come again ;" and it is happily said of it,
There are few books one can read through and through so,
With new delight, either on wet or dry day,
As that which chronicles the acts of CRUSOE,
And the good faith and deeds of his man FRIDAY!
JOHN MAJOR.
* Peculiarly interesting as this most extraordinary book has ever been found
to young persons, it has also been pronounced to deserve a place in the library
of every scholar and man of taste; the reader will, therefore, be happy to learn
that the TEXT, which had been much corrupted by arbitrary alterations, or
culpable negligence, is restored in this edition by a careful collation with the
early copies of both parts of the work.

INTRODUCTORY VERSES,
OR
A POET'S MEMORIAL OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
I.
CLASSIC of Boyhood's bright and balmy hour,
Be thine the tribute I have ow'd thee long ;-
Though round life's later years some clouds may lower,
And thoughts of worldly cares at seasons throng,
I would not so its happier morning wrong,
Or those who woke its earlier tear, or smile,
As find no meed for Manhood's grateful song
In legends wont my Childhood to beguile
Of Crusoe's lonely life upon his desert Isle.
2.
I still remember the intense delight,
The thrilling interest, wonder, strange and dread,
Which in those blissful moments brief and bright
On that familiar fiction fondly fed ;
When o'er the Volume with me borne to bed
I hung enraptur'd at morn's earliest beam,
Until the eventful chronicle I read
Appear'd no longer Fancy's vivid dream,
But wore the form of Truth, and Hist'ry's sober theme.
3.
"It is no unsubstantial good to dwell
In Childhood's heart, on Childhood's guileless tongue,
To be the chosen, favourite Oracle
Consulted by the innocent and young ;
To be remember'd as the light that flung
Its first fresh lustre on the unwrinkl'd brow;
And some who now may cleave as I have clung
To pleasure known, unheeding why, or how,
Hereafter to thy worth may loftier praise allow.
viii
INTRODUCTORY VERSES.
4.
Due to an Author honour'd for the sake
Of past enjoyment ;-ay, and still possessing,
When thoughts of happy infancy awake,
A charm beyond the power of words expressing.
Yes, I am not asham'd of thus confessing
The debt my early Childhood seems to owe,
And might I claim the power to invoke a blessing
On them who first excited rapture's glow,
'Twould fall on Barbauld, Berquin, Bunyan, Day, Defoe!
5.
"Their works were dear to me before I knew,
Or cared to know if they were own'd by Fame;
And after all that Life has led me through
Of pain or pleasure they are still the same :
Whene'er I meet them they appear to claim
Familiar greeting, not to be denied,
Nor should it, for so complex is the frame
On which our minds' whole store is edified,
"Twere hard for me to tell what they have not supplied. '
6.
And of the Tomes which thus, in early youth,
Were most especial favourites of mine,
Perus'd with willing credence of their truth,
None might surpass, and few might equal thine,
DANIEL DEFOE !-In Memory's cherished Shrine
The Adventures it relates are graven still
Nor 'til remembrance shall her power resign,
Or worldly cares each glow of fancy chill,
Can scenes recorded there my bosom fail to thrill.
7.
They rise before me now! with fancy's eye
I mark the wilful Truant's vagrant flight;
The storm comes on, the sea runs mountains high,
And penitence succeeds to brief delight,
Itself, alas! as brief. The skies are bright
Again, and he a Wanderer as before;
'Til chastisement recalls a sense of right,
Compelling him his folly to deplore,
An exile far from home, a Captive to the Moor.
8.
Once more at Liberty: and Fortune smiles,
As oft she will the brighter for her frown,
Upon the Planter in Brazilian Isles:
He has a Home which he might call his own,
But restless still, and soon as weary grown
Of sober life, and patient industry,
Again the venturous Mariner is gone,
Like one who had not known Captivity,
Poor Blacks to till his ground on Guinea's Coast to buy.
INTRODUCTORY VERSES.
ix
9.
Again the tempest rises in its ire;
Ill may his Bark such hurricane withstand;
Two hands are drown'd, and in the panic dire
A third proclaims the joyful news of Land!
Delusive hope ;-the ship strikes on the sand;
They man the boat, and strive to reach the shore ;-
One, only one, hath gain'd that lonely strand,
To dwell in solitude unknown before,
Than Anchorite's more strict, or Hermit's stern and hoar.
IO.
A less inventive Genius than thine own
Had left our shipwreck'd Hero to his lot,
But thou, DEFOE, o'er that lone isle hast thrown
A spell so potent, who hath felt it not?-
Unto my boyhood 'twas a fairy spot;
Yet to my fancy so familiar made
I seem'd as well to know Creek, Cave, and Grot,
Its open beach, its tangled green-wood shade,
As if I there had dwelt, and Crusoe's part had played.
II.
Fain would I dwell, did not my limits check
The fond desire, and chide the loved delay,
Upon thy daily visits to the Wreck,
And all the varied stores thou brought'st away,
Needful resource of many an after day:
Fain would I paint the Home thy hands uprear'd;
Thy household goods and chattels too portray,
Whose rude contrivance many a sad hour cheer'd,
Which if to idlesse given more wretched had appear'd.
12.
Nor is thy story useless, if it serve
To point this moral to the Stripling's heart,
That nothing like Necessity can nerve
The Man to play a truly manly part :
The mother of invention, nurse of art,
What is there, needful, which we do not owe
To her compulsion? Steersman's guiding Chart,
His trembling needle, pointing where to go,
The Anchor which he casts, the Lead he drops below :-
13.
The Beacon's warning light, whose star-like beam
Flings out its friendly lustre o'er the wave;
The Philanthropic Chemist's lamp, whose gleam
In safety lights the Miner in his cave,
Which noxious damps might render else his grave;
All Medicine's triumphs, and Mechanics' power,
Philosophy's research, when Franklin gave
The electric rod to guard the loftiest tower,
These are thy trophies all, and glorious is thy dower.
X
INTRODUCTORY VERSES.
!
1
14.
But, not to moralise too long, I turn,
Crusoe, to thy delightful page once more;
And from thy homely Journal gladly learn
A less ambitious, more attractive lore.
With Thee I now thy loneliness deplore,
And share thy griefs, a mournful Castaway,
Anon, with humble hopes, from Scripture's store
Cull'd in adversity's instructive day,
With thee in thy lone isle I meditate and pray.
15.
I may not pause o'er each attractive scene,
Or object in thy varied record traced,
Which, like a brighter spot of livelier green,
Shines an Oasis in the desert waste
Of thy existence; yet some such are graced
With so much simple beauty they must dwell
In vivid hues and forms yet uneffaced
On Memory's tablet while her magic spell
Can render records there by Time indelible.
16.
Witness thy clusters of ripe Grapes, up-hung,
With prudent forethought in the Sun to dry;
For them my mouth has water'd oft, when young,
As fruit with which no grocer's stores could vie.
The grains of Barley, thrown unthinking by,
Awakening in thy heart such glad surprise
When bearing ears of Corn! a mystery
That well might fill with thankful tears thine eyes,
Tears with which Childhood's heart could freely sympathise.
17.
Next came thy live-stock ;-what a group was thine!
Thy Cats, I scarcely thought them like our own:
Thy Goats,-how often have I wish'd them mine:-
But most of all was Childhood's fancy prone
To envy thee thy Parrot! how its tone,
When thou hadst taught it speech, must strike thine ear,
In that unspeaking Solitude alone!
Tho' but an echo of thy voice, 'twas dear,
Recalling thoughts of sounds thou never more might'st hear.
18.
And then thy cumbrous, over-sized Canoe!
Would all Projectors learn that tale by rote,
Many, I ween, would make far less ado
With schemes which, like thine own, can never float;
Let those who now thy want of foresight quote
Learn to correct their error, too, like thee;
For thou didst build thyself a smaller boat,
Nor could thy hopes surpass my boyish glee
What time that bark was launch'd, thyself once more at sea!
INTRODUCTORY VERSES.
xi
19.
But what were these, or all the produce rich
Of thy Tobacco, Lemons, Grapes, and Canes,
Compared with him whose Name hath found a Niche
In Childhood's heart? whose Memory still retains
Its greenness there, 'mid losses, cares, or gains
Of later life: I scarce need write his Name,
Partner of all thy pleasures, and thy pains;
His was a Servant's, Friend's, and Brother's claim;
And peerless in all three shines faithful Friday's fame.
20.
How much in him to love, and to admire,
Erst charm'd my boyhood, cheers my manhood still;
His touching meeting with his aged Sire,
Whom cruel cannibals brought there to kill,
Both then and now my eyes with tears could fill ;
His simple awe, and wonder ever new ;
His broken English :—when did Author's skill
Hold up a lovelier Portraiture to view?
Or King a subject boast more loyal, warm, and true?
21.
Nor less of sympathy and interest deep
Thy fears and perils waken'd in my breast;
When watchful vigils thou wert wont to keep,
And barbarous Indians threaten'd to molest,
Or when dire sickness robb'd thy couch of rest :-
But most of all I held my breath with awe
At that strange footmark on the shore, imprest,
More fearful than if traced by Lion's paw;
Thy panic at that sight let Cruikshank's pencil draw!
22.
What need to dwell on all of dark or bright
With which thy varied pages richly teem;
Now faint and dim, like visions of the night,
To Memory's glance; now fair as morning's dream ;
Or glowing like the west in sunset's gleam,
When gorgeous clouds are edged with burnish'd gold;
Enough is said to prove how much my theme
Possesses of attractions manifold
The love it early won in after life to hold.
23.
What marvel, then, that I should greet once more
My former favourite as a welcome guest?
Nor less so when I find his antique Lore
With novel decorations richly drest,
Where ART has done her worthiest, and her best,
Guided by TASTE and GENIUS, to portray
The Author's beauties; giving added zest
To scenes and objects whose delightful sway
Thus triumphs over Time, and needs not dread decay.
xii
INTRODUCTORY VERSES.
24.
But I must bid my pleasant theme adieu!
Though lingering thought upon it fain would dwell;
Grateful I feel for what can thus renew
A sense of Youth's once bright and joyous spell;
And call back from the dim and shadowy cell
Of Memory, visions of departed days;
Yet, ere I take a long, a last farewell,
Forgive me, READER! if my Muse essays
To take her leave of thee in fitting Minstrel phrase.
25.
Art thou a Stripling,—in the bloom of youth
Feasting on Fiction in a garb so fair?
Yet may these pages teach thee useful Truth
If they inculcate Wisdom, Forethought, Care,
And show thee how to suffer, and to bear
With patient hope and fortitude the ill,
Which all who live, or more, or less must share
So shalt thou best the Author's aim fulfil,
Avoid his Hero's harm, partake his pleasures still.
26.
;
Art thou a Worldling,-in Life's thoughtful Noon
Toiling in Traffic's ceaseless strife and din?
Or seeking, as thy Being's proudest boon,
Ambition's heights, or Fashion's fame to win?
Turn from each glittering bait, and specious gin!
Let a mere Schoolboy's tale this lesson teach
All that ennobles Man is found within !
And no bad moral doth our Hero preach,
Making the best he can of good within his reach.
27.
Art thou a Veteran,-in the vale of years,
Yet looking back, at times, with wistful gaze,
Upon the pains and pleasures, hopes and fears,
Shadow and sunshine of thy by-gone days?
Here, if no guilt upon thy conscience weighs,
And generous feelings in thy heart still glow,
Some of the brightness which so fondly plays
Around the past, the present shall bestow,
And Thou in hoary age a Child's enjoyment know.
28.
But now Farewell to Crusoe, and his Isle !
Farewell to his Man Friday! best of Men!
His toils, his cares, his sorrows to beguile !—
"We ne'er shall look upon their like again !”
Unless another, with as deep a ken
As thine, DEFOE! into these hearts of ours,
Should come once more on earth, and wield his pen
To call up mental sunshine, mixt with showers,
For Childhood, Youth, and Age by its creative powers!
BERNARD BARTON.

+
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
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 called Robinson
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 which was lieutenant-colonel
to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded
by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle
A
2
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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-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 propension of nature, tending directly to the life of
misery which was to befall me.
:
My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and ex-
cellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design. He
called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined
by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this
subject he asked me what reasons more than a mere wander-
ing 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 men of desperate for-
tunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other,
and who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and
make themselves 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 mise-
ries 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 happiness 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 ROBINSON CRUSOE.
3
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 bade me observe it, and I should always find, that the
calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part
of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest dis-
asters, 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 uneasiness, either of body or mind, as
those were, who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances,
on one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and
mean or 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 temper-
ance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diver-
sions, 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 a life of slavery for daily bread, or harassed with per-
plexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace, and the body
of rest; nor enraged with the passion of envy, or the secret
burning lust of ambition for great things; but, in easy circum-
stances, 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 experience to know it more
sensibly.
After this, he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate
manner, 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 provided 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
4
LIFE AND CADVENTURES
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 encourage-
ment 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
persuasions 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
prophetic-though I suppose my father did not know it to be
so himself—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 importunities, in a few weeks after I
resolved to run quite away from him. However, I did not act so
hastily neither as the first heat of my 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
5
father had better give me his consent than force me to go with-
out 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, but I should
certainly run away from my master before my time was out,
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 dili-
gence, to recover the time that 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 subject; that he knew too well what was my interest to give
his consent to anything so much for my hurt; and that she
wondered how I could think of any such thing after the dis-
course I had 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, 1
heard afterwards, that 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 de-
termined against what they knew my inclinations prompted me
to.
But being one day at Hull, whether 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 allurement of a seafaring man:
6
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 first of September 1651, I went on board a ship bound for
London. Never any young adventurer'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 sea to rise, in a most frightful manner; and, 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, and abandon-
ing my duty. All the good counsel 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 went very
high, though nothing like what I have seen many times since;
no, nor 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 anything of the matter. I expected every wave would
have swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down,
as I thought it did, in the trough or hollow of the sea, we
should never rise more: 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 upon dry land
again, 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 comfortably he had lived
all his days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea, or
troubles on shore; and, in short, I resolved that I would, like a
true repenting prodigal, go home to my father.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
7
These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the
storm continued, 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: however, 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 even-
ing 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 a 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, clapping
me upon the shoulder, "how do you do after it? I warrant
you were frighted, wer'n't you, last night, when it blew but a
capfull of wind?"-"A capfull d'you call it?" said I; "'twas
a terrible storm.”—“ A storm, you fool you," 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're 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 half drunk with it; and in that one night's
wickedness I drowned all my repentance, all my reflections upon
my past conduct, all my resolutions for the future. In a word,
as the sea was returned to its smoothness of surface and settled
calmness by the abatement of that storm, so the hurry of my
thoughts being over, my fears and apprehensions of being swal-
lowed up by the sea being 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
8
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 my 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 an one, as the worst and most hardened wretch
among us would confess both the danger and the mercy.
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 con-
tinuing 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 it up the river, but that the wind blew too fresh;
and, after we had lain four or five days, blew very hard. How-
ever, the roads being reckoned as good as an harbour, the
anchorage good, and our ground tackle very strong, our men
were unconcerned, and not in the least 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 top-masts, 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 even of the
seamen themselves. The master, though vigilant in the busi-
ness of preserving the ship, yet as he went in and out of his
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
9
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 peni-
tence which I had so apparently trampled upon, and hardened
myself against: I thought the bitterness of death had been past;
and that this would be nothing to 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 foun-
dered. Two more ships, being driven from their anchors, were
run out of the roads to sea, at all adventures, and that not with
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 spritsail out before
the wind.
Towards evening the mate and boatswain begged the master
of our ship to let them cut away the fore-mast, 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 fore-mast, the main-mast stood so loose,
and shook the ship so much, they were obliged to cut her away
also, and make a clear deck.
Any one must 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 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 resolutions 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
ΙΟ
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 seen 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 the
sea, and would come near us, ordered to fire a gun as a signal
of distress. I, who knew nothing what they meant, was so
surprised, that I thought the ship had broke, or some dreadful
thing happened. In a word, I was so surprised, that I fell
down in a swoon. As this was a time when everybody had
his own life to think of, nobody minded me, or what was
become of me; but another man stept 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 any 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 with the utmost
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
II
hazard the boat came near us, but it was impossible for 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
much labour and hazard, took hold of, and we hauled them
It was to no
close under our stern, and got all into their boat.
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 north-
ward, 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 when 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 but slow way towards the
shore; nor were we able to reach the shore, till, being past the
lighthouse 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 particular merchants and owners
12
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 assur-
ances that I was not drowned.
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that no-
thing could 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 rush 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, 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 seafaring man.' “Why,
sir," said I, "will you go to sea no more?" "That
"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. Per-
haps this has all befallen us on your account, like Jonah in
OF KOBINSON CRUSOE.
13
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 thou-
sand 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 after-
wards talked very gravely to me, exhorting 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."
We parted soon after; for I made him little answer, and I
saw him 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
everybody 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; not ashamed of the action for which they
ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the re-
turning, 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
a while, the remembrance of the distress I had been in wore off;
14
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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.
That evil influence which carried me first away from my
father's house, which hurried me into the wild and indigested
notion of raising my fortune; and that impressed those conceits
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 unfor-
tunate of all enterprises to my view, and I went on board 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
learnt the duty and office of a fore-mast man; 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 gentle-
man; and so I neither had any business in the ship, nor learnt
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 un-
guided 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, having
had very good success there, was resolved to go again: this
captain taking a fancy to my conversation, which was not at all
disagreeable at that time, 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 anything 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
15
with this captain, who was an honest, 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 £40 in such
toys and trifles as the captain directed me to buy. This £40 I
had mustered together by the assistance of some of my relations
whom I 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
introduce 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 £300, 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; particu-
larly, that I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent
calenture by the excessive heat of the climate; our principal
trading being upon the coast, from the latitude of 15 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 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 £100 of my
new-gained wealth, so that I had £200 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 towards the Canary Islands, or
16
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
rather between those islands and the African shore, was sur-
prised in the grey of the morning by a Turkish rover of Sallee,
who gave chase to us with all the sail she could make. We
crowded also as much canvas 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 rogue
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 pouring
in also his small-shot from near 200 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 sails and rigging. We plied them with
small-shot, half-pikes, powder-chests, and such like, and cleared
our deck of them twice. However, to cut short this melan-
choly part of our story, our ship being disabled, 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 appre-
hended; 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 business. 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 not be worse; that now
the hand of Heaven had overtaken me, and I was undone without
redemption but alas! this was but a taste of the misery I was
to go through, as will appear in the sequel of this story.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
17
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 sometime or other be his
fate to be taken by a Spanish or Portugal 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 pro-
bability 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
Scotsman 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, some-
times 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 Maresco with him to row the boat, we made him
very merry, and I proved very dexterous in catching fish; inso-
much that sometimes he would send me with a Moor, one of
his kinsmen, and the youth the Maresco, as they called him, to
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
R
18
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
wind began to blow pretty fresh in the morning; but particu-
larly we were all very hungry.
But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take more
care of himself for the future; and having lying by him the long-
boat 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
long-boat, 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 what
we call a shoulder of mutton sail; and the boom gibed 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; and particularly his bread, rice,
and coffee.
We went 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 extra-
ordinarily, and had therefore sent on board the boat over-night
a larger store of provisions than ordinary; and had ordered me
to get ready three fuzees 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 soon as I 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
19
my thoughts, for now I found I was like to have a little ship at
my command; 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 anywhere, to get out of that place, was my way.
(6
My first contrivance was to make a pretence to speak to this
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 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 beeswax 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 of which were of great use to us after-
wards, 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 Moely; so I called to him,
Moely," 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'll 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 everything 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 the N.N.E., which was
contrary to my desire; for had it blown southerly, I had been
20
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
way
sure to have made the coast of Spain, and at least reached to
the bay of Cadiz; but my resolutions were, blow which 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; when 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

Jaagoi S..
him by surprise with my arms under his twist, and tossed him
clear overboard into the sea. He rose immediately, for he swam
like a cork, and called to me, begged to be taken in, told me he
would go all over the world with me. He swam so strong after
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
21
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
to 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'll 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'll 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 Straits' mouth (as
indeed any one that had been in their wits must have been sup-
posed to do); for who would have supposed we were sailed on
to the southward to the truly Barbarian coast, where whole
nations of Negroes were sure to surround us with their canoes,
and destroy us; where we could never once go on shore but we
should be devoured by savage beasts, or more 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 towards 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 150 miles south of Sallee; quite beyond the Emperor of
•
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
22
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 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, or 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 tc
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 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 sea-shore and run into the water,
wallowing and washing themselves for the pleasure of cooling
themselves; and they made such hideous howlings and yellings,
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 these 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
23
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 the buoy to it, and go off 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 some-
thing 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.
:
But it is impossible to describe the horrid 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 have some reason to believe those creatures had
never heard before this convinced me that 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 hands 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 some-
where 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 made me love him
ever after. Says he, "If wild mans come, they eat me, you
go wey. -"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 so waded on 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 com-
ing 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
!
24
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
pursued by some savage, or frighted with some wild beast, and
I ran forward towards him 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 flowed 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.
As I had been one voyage to this coast before, I knew very
well that the islands of the Canaries, and the Cape de Verd
islands also, lay not far off from the coast. But as I had no
instruments to take an observation to know what latitude we
were in, and not exactly knowing, or at least remembering, what
latitude they were in, and 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, that place where I now was,
must be that country, which, lying between the Emperor of
Morocco's dominions and the Negroes, lies waste, and uninha-
bited, 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 an 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
25
•
Once or twice in the day-time 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 a
little over him. "Xury," says I, "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 lie 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 the 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 in 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 in 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 him go on
26
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 in the head again, which dis-
patched him quite.
This was game indeed to us, but this 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 perhaps 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 spread-
ing 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 sparing 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, anywhere
about the Cape de Verd, 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 there 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
27
to me,
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
"No go, no go." However, I hauled in nearer the
shore that I might talk to them, and I found they ran along 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 with 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 in-
stant 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 not 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 Ne-
groes, but plunged themselves into the sea, and swam about, as
28
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
if they had come for their diversion: at last, one of them began
to come nearer our boat than at first I expected; but I lay
ready for him, for I had loaded my gun with all possible ex-
pedition, and bade Xury load both the others. As soon as he
came fairly within my reach, I fired, and shot him directly
in the head: immediately he sunk down into the water, but
rose instantly, and plunged up and down, as if he was strug-
gling 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 the noise and fire of my gun; some of them were
even ready 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 dis-
tance, 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. Imme-
diately they fell to work with him; and though they had not
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 de-
clined, 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 under-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
29
stand, yet I accepted. I then made signs to them for some
water, and held out one of my jars to them, turning it bottom
upward, 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 suppose, in the sun; this they set down to
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 Verd, and those
the islands, called from thence, Cape de Verd Islands. How-
ever, 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 or 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
30
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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

JJACKSON, F.
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 asked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish,
and in French, but I understood none of them; but, at last, a
Scots sailor, who was on board, called to me, and I answered
him, and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my
escape out of slavery from the Moors, at Sallee: they then 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 miser-
able, and almost hopeless, condition as I was in; and I immedi-
ately offered all I had to the captain of the ship, as a return for
my deliverance; but he generously told me, he would take
nothing from me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to
"I have
me, when I came to the Brazils. For," says he,
saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be
66
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
31
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," says he; "Seignior Inglese " (Mr. Englishman), "I will
carry you thither in charity, and those things will help to buy
your subsistence there, and your passage home again."
As he was charitable in this proposal, so he was just in the
performance to a tittle; for he ordered the seamen, that none
should offer to touch anything I had: then he took everything
into his own possession, 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
ine what I would have for it? I told him, he had been so
generous to me in everything, 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 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 procuring 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 the captain have him.
We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and arrived in the
Bay de Todos los Santos, or, All Saint's 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 pas-
32
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
sage, gave me twenty ducats for the leopard's skin, and forty
for the lion's skin, which I had in my 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 of me; such as the case
of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of beeswax,
-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.
I had not been long here, before I was recommended 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 making of sugar; and seeing
how well the planters lived, and how they got rich suddenly, I
resolved, if I could get a license 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, re-
mitted to me. To this purpose, getting a kind of a letter of
naturalisation, I purchased as much land that was uncured as
my money would reach, and formed a plan for my plantation
and settlement; 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 Eng-
lish parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such circum-
stances as I was. I call him my neighbour, because his planta-
tion 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 anything 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 wonder. I had no remedy but to go on : I had got into an
employment quite remote to my genius, and directly contrary
to the life I delighted in, and for which I forsook my father's
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
33
house, and broke through all his good advice: nay, I was com-
ing 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 stayed 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 dis-
tance 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 exceed-
ing 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 lading, 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
C
34
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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; 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 but be 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 cap-
tain, as he desired.
I wrote the English captain's widow a full account of all my
adventures; my slavery, escape, and how I had met with the
Portugal captain at sea, the humanity of his behaviour, and
what condition I was now in, with all other necessary direc-
tions for my supply; and when this honest captain came to Lis-
bon, 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 Portugal captain a very handsome present
for his humanity and charity to me.
The merchant in London, vesting 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
to 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 fortunes made, for I
was surprised with the 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 manu-
factures, such as cloths, stuffs, baize, and things particularly
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
35
valuable and desirable in the country, I found means to sell
them to a very great advantage; so that I might say, I had more
than four times the value of my first cargo, and was now in-
finitely beyond my poor neighbour, I mean in the advancement
of my plantation: for the first thing I did, I bought me a negro-
slave, and an 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 success in my plantation; I raised fifty
great rolls of tobacco on my own ground, more than I had dis-
posed of for necessaries among my neighbours; and these fifty
rolls, being each of above a hundredweight, were well cured,
and laid by against the return of the fleet from Lisbon: and now
increasing in business and in wealth, my head began 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 of 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, particularly, 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 my 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 of rising
faster than the nature of the thing admitted; and thus I cast
myself down again into the deepest gulf of human misery that
36
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent with life, and
a state of health in the world.
To come, then, by the 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 plantation, I had not only learned
the language, but had contracted acquaintance and friendship
among my fellow-planters, as well as among the merchants at
St. Salvador, which was our port; and that, in my discourses
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, scissors, hatchets,
bits of glass, and the like-not only gold dust, Guinea grains,
elephants' teeth, &c., but negroes, for the service of the Brazils,
in great numbers.
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on
these heads, but especially to that part which related to the buy-
ing 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 stock; so that few negroes were brought,
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 dis-
coursed with them of, the last night, and they came to make a
secret proposal to me: and, after enjoining me secrecy, they
told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea;
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 plantations: and, in a word, the question was,
whether I would go their supercargo in the ship, to manage the
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
37
trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they offered me
that I should have my equal share of the negroes without pro-
viding 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 circum-
stances, could be guilty of.
But 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 under-
take 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 effects, in 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 pru-
dence 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 under-
taking, 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
misfortunes to myself.
38
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, the 1st of September 1659, being the same day
eight year 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 ton 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 northward 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
N. and leaving those isles on the east. In this course we passed
the line in about twelve days' time, and were, by our last obser-
vation, in 7 degrees 22 minutes northern latitude, when a
violent tornado, or hurricane, took us quite out of our know-
ledge; it began from the south-east, came about to the north-
west, and then settled in the north-east; from whence it blew
in such a terrible manner, that for twelve days 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 the boy
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
39
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 11 degrees north latitude, but
that he was 22 degrees of longitude difference west from Cape
St. Augustino; so that he found he was gotten upon the coast
of Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river Ama-
zons, 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 in-draft of the bay or gulf of Mexico, we might easily per-
form, as we hoped, in about fifteen days' sail; whereas we could
not possibly make our voyage to the coast of Africa without
some assistance, 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 deter-
mined; for being in the latitude of 12 degrees 18 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
into our close quarters, to shelter us from the very foam and
spray of the sea.
40
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
It is not easy for any one, who has not been in the like con-
dition, 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 upon one
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 com-
mitted 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 be
well 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
41
}
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; 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 de-
struction 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 bade us expect the coup de
grace. In a word, it took us with such a 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, "O God!'
for we were all swallowed up in a moment.
Nothing 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 ex-
pected, 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
42
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, that 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 feet 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 breath, and assisted myself to
swim still forward with 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 waters 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 pouring 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 nigh 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 the water, I resolved to
hold fast by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath, if
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
43
possible, till the wave went back. Now as the waves were not
so high as at first, being nearer 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.

VILLIAMS
GCK
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 very grave: and I do not wonder now at the 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
44
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
surgeon with it, to 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, wrapt up in the contemplation of
my deliverance; making a thousand gestures and motions, which
I cannot describe; reflecting upon all my comrades that were
drowned, and that there should not be one soul saved but my-
self; 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 considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore?
After I had solaced my mind with the comfortable part of
my condition, I began to look round me, to see what kind of
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 de-
liverance: for I was wet, had no clothes to shift me, nor any-
thing either to eat or drink, to comfort me; neither did I see
any prospect before me, but that of perishing with hunger, o
being devoured by wild beasts: and that which was particularly
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 ran
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
45
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 drank, 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 trun-
cheon, for my defence, I took up my lodging; and having been
excessively fatigued, I fell fast asleep, and slept 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.
When 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 at
first mentioned, where I had been so bruised by the wave dash-
ing 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 neces-
sary 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 we had kept on board, we had been all
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
46
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
and company, as I now was.
again; but as there was little relief in that, I resolved, if pos-
sible, 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 a
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 up 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, that 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
Now I wanted nothing but a boat, to furnish myself with
many things which I foresaw would be very necessary to me.
This forced tears from my eyes
me.
It was in vain to sit still and wish for what was not to be had;
and this extremity roused my application: we had several spare
yards, and two or three large spars of wood, and a spare top-
mast or two in the ship; I resolved to fall to work with these,
and I flung as many of them overboard as I could manage for
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
47
any great weight, the pieces being too light : so I went to work,
and with the carpenter's saw I cut a spare top-mast into three
lengths, and added them to my raft, with a great deal of labour
and pains. But the hope of furnishing myself with 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 con-
sidering this. I first laid all the plank 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 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 chest, 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-knee'd, 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-lading 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.
48
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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

GC
THON WINAMS
get to shore with them, having neither sail, oar, or rudder; and
the least capful of wind would have overset all my navigation.
I had three encouragements: 1st, A smooth, calm sea: 2dly,
The tide rising, and setting in to the shore: 3dly, What little
wind there was blew me towards the land. And thus, having
found two or three broken oars belonging to the boat, and be-
sides 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
49
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, I stood in that man-
ner 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 on 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 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

D
50
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
highest, keeping the raft with my oar like an anchor, to hold
the side of it fast to the shore, near a flat piece 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 on 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 whatever might happen. Where I was, I yet knew
not: whether on the continent, or 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 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 had been fired
there since the creation of the world: I had no sooner fired, but
from all the parts of the wood, there arose an innumerable num-
ber 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 the creature I killed, I
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
51
took it to be a kind of a hawk, its colour and beak resembling
it, but it 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 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 barricaded 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 par-
ticularly 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 everything 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 ap-
peared 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, 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
52
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
of powder more; a large bagful 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-top sail, a 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, 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 be acquainted
with me. I presented my gun to her, but, as she did not under-
stand 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, and she went to it, smelled
of it, and ate 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 everything 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.
{
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
53
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 everything 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 canvas, which was to mend
the sails upon occasion, and the barrel of wet gunpowder.
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
canvas only.
In
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, be-
cause 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 plun-
dered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began
with the cables, and cutting the great cable into pieces, such as
I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all
the ironwork I could get; and having cut down the spritsail-
yard, and the mizen-yard, and everything 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
54
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 pre-
paring 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: “O drug!
said I aloud, "what art thou good for? Thou art not worth to
me, no, not the taking off of 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
canvas, I began to think of making another raft; but while I
was preparing this, I found the sky overcast, and the wind be-
gan 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 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
55
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, with
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 any-
thing 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 my-
self 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 the earth, or a tent upon
the earth: and in short, I resolved upon both; the manner and de-
scription 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 par-
ticularly because there was no fresh water near it so I resolved
to find a more healthy and more convenient spot of ground.
I consulted several things in my situation, which I found
would be proper for me: 1st, Health and fresh water, I just
now mentioned: 2dly, Shelter from the heat of the sun: 3dly,
Security from ravenous creatures, whether men or beasts: 4thly,
A view to the sea, that if God sent any ship in sight, I might
not lose any advantage for my deliverance, of 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-side, so that nothing could come down upon
me from the top. On the side of this rock there was a hollow
56
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 re-
solved 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 ground by the seaside. It was on the N.N.W.
side of the hill; so that it was sheltered from the heat every day,
till it came to a W. and by S. sun, 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 afterwards, 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
57
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 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 everything
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
an half; and thus I made me 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 lightning,
as I was with a thought, which darted into my mind as swift as
the lightning itself: O 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;
58
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 240 lb. weight,
was divided in not less than a 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 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 once
at least every day with my gun, as well to divert myself, as to
see if I could kill anything 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 discovered that there were goats in
the island, which was a great satisfaction 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 difficultest
thing in the world to come at them: but I was not discouraged
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 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
59
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 ate spar-
ingly, and saved my provisions, my bread especially, as much as
possibly I could.
Having now fixed my habitation, I found it absolutely neces-
sary 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 con-
veniences I made, I shall give a full account of 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

센서
​'THOS-WILLIAMS
violent storm, quite out of the course of our intended voyage,
and a great way, viz., some hundreds of leagues, out of the ordi-
nary course of the trade of mankind, I had great reason to con-
sider 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 reflec-
tions; and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why
Providence should thus completely ruin its creatures, and render
them so absolutely miserable; so without help abandoned, so
entirely depressed, that it could hardly be rational to be thank-
ful for such a life.
бо
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
But something always returned swift upon me to check these
thoughts, and to reprove me: and particularly, one day, walk-
ing with my gun in my hand, by the seaside, I was very pen-
sive 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; 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 it 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 attends them.
66
Then it occurred to me again, how well I was furnished for
my subsistence, 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 anything, or to work with, without
clothes, bedding, a tent, or any manner of covering?" 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 and 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 ROBINSON CRUSOE.
61
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. It 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 observation,
to be in the latitude of 9 degrees 22 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

f Cave on 1),ore Aur
30Supr 1659 Tr
JACI RON Ko
it into a great cross, I set it up on the shore where I first landed,
viz., "I came on shore here on 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 place 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 all less useful to me, which I omitted
62
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
setting down before; as, in particular, pens, ink, and paper;
several parcels in the captain's, mate's, gunner's, and carpenter's
keeping; three or four compasses, some mathematical instru-
ments, dials, perspectives, charts, and books of navigation; all
which I huddled together, whether I might want them or no:
also 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 Portuguese 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 of
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
pens, 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, not-
withstanding all that I had amassed together; and of these,
this of ink was one; as also a spade, pick-axe, and shovel, to
dig or remove the earth; needles, pins, and thread: as for linen,
I soon 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 my 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 bring-
ing 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
63
posts or piles very laborious and tedious work. But what need
I have been concerned at the tediousness of anything I had to
do, seeing I had time enough to do it in? nor 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 cir-
cumstance 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 poring upon them, and afflicting
my mind and as my reason began now to master my despond-
ency, I began to comfort myself as well as I could, and to set
the good against the evil, that I might have something to dis-
tinguish 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.
I am cast upon a horrible, desolate
island, void of all hope of recovery.
I am singled out and separated, as
it were, from all the world, to be
miserable.
I am divided from mankind, a
solitaire; one banished from human
society.
I have not clothes to cover me.
I am without any defence, or
means to resist any violence of man
or beast.
I have no soul to speak to, or re-
lieve me.
GOOD.
But I am alive; and not drowned,
as all my ship's company were.
But I am singled out too from all
the ship's crew, to be spared from
death; and he that miraculously
saved me from death, can deliver me
from this condition.
But I am not starved, and perish-
ing on a barren place, affording no
sustenance.
But I am in a hot climate, where, if I
had clothes, I could harldy wear them.
But I am cast on an island where
I see no wild beasts to hurt me, as I
saw on the coast of Africa: and what
if I had been shipwrecked there?
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.
64
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, on the
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; 1
say, giving over these things, I began to apply myself to accom-
modate 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 against it of turfs, about two feet thick on the outside:
and after some time (I think it was a year and a half) I raised
rafters from it, leaning to the rock, and thatched or covered it
with boughs of trees, and such things 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 work 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 was 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, as particularly a chair and a
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
65
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 everything
by reason, and by making the most rational judgment 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 no-
thing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools. How-
ever, 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 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 prodi-
gious deal of time and labour which it took me up to make a
plank or board: 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. But 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 ironwork on; and, in
a word, to separate everything at large in their places, that I
might come easily 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
magazine 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 neces-
saries so great.
And now it was when I began to keep a journal of every
R
66
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
day's employment; for, indeed, at first, I was in too much
hurry, and not only hurry as to labour, but in too much discom-
posure of mind; and my journal would have been full of many
dull things: for example, I must have said thus, "Sept. the
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, wringing my hands, and beating my head and face; ex-
claiming 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 get-
ting 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.
But, 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.
THE JOURNAL.
September 30th, 1659. I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe,
being shipwrecked, 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 that day I spent in afflicting myself at the dis-
mal circumstances 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
67
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 1. 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; 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.
68
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
Towards night I fixed upon a proper place, under a rock, and
marked out a semicircle for my encampment; which I resolved
to strengthen with a work, wall, or fortification, made of double
piles, lined within with cables, 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 after-
wards killed also, because it would not feed.
November 1. 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 morning 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 of 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 they would do any one else.
Nov. 5. This day went abroad with my gun and my dog,
and killed a wild cat; her skin pretty soft, but her flesh good for
nothing every creature that I killed I took off the skins, and
preserved them. Coming back by the sea-shore, I saw many
sorts of sea-fowls which I did not understand; but was sur-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
69
prised, 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 11th was Sunday),
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 in 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 exceed-
ingly, and cooled the earth: but it was accompanied with ter-
rible thunder and lightning, which frighted me dreadfully, for
fear of my powder. As soon as it was over, I resolved to sepa-
rate 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
pound 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 knew 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 pick-axe, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow, or basket; so I de-
sisted from my work, and began to consider how to supply that
want, and make me some tools. As for a pick-axe, 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 like it, which, in the Brazils, they call the
70
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
iron tree, for its 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 my 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 a 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 the iron gudgeons for the spindle or axis 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 brick-
layers. 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 bringing
home something fit to eat.
Nov. 23. My other work having now stood still, because of
iny 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 my
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
71
dry, which caused me afterwards 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 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 carry out; and, which was of more
importance, I had the ceiling to prop up, so that I might be sure
no more would come down.
Dec. 11. This day I went to work with it accordingly, and
got two shores or posts pitched upright to the top, with two
pieces of boards 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. From this day to the 20th, I placed shelves, and
knocked up nails on the posts, to hang everything up that could
be hung up; and now I began to be in some order within doors.
Dec. 20. Now I carried everything 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. Rain 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 as 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 my 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
72
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
thought of breeding up some tame creatures, that I might have
food when my powder and shot was all spent.
Dec. 28, 29, 30, 31. 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 1. 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 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 from the 3d of January to the 14th of April,
working, finishing, and perfecting this wall; though it was no
more than about 24 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.
All 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 everything 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 per-
ceive anything like a habitation; and it was very well I did so,
as may be observed hereafter, upon a very remarkable occasion.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
73
During this time, I made my rounds in the woods for game
every day, when the rain permitted me, and made frequent dis-
coveries, in these walks, of something or other to my advan-
tage; particularly I found a kind of wild pigeons, who build,
not as wood-pigeons, in a tree, but rather as house-pigeons, in
the holes of the rocks; and, taking some young ones, I endea-
voured 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
frequently found their nests, and got their young ones, which
were very good meat. And now, in the managing my house-
hold 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 candles; 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 sup-
pose, 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 pow-
der 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 forti-
fication, under the rock.
74
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
It was a little before the great rains just now mentioned, that
I threw this stuff away, taking no notice of anything, and not
so much as remembering that I had thrown anything 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 anything
that had befallen me, otherwise than as chance, or, as we lightly
say, what pleases God; 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

OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
75
discovering that all this was nothing but what was common;
though I ought to have been as thankful for so strange and un-
foreseen providence, as if it had been miraculous; for it was
really the work of Providence as to me, that should order or ap-
point that ten or twelve grains of corn should remain unspoiled,
when the rats had destroyed all the rest, as if it had been dropt
from heaven; as also that I should throw it out in that parti-
cular place, where, it being in the shade of a high rock, it sprang
up immediately; whereas, if I had thrown it anywhere else, at
that time, it had 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 sea-
son, 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.
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 with-
out 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 in
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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
case was thus :-As I was busy in the inside of it, behind my tent,
just at 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 was
really 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 think-
ing myself safe there neither, I got over my wall for fear of
the pieces of the hill which I expected might roll down upon
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 build-
ing 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 violent motion by it; and I believe the shocks were
stronger under the water than on the island.
me.
I was so much amazed with the thing itself, having never felt
the like, nor discoursed with any one that had, that I was like
one dead or stupefied; and the motion of the earth made my
stomach sick, like one that was tossed at sea; but 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 but the hill falling upon my tent
and all my household goods, and burying all at once; and 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 began to take courage; and yet I had not heart enough
to go 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
77
While I sat thus, I found the air overcast, and grow 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.
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 rains being the consequences of the earth-
quake, the earthquake itself was spent and over, and I might
venture into my cave again. With this thought my spirits.
began to revive; and the rain also helping 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 for 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. 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 stayed 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 now stood, which was just under the hanging
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 appre-
hension of lying abroad, without any fence, was almost equal to
it; but still, when I looked about, and saw how everything 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 com-
posed myself for a time; and resolved that I would go to work
with all speed to build me a wall with piles and cables, &c., 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 into 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 cost 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.
Note. I had never seen any such thing in England, or at least
not to take notice how it 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
79
while, now I 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 toward the seaside, the tide
being low, I saw something lie on the shore bigger than ordi-
nary, 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 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 place 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 con-
cluded it must be done by the earthquake; and as by this
violence the ship was more broke 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 re-
moving 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, concluding 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 ate 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 ironwork; worked very hard, and came
home very much tired, and had thoughts of giving it over.
May 7. Went to the wreck again, but not with an intent 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 a
roll of English lead, and could stir it, but it was too heavy to remove.
May 10-14. Went every day to the wreck; and got a great
deal of pieces of timber, and boards, or plank, and two or three
hundredweight of iron.
May 15. I carried two hatchets, to try if I could not cut a
piece off of the roll of lead, by placing the edge of one hatchet,
and driving it with the other; but as it lay about a foot and a half
in the water, I could not make any blow to drive the hatchet.
May 16. It had blown hard in the night, and the wreck
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
81
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 pre-
vented my going to the wreck that day.
May 17. I saw some pieces of the wreck blown on shore, at a
great distance, near 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 much 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 ironwork, 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 hundredweight 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 misfortune, 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 three-
score 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 horrid 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. Very ill, and shivering, as if the weather had been
cold.
June 20. No rest all night; violent pains in my head, and
feverish.
F
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
June 21. Very ill; frighted almost to death with the appre-
hensions of my sad condition, to be sick, and no help: prayed
to God, for the first time since the storm off of Hull, but scarce
knew what I said, or why; my thoughts being all confused.
June 22. A little better; but under dreadful apprehensions of
sickness.
June 23. Very 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 awoke, I found
myself much refreshed, but weak, and exceeding thirsty: how-
ever, 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
inexpressibly 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 apprehension, as if it had been filled with
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
83
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.
No one that shall 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 im-
pression 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 none but such as were, like
myself, wicked and profane to the last degree. I do not remem-
ber that I had, in all that time, one thought that so much as
tended either to looking upwards towards God, or inwards to-
wards 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, un-
thinking, 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 be-
come of me, or one wish to God to direct me whither I should
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 a God or a Providence, acted like a mere
brute, from the principles of nature, and by the dictates of com-
mon sense only, and indeed hardly that. When I was delivered
and taken up at sea by the Portugal 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.
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 ecstacy, 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 distinguished 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 are got safe ashore from a ship-
wreck, 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 liv.
ing, and that I should not starve and perish for hunger, all the
sense of my affliction wore off, and I began to be very easy, ap-
plied myself to the works proper for my preservation and sup..
ply, 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
85
with seriousness, as long as I thought it had something miraculous.
in it; but as soon as ever that part of the thought was removed,
all the impression that 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 impression it had made went off also.
I had no more sense of God, or His judgments, 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, pro-
voked the justice of God 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 distemper; 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 into my head with the mere apprehension; and,
in these hurries of my soul, I knew 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 be-
ginning 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, or 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 in the world, and would have made
everything easy to me, and now I have difficulties to struggle
with, too great for even nature itself to support, and no assist-
ance, no help, 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.
June 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 con-
sidered 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, 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 under a 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 remember, 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;
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87
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 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
befall me. Nothing occurred to my thought, to contradict any of
these conclusions, and therefore it rested upon me with the greater
force, that it must needs be that God had appointed all this to
befall me; that I was brought into this miserable circumstance by
His direction, He having the sole power, not of me only, but of
everything that happened in the world. Immediately it fol-
lowed, Why has God done this to me? What 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, has not done? Ask, why is it that thou wert not long ago
destroyed? Why wert thou not drowned in Yarmouth Roads;
killed in the fight when the ship was taken by the Sallee 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
my lamp, for it began to be dark. Now, 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 men-
tioned 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. 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. In the interval of this operation, I took
up the Bible, and began to read, but my head was too much dis-
turbed 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,
and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." These
words were very apt to my case, and made some impression
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
89
!
After my broken
it was not for many years that any hopes appeared, this pre-
vailed very often upon my thoughts; but, however, the words
made 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 anything 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.
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 into 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
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 the other,
when I awaked I found myself 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.
་
so I ate some
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 sea-
fowl or two, something like a brand goose, and brought them.
home; but was not very forward to eat them;
more of the turtle's eggs, which were very good.
I renewed the medicine, which I had supposed did me good
the day before, viz., the tobacco steeped in rum; only I did not
take so much as before, nor did I chew any of the leaf, or hold
This evening
90
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 expect-
ing it but as I was discouraging myself 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 been delivered, and wonder-
fully 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
ine, but 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 greater deliverance? This touched my heart
very much; and immediately I knelt down, and gave God
thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.
July 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 awhile 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 impression
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 providentially, 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
91
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!" This was the first time 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, 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, and I will deliver thee," in a different sense from what
I had ever done before; for then I had no notion of anything

being called deliverance, but my being delivered from the cap-
tivity 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 with such horror,
and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul sought nothing
of God but 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 consideration, in comparison to this. And I add this
part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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
everything 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 learned 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 the dry season was almost
always accompanied with such storms, so I found that rain was
much more dangerous than the rain which fell in September and
October.
I had been now in this unhappy island above ten months: all
possibility of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely
taken from me; and I firmly believed that no human shape had
ever set foot upon that place. Having now secured my habi-
tation, 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 I yet knew nothing of.
It was on the 15th of July that. I began to take a more par
ticular survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first,
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93
where, as 1 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 sup-
posed, 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 might, perhaps, 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 understand them. I saw
several sugar canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, im-
perfect. 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 had
spread indeed over the trees, and the clusters of grapes were
just now in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a surpris-
ing 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 were, as wholesome as agree-
able to eat, when no grapes might be to be had.
I spent all that evening there, and went not back to my habita-
tion; 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 side 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 very 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 my-
self for the wet season, which I knew was approaching. In
order to this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, 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. Ac-
cordingly, having spent three days in this journey, I came home
OF ROBINSON CRUSÕE.
95
(so I must now call my tent and my cave): but before I got
thither, the grapes were spoiled; the richness of the fruit, 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.
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 abun-
dance eaten and devoured. By this I concluded there were
some wild creatures thereabouts which had done this; but what
they were I knew not. However, as I found 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 situation; 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 now I 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, I considered that I was now
by the seaside, where it was at least possible that something
might happen to my advantage, 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, but
impossible; and that therefore I ought not by any means to re-
move. 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, sometimes two or
three nights together; always going over it with a ladder, as be-
fore; so that I fancied now I had my country house and my sea-
coast house; and this work took me up to 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 extraordinary.
About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my
bower, and began to enjoy myself. The 3d 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
carried 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 I 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
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97
quite different kind from our European cats; yet the young cats
were the same kind of house-breed like the old one; and both
my cats being females, I thought it very strange. But from
these three cats, I afterwards 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 confinement, I began to be straitened for food; but
venturing out twice, I one day killed a goat, and the last day,
which was the 26th, 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 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 my-
self before, I was in a perfect enclosure; whereas now, I thought
I lay exposed, and open for anything to come in upon me; 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.
Sept. 30. I was now come to the unhappy anniversary of my
landing. I cast up the notches on my post, and found I had
been on shore three hundred and sixty-five days. I kept this
day as a solemn fast, setting it apart to religious exercise, pro-
strating myself on the ground with the most serious humiliation,
confessing my sins to God, acknowledging His righteous judg-
ments upon me, and praying to Him to have mercy on me
through Jesus Christ; and not having tasted the least refresh-
ment for twelve hours, even till the going down of the sun, I
then eat a biscuit-cake and a bunch of grapes, and went to bed,
G
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 distinguish 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 spar-
ingly, and to write down only the most remarkable 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 discourag-
ing experiments that I had 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 I 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 what I sowed 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
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99
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 that I had made was
not only firm and entire, but the 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 edge 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 semi-
circle 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:
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LIFE AND CADVENTURES
Half February, rainy, the sun being then on, or near the
March,
Half April,
Half April,
equinox.
May, dry, the sun being then to the north of the
June,
July,
Half August,
Half August,
line.
September, rainy, the sun being then come back.
Half October,
Half October,
November, dry, the sun being then to the south of the
December,
January,
Half February,
line.
The rainy season sometimes held longer or shorter as the
winds happened to blow, but this was the general observation I
made. After
After I had found by experience the ill consequences 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. This time I found much employment, and very suit-
able also to the time, for I found great occasion for many things
which I had no way to furnish myself with but by hard labour
and constant application; particularly, I tried many ways to
make myself a basket, but all the twigs I could get for the pur-
pose 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 some-
times lending a hand, I had by these means 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
101
sallows, 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 anything, as I had occasion; and though I did not finish
them very handsomely, yet I made them sufficiently serviceable
for my purpose; and thus, afterwards, I took care never to be
without them; and as my wicker-ware decayed, I made more,
especially 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 vessel 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, &c. 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, viz., to make broth, and stew a bit of meat
by itself. The second thing I fain would have had was a
tobacco-pipe; but it was impossible to me to make one; how-
ever, 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-working 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 sea-shore on that side; so taking my gun, a
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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 the sea to the west, and it being a very clear day, I
fairly descried land, whether an island or a continent could not
tell; but it lay very high, extending from the W. to the W.S.W.
at a very great distance; 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, other-
wise 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 dispositions of Pro-
vidence, which I began now to own and to believe ordered
everything 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 Brazils, 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
103
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 was deplorable enough, yet I had great cause for thank-
fulness, 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 discoveries I could make, that I came weary 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 sea-shore, 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 which I had seen, and some 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 my side 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 hill.
I confess this side of the country was much pleasanter than
mine; but yet I had not the least inclination to remove, for as
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LIFE AND ADVENTURËS
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 set-
ting 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 finding 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 wood, that I
could not see which was my way by any direction but that 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 to this little creature, and with a string which I
made 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
ÖF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
105
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, compared to that; and it ren-
dered everything 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.
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

JACKSONS
now to be a mere domestic, and to be mighty well acquainted
with me.
Then I began to think of the poor kid which I had
penned in within my little circle, and resolved to go and fetch
it home, or 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 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 be-
fore, being the anniversary of my landing on the island, having
now been there two years, and no more prospect of being deli-
vered 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 with-
out 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 deficiencies 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 this life I now led was, with all its miserable circum-
stances, 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 view-
ing 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 redemp-
tion. In the midst of the greatest composures of my mind, this
would break out upon me like a storm, and make me wring my
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
107
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. One morning, being very sad, I opened the
Bible upon these words, "I will never, never leave thee, nor for-
sake 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 for-
saken 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 possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken solitary
condition, than it was probable I should ever have been in any
other particular state in the world, and with this thought I was
going to give thanks to God for bringing 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 thank-
ful for a condition, which, however thou mayest endeavour to
be contented with, thou wouldest rather pray heartily to be deli-
vered 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 blessed God for directing my friend in England,
without any order of mine, to pack it up among my goods, and
for assisting me afterwards to save it out of the wreck of the ship.
Thus, and in this disposition of mind, I began my third year,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
and though I have not given the reader the trouble of so parti-
cular an account of my works this year as the first, yet in
general it may be observed, that I was very seldom idle, but
having regularly divided my time, according 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
in 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; so that about four hours in the evening was all the time
I could be supposed to work in, with this exception, that some-
times 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 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 a saw-pit,
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 a cutting down, and two more cutting off the
boughs, and reducing it to a log, or piece of timber. With in-
expressible hacking and hewing, I reduced 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
109
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 necessary to me to do, as
will appear by what follows.
I 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 lost
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 possible to keep from it; as, first the goats, and wild
creatures which I called hares, who, 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.
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 speed. 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 day-time, 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.
But 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, who 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 dayɛ
they would devour all my hopes, that I should be starved, and
ITO
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, than they dropt 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 impos-
sible 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 could
never see a bird near the place as long as my scare-crows 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 broadswords, or cutlasses, which I saved among the arms out
of the ship. However, as my first 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
TII
However, this was a great encouragement to me, and I fore-
saw 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, or make meal of my corn, or 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 meantime, 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. "Tis
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 finish-
ing this one article of bread.
I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to
my daily discouragement, and was made 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.
However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out with
patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When
the corn was sown, 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
it, 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, thrash, 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
II 2
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
things I did without, as shall be observed; and yet the corn was
an inestimable comfort and advantage to me too.
All this, as
I said, made everything 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 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 re-
quired 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 of
that wood which I had set before, and knew it 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 a
great part of that time was of 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
learned 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 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 such clay, I might
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
113
botch up some such pot as might, being dried in the sun, be
hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold
anything that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this
was necessary in the preparing corn, meal, &c., 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 in 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 any
things 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 said to
H
114
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 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 the 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
earthenware 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 on the fire again, with some water in it, to boil me some
meat, which it did admirably 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 been.
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
115
arriving to that perfection of art with one pair of hands. To
supply this want I was at a great loss; for, of all the trades in
the world, I was as perfectly unqualified for a stone-cutter 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 indeed were the rocks in the island of
hardness sufficient, but were all of a sandy crumbling stone,
which neither would bear the weight of a heavy pestle, or 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 for 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 iron-wood; 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 searce, 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 thing to make it; I mean fine
thin canvas or stuff, to searce 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
goat's-hair, but neither knew how to weave it or 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 seamen'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, proper enough for the work;
and thus I made shift for some years; how I did afterwards, I
shall show in its place.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 experiment
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 burned in the fire, as I had
done the other, and laid them by; and when I wanted to bake,
I made a great fire upon my 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 burned pretty much into embers, or
live coals, I drew them forward upon this earth, so as to cover
it all over, and there I let them lie till the hearth was very hot;
then sweeping away all the embers, I set down my loaf, or
loaves, and whelming down the earthen pot upon them, drew
the embers all round the outside of the pot, to keep in and add
to the heat; and thus, as well as in the best oven in the world,
I baked my barley-loaves, and became, in little time, a mere
pastry-cook into the bargain; for I made myself several cakes
of the rice, and puddings; indeed I made no pies, neither had
I anything to put into them, supposing I had, except the flesh
either of fowls or goats.
It need not be wondered at, if all these things took me up
most part of the third year of my abode here; for, it is to be
observed, that in the intervals of these things, I had my new
harvest and husbandry to manage; for I reaped my corn in its
season, and carried it home as well as I could, and laid it up in
the ear, in my large baskets, till I had time to rub it out, for I
had no floor to thrash it on, or instrument to thrash it with.
And now, indeed, my stock of corn increasing, I really wanted
to build my barns bigger; I wanted a place to lay it up in, for
the increase of the corn now yielded me so much, that I had of
the barley about twenty bushels, and of the rice as much, or
more, insomuch that now I resolved to begin to use it freely;
for my bread had been quite gone a great while; also I resolved
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
117
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, &c.
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 were on shore there, fancying the seeing the
mainland, and in an inhabited country, I might find some way
or other to convey myself farther, and perhaps at last find some
means of escape.
But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such
a condition, and how I might fall into the hands of savages, and
perhaps such as I might have reason to think far worse than the
lions and tigers of Africa; that if I once came in their power, I
should run a hazard more than a thousand to one of being
killed, and perhaps of being eaten; for I had heard that the
people of the Caribbean coast were cannibals, or man-eaters, and
I knew by the latitude, that I could not be far off from that
shore. That suppose they were not cannibals, yet that they
might kill me, as many Europeans who had fallen into their
hands had been served, even when they had been ten or twenty
together, much more I, that was but one, and could make little
or no defence; all these things, I say, which I ought to have
considered well off, and 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 the shore.
Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the longboat 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 at 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 almosɩ where she did at first,
but not quite; and was turned by the force of the waves and the
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
winds, almost bottom upward, against a high ridge of beachy
rough sand, 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 well enough, and I might have gone
back into the Brazils with her easily enough; but I might have
foreseen 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 woods, 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 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 dig-
ging away the sand, to undermine 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 forward 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 put me upon thinking, whether it was not
possible to make myself a canoe, or periagua, such as the natives
of those climates make, even without tools, or, as I might say,
without hands, 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 con-
venience 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, if that when I had chosen a vast
tree in the woods, I might with much trouble cut it down, if
after I might be able with my tools to hew and dub the outside
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
119
into the 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 re-
flection 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 of 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 fathom 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's 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. I felled a cedar tree, and
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 awhile, 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 axe and
hatchet, and inexpressible 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, with-
I 20
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
out 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 de-
lighted 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: and
had I gotten it into the water, I make no question but I should

S WILLIAM S.
have begun the maddest voyage, and the most unlikely to be
performed, 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 uphill towards the creek. Well, to take away this dis-
couragement, I resolved to dig into the surface of the earth, and
so make a declivity: this I begun, and it cost me a prodigious
deal of pains; but who grudge pains that have their deliverance
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
I2I
in view? but when this was worked through, and this difficulty
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 the 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 calculate how deep it was to be dug, how broad, how
the stuff to be thrown out, I found that by the number of hands
I had, being none but my own, that it must have been ten or
twelve years before I could 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 reluc
tancy, 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 comfort as ever before; for, by a constant study
and serious application to 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 nothing to do
with, no expectation from, and, indeed, no desires about: in a
word, I hąd nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely
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, "Be-
tween me and thee 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, or 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 possession 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,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
•
but I had no use for it; so I let as little grow as I thought
enough for my occasion. I had tortoise 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; and 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 supply my wants, and what was all the rest
to me? If I killed more flesh than I could eat, the dog must
eat it, or 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 they are for our use; and that
whatever we may heap up indeed to give others, we enjoy just
as much as we can use and no more. The most covetous grip-
ing miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of
covetousness, if he had been in my case; for I possessed in-
finitely 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, about thirty-
six pounds sterling. Alas! 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 seasons; and if I had had
the drawer full of diamonds, it had been the same case, 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
123
body. I frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and ad-
mired 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 nearer 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 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 can-
not but recommend to the reflection of those who are apt, in
their misery, to say, Is any affliction like mine? Let them con-
sider how much worse the cases of some people are, and their
case might have been, if Providence had thought fit.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
I had another reflection, which assisted me also to comfort my
mind with hopes; and this was comparing my present situation
with what I had deserved, and had therefore reason to expect
from the hand of Providence. 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 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, fall-
ing 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 opportunities to converse with any-
thing but what was like myself, or to hear anything that was
good, or tended towards it.
So void was I of everything that was good, or of the least
sense of what I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliver-
ances I enjoyed, such as my escape from Sallee; my being taken
up by the Portuguese master of the ship; my being planted so
well in the Brazils; 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 distress had
I so much as a thought to pray to Him, or so much as to say,
Lord, have mercy upon me! no, nor 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 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 my iniquity had deserved, but
had so plentifully provided for me; this gave me great hopes.
that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercy
in store for me.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
125
With these reflections, I worked my mind up, not only to a
resignation to the will of God in the present disposition of my
circumstances, but even to a sincere thankfulness for my con-
dition; and that I, who was yet a living man, ought not to
complain, seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins; that
I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason to have ex-
pected 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 at
miracle, even 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 uninhabitable 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 feed 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 did make a just improvement 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 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 remember that
there was a strange concurrence of days in the various providences
which befell me, and which, if I had been superstitiously inclined
to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I rnight have had reasor
to have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity.
126
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
First, I had observed, that the same day that I broke away
from my father and my friends, and ran away to Hull, in order
to go to sea, the 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 that ship in Yarmouth Roads,
that same day-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, that same day I had my life so miraculously
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 get-
ting it being, as has been already observed, next to miraculous.
My clothes, too, began to decay mightily; as to linen, I had
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 other 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 sea-
men's which were left indeed, but they were too hot to wear :
and though it is true that the weather was so violent 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. The 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 that 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 a hat;
the heat of the sun beating with such violence as it does in that
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
127
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 those 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 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 new
waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a great while; as for
breeches or drawers, I made but a very sorry shift indeed till
afterward.
I have mentioned, that I saved the skins of all the creatures
that Į 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 these skins, that is to say, a waistcoat,
and breeches open at the knees, and both loose, for they were
rather wanting 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 my waistcoat and cap
being outermost, 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,
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 anything likely to hold; nay, after I thought I
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 was not 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, and 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, could close it, and carry it under my
arm.
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,
with even God Himself, by ejaculations, was not better than
the utmost enjoyment of human society in the world?
I 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 things I was
employed in, besides my yearly labour of planting my barley
and rice, and curing my raisins, of both which I always kept up
just enough to have sufficient stock of one 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, which 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 a memorandum to teach me to be wiser next
time; indeed, the next time, though I could not get a tree
proper for it, and in a place where I could not get the water to
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
129
it at any less distance than, as I have said, 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 small-
ness of my boat 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 little journey
made me very eager to see other parts of the coast; and now I
had a boat, I thought of nothing but sailing round the island.
For this purpose, that I might do everything 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 stock 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, ammunition, &c., 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 vic-
tualled 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
I
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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 6th 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 above two leagues
into the sea, some above water, some under it, and beyond that
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 the point.
When first I 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 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 a broken grappling which I got
out of the ship.
Having secured my boat, I took my gun and went on shore,
climbing up upon 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 per-
ceived 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 up upon this hill, I believe it would
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
131
have been so; for there was the same current on the other side
the island, only that it set off at a farther distance; and I saw
there was a strong eddy under the shore; so I had nothing to
do but to get in 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 E.S.E., 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 even I 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 my left hand. There
was no wind stirring to help me, and all 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 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 mainland 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 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 but there again. I stretched
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out my hands to it, with eager wishes; "O happy desert!
said I, "I shall never see thee more. O miserable creature,"
said I, "whither am I going?" Then I reproached myself
with my unthankful temper, and how I had repined at my
solitary condition; 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 now 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 recovering 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 S.S.E. 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 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.
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133
They who know what it is to have a reprieve brought to them
upon the ladder, or to be rescued from thieves just a 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, running 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 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 a league 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 occa-
sioned this disaster stretching out, as is described before, to the
southward, and casting off the current more southerly, 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 de-
liverance 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.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 of the
case, 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 re-
solved in the morning to make my way westward 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 tó
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 verý
convenient harbour for my boat, and where she lay as if she had
been in a little dock made on purpose 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 com-
fortable enough after such a voyage as I had been upon, and I
reached my old bower in the evening, where I found everything
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 you,
if you can, that read my story, what a surprise I must be in,
when I was waked 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? "
I was so dead asleep at first, being fatigued with rowing, or
paddling, as it is called, the first part of the day, and with walk-
ing the latter part, that I did not wake thoroughly; but dozing
between sleeping and waking, thought I dreamed that somebody
spoke to me; but as the voice continued to repeat Robin Crusoe,
Robin Crusoe, at last I began to wake more perfectly, and was
at first dreadfully frighted, and started up in the utmost con-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
135
sternation; but no sooner were my eyes open, but I saw my Poll
sitting on the top of the hedge; and immediately knew that it
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 come you here?" and such things
as I had taught him.
However, even though I knew it was the parrot, and that in-
deed 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 he should just keep about the place, and nowhere
else: but as I was well satisfied, it could be nobody but honest
Poll, I got it over: and holding out my hand, and calling him
by his name, Poll, the sociable creature 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, make a very good carpenter, espe-
cially considering how few tools I had.
Besides this, I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my
earthenware, and contrived well enough to make them with a
wheel, which I found infinitely easier and better; because I
made things round and shapable, which before were filthy things
indeed to look on. But I think I was never 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 that there was tobacco in
the island; and afterwards, when I searched the ship again, I
could not come at any pipes at all.
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 they were such as were very handy and
convenient for my laying things up in, or fetching things home
in. For example, if I killed a goat abroad, I could hang it up
in a tree, flay it, 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.
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
137
no more powder; that is to say, how I should do to kill any
goats. I had, as is observed, in the third year of my being here,
kept a young kid, and bred her up tame, and I was in hopes
of getting a he-goat, 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 wanted a she-goat
great with young. To this purpose, I made snares to hamper
them, and I do 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 mark of their feet. At length I set three traps in one
night, and going the next morning, I found them all standing,
and yet the bait eaten and gone; this was very discouraging.
However, I altered my 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 others three kids,
a male and two females.
As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him, he was
so fierce I durst not go into the pit to him: that is to say, to go
about to bring him away alive, which was what I wanted. I
could have killed him, but that was not my business, nor would
it answer my end; so I e'en let him out, and he ran away, as
if he had been frighted out of his wits. But I did not then
know what I learned afterwards, 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
are mighty sagacious, 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 oné
by one, I tied them with strings together, and with some diffi-
culty brought them all 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-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 of doing it, my first piece of
work was to find out a proper piece of ground, viz., 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
thèse, being a plain open piece of meadow land, or savannah (as
our people call it in the western colonies), which had two or three
little 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 this thought occurred to ine, so I presently stopped
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139
short, and, for the first beginning, I resolved to enclose a piece
of about 150 yards in length, and 100 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 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 supplies 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 a great many
essays and miscarriages, made me both butter and cheese at last,
and never wanted it afterwards. How mercifully can our Creator
treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they seem
to be overwhelmed in destruction! How can He sweeten the
bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise Him for dun-
geons and prisons! What 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 iny
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 all my subjects. Then
to see how like a king I dined too, all alone, attended 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 run 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
141
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 loath 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 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, and 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 them, 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:
be pleased to take a sketch of my figure, as follows:
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; the breeches were 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 had made me a pair of
somethings, I scarce know what to call them, like buskins, to
flap over my legs, and lace on either side like spatterdashes ;;
but of a most barbarous shape, as indeed were all the rest of
my clothes.
I had on a broad belt of goat's skin dried, which I drew
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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
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, and on my shoulder
my gun, and over my head a great clumsy ugly goat's skin um-
brella, 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 Maho-
metan whiskers, such as I had seen worn by some Turks whom
I saw at Sallee; for the Moors did not wear such, though the
Turks did; of these mustachioes or whiskers, 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
sea-shore, 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 is said above, I was surprised to see the
sea all smooth and quiet, no rippling, no motion, no current, any
more there than in any other places. I was at a strange loss to un-
derstand 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
143
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 waiting thereabouts till 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 upon 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 the 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, which was more safe,
though more laborious; 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, twọ
plantations in the island; one, my little fortification or tent, with
the wall about it, under the rock, 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 fortifi-
cation, 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.
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Near this dwelling of mine, but a little farther within the
land, and upon lower ground, lay my two pieces of corn ground,
whick I kept duly cultivated and sowed, and which duly yielded
me their harvest in its season; and whenever 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 toler-
able plantation 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, constantly 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 agreeable 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 squab or
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, which I had saved, and a great watch-coat to cover
me; and here, whenever I had occasion to be 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
145
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;
which, by this method, indeed, I so effectually secured, that when
these little stakes began to grow, I had planted them so very
thick, I was forced to pull some of them up again.
In this place also I had my grapes growing, which I princi-
pally 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 re-
freshing 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 stayed
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 apprehensive 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.
It 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, but I could hear nothing, nor see
anything; I 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 knew 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,
K
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mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a
distance to be a man; nor is it possible to describe how many
various shapes my 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 re-
member 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 some-
thing 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
147
great way off of 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 considered 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 to leave a mark in a place
where it was ten thousand to one whether I should ever see it
òr 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 crea-
ture, 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 loath, perhaps, to have stayed in this
desolate island as I would have been to have had them.
While these reflections were rolling upon my mind, I was
very thankful 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 concluded 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
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not find me, yet they would find my enclosure, destroy all my
corn, and 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
confidence 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 exemplified in me, at this time,
in the most lively manner imaginable; for I, whose only afflic-
tion was that I seemed banished from human society, that I was
alone circumscribed by the boundless ocean, cut off from man-
kind, and condemned to what I called silent life; that I was as
one who 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 in 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
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149
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 dis-
pute His sovereignty, who, as I was His creature, had an un-
doubted right, by creation, to govern and dispose of me abso-
lutely 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. I 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 so, 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 the
dictates and directions of His daily providence.
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 discomposed me very much;
upon which those words of the Scripture came into my thoughts,
(C Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and 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 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,
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.
I
In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflec-
tions, it came into my thoughts 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;
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
and why might not I 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 apparitions, and then are frighted at
them more than anybody.
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 creatures 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 my-
self, 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 simili-
tude 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 boat, I could not possibly be on shore
anywhere thereabouts: 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,
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151
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 enclosures, 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 cogitation, 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 yapours, 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 resig-
nation I used to practise, that I hoped to have. I looked, I
thought, like Saul, who complained not only that the Philis-
tines 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
surprise, and perhaps carried through it with more resolution.
This confusion of my thoughts kept me awake 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 concluded that this island,
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which was so exceeding pleasant, fruitful, and no farther from
the mainland than as I had seen, was not so entirely abandoned
as I might imagine; that although there were no stated inhabi-
tants who lived on the spot, yet that there might sometimes
come boats off from the shore, who, either with design, or per-
haps 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 occasion to this time;
that the most I could suggest any danger from, was from any
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.
Now 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 men-
tion: these trees having been planted so thick before, they wanted
but a few piles to be driven between them, that they should be
thicker and stronger, and my wall would be soon finished. Sọ
that I had now a double wall; and my outer wall was thickened
with pieces of timber, old cables, and everything 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 above ten feet thick, with continual bring-
ing 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 had got seven
k;
So
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
153
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, so
that I could fire all the seven guns in two minutes' time: this
wall I was many a weary month a 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 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 at-
tempted 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 im-
passable; and no men, 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 ready supply to me upon
every occasion, and began to be sufficient to me, without the
expense of powder and shot, but also without the fatigue of
hunting after the wild ones; and I was loath to lose the ad-
vantage of them, and to have them all to nurse up over again.
To this purpose, after long consideration, I could think of but
i
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 of the hollow and thick woods,
where, as is observed, I almost lost myself once before, en-
deavouring to come back that way from the eastern part of the
island. Here I found a clear piece of land, near three acres, so
surrounded 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
young 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 apprehensions 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 ob-
serve, with grief too, that the discomposure of my mind had too
great impressions also upon the religious part of my thoughts;
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
155
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 pres-
sure 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, thank-
fulness, love, and affection, is much more the 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 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 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 had 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 was more fre-
quent than for the canoes from the main, when they happened
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 S.W. 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 cock-pit, where it is 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 enter-
tained 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 dege-
neracy 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 discharged the
disorder from my stomach; and having vomited with an un-
common 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
a while, 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 com-
forted with the knowledge of Himself, and the hope of His
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
157
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 circum-
stances, 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, anything
here; and having often, no doubt, been up in the covered, woody
part of it, without finding anything 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
here eighteen more as entirely concealed as I was now, if I did
not discover myself to them, which I had no manner of occasion
to do; it being my only business to keep myself entirely con-
cealed 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 eat-
ing 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 en-
closure 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 as 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 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
before, lest I should happen to be seen by any of them; and par-
ticularly, 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, that I needed not hunt any more
about the woods, 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 off, 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
goat-skin belt. Also I furbished up one of the great cutlasses
that I had out of the ship, and made me a belt to put it on 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 broad-sword hanging at my
side in a belt, but without a scabbard.
Things going on thus, as I have said, for some time, I seemed,
excepting these cautions, to be reduced to my former calm sedate
way of living. All these things tended to showing me, more
and more, how far my condition 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 preservation, had taken off the edge of my inven-
tion for my own conveniences; and I had dropped a good de-
sign, 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 sim-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
159
plicity 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 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 had not all these
things intervened, I mean the frights and terrors I was in about
the savages, I had undertaken it, and perhaps brought it to pass
too; for I seldom gave anything 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 could
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 loath 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 dreamed 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 place, and at the signals of the
barbarous wretches devouring one another, abated 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 fowl-
ing-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
ammunition 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
imagination, put it in practice, I continually made my tour
every morning up to the top of the hill, which was from my
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
161
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 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 farther 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 of Heaven, and actuated
by some hellish degeneracy, could have run them into. But
now, as I have said, I began to be weary of the fruitless excur-
sion 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 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 executioners of His judgments
one upon another. 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 con-
sciences reproving, or their light reproaching them. They do
L
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 thus 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 as 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 con-
duct of the Spaniards in all their barbarities 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
people; and that the rooting them out of the country is spoken
of with the utmost abhorrence and detestation by even the Spa-
niards 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 compas-
sion; 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
163
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 conclude I had taken wrong measures in my
resolutions to attack the savages; and that it was not my busi-
ness 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 after-
wards, 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 or in policy, I ought, one way or other, to
concern myself in this affair; that my business was, by all pos-
sible 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. Religion
joined in with this prudential, 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 pleases Him. This appeared so
clear to me now, that nothing was a greater satisfaction to me
than that I had not been 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 deli-
vered me from blood-guiltiness; beseeching Him to grant me
í
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the protection of His providence, that I might not fall into the
hands of the 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.
In 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 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 everything 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; however, 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
appearance 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 con-
stant 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 danger; for certain it is, that
these savage people, who sometimes haunted this island, never
came with any thoughts of finding anything here, and conse-
quently never wandered off from the coast; and I doubt not
but they might have been several times on shore after my appre-
hensions of them had made me cautious, as well as before. In-
deed, I looked back with some horror upon the thoughts of
what my condition would have been if I had chopped upon
{
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
165
them and been discovered before that, when, naked and un-
armed, except with one gun, and that loaded often only with
small shot, I walked everywhere, 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 possibi-
lity of my escaping them! The thoughts of this sometimes sunk
my very soul within me, and distressed my mind so much, that
I could not soon recover it, to think what I should have done,
and how I should not only 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
consideration and preparation, I might be able to do. Indeed,
after serious thinking of these things, I should be very melan-
choly, 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, and had kept me
from those mischiefs which I could no way have been the agent
in delivering myself from, because I had not the least notion of
any such thing depending, or the least supposition of its 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 quandary (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 impres-
sion 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
mind, to doing or not doing anything that presented, or 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 ex-
amples of the success of this conduct in the course of my life,
but more especially in the latter part of my inhabiting this un-
happy 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 considering men, whose lives are
attended with such extraordinary incidents as mine, or even
though not so extraordinary, not to slight such secret intimations
of Providence, let them come 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 communication between those embodied and those un-
embodied, 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.
I 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 accomino-
dations and conveniences. I had 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 might
make should be 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 dis-
tance in the day, should betray me. For this reason I removed
that part of my business which required fire, such as burning of
pots and pipes, &c., into my new apartment in the woods; where,
after I had been some time, I found, to my unspeakable conso-
lation, 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
167
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 cut-
ting 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, &c.; 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 other
services which fire was wanting for at home, without danger of
smoke. But this is by the by ;-While I was cutting down some
wood here, I perceived that behind a very thick branch of low
brushwood, or underwood, 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 perhaps 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 firebrand, and in I
rushed again, with the stick flaming in my hand; I had not
gone 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
still plucking up my spirits as well as I could, and encouraging
myself a little with considering that the power and presence of
God was everywhere, 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 one 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 em-
ployed 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
farther, but was so low that it required me to creep upon my
hands and knees to go into it, and whither I 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 tinder
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
169
box, which I had made of the lock of one of the muskets, with
some wild fire in the pan.
Accordingly, the next day I came provided with six large
candles of my own making (for I 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, con-
sidering that I knew not how far it might go, nor what was be-.
yond 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
an hundred thousand lights 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 be, 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 be 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 out-
most fence; and were ready also to take out upon any expedition.
Upon this occasion of removing my ammunition, I happened 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
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me at that time; so I carried 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, who 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 the offence to my nose.
I was now in my twenty-third year of residence in this island;
and was so naturalised to the place, and the manner of living,
that could I 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 to some little diversions and
amusements, which made the time pass more pleasantly 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 Robinson
Crusoe to this day. I wish no Englishman 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 com-
panion 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
171
after some time continually driving them from me, and letting
them have no provision 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, whom I taught to feed out of my
hand; and I had two more parrots, which talked pretty well,
and would all call Robinson 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 sea-fowls, whose names I
know not, who 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 agree-
able 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 it, is the most
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 unaccountable 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
fire 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.
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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 fortifica-
tion, 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. And in this posture I continued
about two hours; but began to be mighty impatient for intelli-
gence abroad for I had no spies to send out. After sitting awhile
longer, 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 hill; and pulling out my per-
spective-glass, which I had taken on purpose, I 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 extreme hot, but,
as I supposed, to dress some of their barbarous diet of human
flesh which they had brought with them, whether alive or dead,
I could not know.
They had two canoes with them, which they had hauled 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;
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
173
7
but when I observed their coming must be always with the cur-
rent 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 harvest-
work with the more composure.
As I expected, so it proved; for as soon as the tide made to
the westward, I saw them all take boat, and row (or paddle, as
we call it), all away. I should have observed, that for an hour
and 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, 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; and 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 down 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 de-
voured by those wretches with merriment and sport. I was so
filled with indignation at the sight, that I now began to preme-
ditate 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 make to this island are not very frequent,
for it was above fifteen months before any more of them came
on shore there again; that is to say, I neither saw them, or 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 so
far; yet all this while I lived uncomfortably, by reason of the
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constant apprehensions I was in of their coming 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 man-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 provided for 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 again, with perhaps two or
three hundred 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 wave all
:
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
175
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 the sixteenth 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 knew not what was the particular occasion of it, but as I
was reading in the Bible, and taken up with very 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 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 bid me listen
for a second gun, which accordingly, in about half a minute, I
heard; and, by the sound, knew that it was from that part of the
sea where I was driven down the current in my boat. I imme-
diately 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 the presence of mind, at that minute, as to think, that
though I could not help them, it may 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; that I was certain, if
there was any such thing as a ship, they must needs see it, and
no doubt they did; for 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 daybreak; 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, no, not with my glasses, the distance was
so great, and the weather still something hazy also; at least it
was so out at sea.
I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived that it
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did not move; so I presently concluded that it was a ship at an-
chor; and being eager, you may be sure, to be satisfied, I took my
gun in my hand, and ran towards the south side of the island, to
the rocks where I had formerly been carried away by 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 concealed 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 kind of counter-stream,
or eddy, were the occasion of my recovering 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 destruc-
tion;
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
E. and E.N.E. 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 their firing of guns for help, especially when they saw, as I
imagined, my fire, filled me with many thoughts; first, I ima-
gined that upon seeing my light, they might have put them-
selves 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 distress 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
that I had been formerly in, were carried out into the great
ocean, where there was nothing but misery and perishing; and
that, perhaps, they might by this time think of starving, and of
being in a condition to eat one another.
As all these were but conjectures at best, so, in the condition
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
177
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 comfortably provided for me
in my desolate condition; and that of two ships' companies who
were now cast away upon this part of the world, not one life
should be spared but mine. I learned 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 sup-
pose 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 desires I felt in my soul upon this sight,
breaking out sometimes thus: "Oh that there had been but one
or two, nay, or but one soul, saved out of this 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-crea-
tures, 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 imagination, 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 the 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,
M
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have
crushed it involuntarily; and the 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 naturalists explain
these things, and the reason and manner 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 my own to the last degree;
and this thought clung so to my heart, that I could not be
quiet night or 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 in-
visible 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 everything for my voyage, took a quantity of
bread, a great pot for fresh water, a compass to steer by, a bottle
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
179
of rum (for I had still a great deal of that left) and a basket full
of raisins: and thus, loading myself with everything necessary,
I went down to my boat, got the water out of her, put 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, came at last to the
utmost point of the island on that side: viz., the N.E. 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 constantly
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 perhaps out of my reach, or sight of
the island again; and that then, as my boat was but small, if
any little gale of wind should rise, I should be inevitably
lost.
These thoughts so oppressed my mind, that I began to give
over my enterprise; and having hauled my boat into a little
creek on the shore, I stepped out, and sat me down upon a little
rising bit of ground, very pensive and anxious, between fear and
desire, about my voyage; when, as I was musing, I could per-
ceive that the tide was turned, and the flood come on; upon
which my going was impracticable for so many hours. Upon
this, presently it occurred to me, that I should go up to the
highest piece of ground I could find, and observe, if I could,
how the sets of the tide, or currents, lay when the flood came
in, that I might judge whether, if I was driven one way out, I
might not expect to be driven another way home, with the
same rapidness of the currents. This thought was no sooner in
my head than I cast my eye upon a little hill, which sufficiently
overlooked the sea both ways, and from whence I had a clear
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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 cur-
rent 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 morn-
ing, to set out with the first of the tide, and reposing myself for
the night in the canoe, under the great watch-coat I mentioned,
I launched out. I made first 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, so as to take
from me all government of the boat; but having a strong
steerage with my paddle, I went 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 bowsprit was sound,
and the head and bow appeared firm. When I came close to
her, a dog appeared upon her, who, 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 would have let him, he would have burst him-
self. After this I went on board; but 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 continually 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. Be-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
181
sides 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 ebbed out, I could see; but they were too big to meddle
with. I saw several chests, which I believed 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 forepart 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 by 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 any-
body; 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 diffi-
culty. There were several muskets in a cabin, and a great pow-
der-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
powder-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 got in my new cave, and not 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 of great use to me: for
example, I found in one a fine case of bottles, of an extraordinary
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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 sweatmeats, so fas-
tened 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. Besides
this, when I came to the till in the chest, I found there three
great bags 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 fine
glazed powder, in three small flasks, kept, I suppose, for charg-
ing their fowling-pieces on occasion. Upon the whole, I got
very little by this voyage that was of any use to me; 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 of 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 rials, 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 this money home to my cave,
and laid it up, as I had done that before which I brought from
our own ship, but it was a great pity, as I said, that the other
part of this ship had not come to my share; for I am satisfied
I might have loaded my canoe several times over with money,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
183
which if I had ever escaped to England, would have lain 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 now to repose myself, live after
my old fashion, and take care of my family affairs; and, for a
while, I lived easy enough, only that I was more vigilant than
I used to be, looked out oftener, 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 de-
signs, 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 anywhere, I knew not whither. I have been, in all
my circumstances, a memento to those who are touched with
the 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 has 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 subsequent 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
island, one of the most considerable planters in the Brazils; nay,
I am 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 stayed, I might have been worth an hundred
thousand moidores; and what business 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 own 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 my-
self 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 improper 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.
I am now to be supposed 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 there.
It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, the
four-and-twentieth year of my first setting foot in this island of
solitariness, I was lying in my bed, or hammock awake; very
well in health, had no pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body,
no, nor any uneasiness 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
185
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 the 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,
compared to the life of anxiety, fear, and care, which I had
lived, 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 there; but I had never known it, and was in-
capable of any apprehensions about it; my satisfaction was per-
fect, 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 re-
flections, and particularly this one: How infinitely good that
Providence is, which has provided, in its government of man-
kind, 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 the 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 of a goat or a turtle, and have thought it no more of a
crime to kill and devour me, than I did of a pigeon or curlew.
I would 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 de-
liverances were due, and without which I must inevitably have
fallen into their merciless hands.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 bru-
tality 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 ventured over 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 attempted me; no, nor so much as
how it was possible for me to reach the coast, and not be at-
tempted 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 mainland. I looked back upon my present
condition as the most miserable that could possibly be; that I
was not able to throw myself into anything, 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 to learn
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
187
some knowledge from of the place where I was, and of the pro-
bable means of my deliverance. I say, I was agitated wholly by
these thoughts; all my calm of mind, in my resignation to Pro-
vidence, 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 anything but to the project of a voyage to the
main, which came upon me with such force, and such an im-
petuosity 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
dreamed of it, but I did not, nor of anything relating to it; but
I dreamed 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 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 to me to assist him; upon which I showed
him 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
mainland; for this fellow will serve me as a pilot, and will tell
me what to do, and whither to go for provisions, 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 that it was no more
than a dream, were equally extravagant the other way, and
threw me into a very great dejection of spirit.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 thither to kill. But these thoughts still were at-
tended 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 they 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. How-
ever, 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 re-
solved, if possible, to get one of those 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
189
This was very discouraging, and
canoes, but none appeared.
began to trouble me much; though I cannot say that it did
in this case, as it had done sometime before, namely, 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. Be-
sides, 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 them all into no-
thing, 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 know-
ing 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 did not appear above the hill, so that they could not per-
ceive 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 ges-
tures and figures, their own way, round the fire.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
While I was thus looking on them, I perceived, by my per-
spective, 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 imme-
diately, cutting him open for their cookery, while the other vic-
tim 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

1
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 was 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
191
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, 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 got down the ladders with all possible ex-
pedition, 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 towards
the sea, and having a very short cut, and all down hill, clapped
myself in the way between the pursuers and the pursued, hal-
looing 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 loath 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 with 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 or
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 to 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 acknowledgment for
my saving his life. I smiled at him, and looked pleasantly, and
beckoned to him to come still nearer; at length he came 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
be 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 who I knocked down was not
killed, but stunned with the blow, and began to come to him-
self; so I pointed to him, and showing 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 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, cut off his head as cleverly
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193
no executioner in Germany could have done it sooner or better;
which I thought very strange for one who, I had reason to be-
lieve, never saw a sword in his life before, except their own
wooden swords: however, it seems, as I learned afterwards, they
make their wooden swords so sharp, so heavy, and the wood is
so hard, that they will cut off heads even with them, ay, 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 seen by the
rest, if they followed; and so I made signs again to him to do
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 believed 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, and 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
So.
N
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
myself sometimes; so the poor creature laid 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 sweet-
ness and softness of an European in his countenance too, especi-
ally when he smiled. His hair was long and black, not curled
like wool; his forehead very high and large; and a great viva-
city and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. The colour of his skin
was not quite black, but very tawny; and yet not of an ugly,
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 possible signs of an humble
thankful disposition, making a 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 imaginable, to let me know how he would serve
me as long as he lived. I 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 be 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
I gave
him some milk in an earthen pot, and let him see me drink it
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
195
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 ex-
actly 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 immediately, 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 appearance 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.
But 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 dex-
terously, making him carry one gun for me, and I two for my-
self; 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 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 had brought
over four prisoners to feast upon; that three of them were eaten
!
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
up, and that he, pointing to himself, was the fourth; that there
had been a great battle between them and their next king,
whose subjects 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 who had taken them in the fight, in order
to feast upon them, as was done here by these wretches
those they brought hither.
upon
I caused Friday to gather all the skulls, bones, flesh and what-
ever remained, and lay them together on 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 abhor-
rence 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.
When 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 gun-
ner's chest I mentioned, and 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-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 awk-
wardly 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 fortifica-
tions, 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
7
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
197
a formal framed doorcase, and a door to it 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 too; 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 cross 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 trap-door, 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 in to 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 passions, 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 government 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 sentiments of kindness and obliga-
tion, 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 to 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
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LIFE AND AND
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 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 disposition 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 did not know by what light
and law these should be condemned; but that as God was neces-
sarily, 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 all are the clay in the hand 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 everything that
was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especi-
ally 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 understand 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.
After 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
199
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 pre-
sented 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, or 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 shot at, or perceive 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
the 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
pointed 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 creature was killed, I loaded my gun
again. By and by, I saw a great fowl, like a hawk, sit upon a
tree, within shot; so, to let Friday understand a little what I
would do, I called him to me again, pointed 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; accord-
ingly, I fired, and bade him look, and immediately he saw the
parrot fall. He stood like one frighted again, notwithstanding
all I had said to him; and I found he was the more amazed,
because he did not see me put anything into the gun, but
thought that 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
gun.
As for the gun itself, he would not so much as touch it
for several days after; but he 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
staid some time; for the parrot, not being quite dead, was
fluttered away a good way off 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 to let him
see me do it, that I might be ready for any other mark that
might present; but nothing more 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 fit 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 good
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
into 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 never care for salt with his meat or in his
broth; at least, not for 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 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,
he would never eat man's flesh any more, which I was very
glad to hear.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
201
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 wil-
lingly 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, be-
cause 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 of
almost everything I had occasion to call for, and of every place
I had to send him to, and talked 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, 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 anything before.
I had a mind once to try if he had any hankering inclination
to his own country again; and having taught 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
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fight the better;" said I, "how came you to be taken prisoner
then, Friday?
Friday. 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 over-
beat them in the yonder place, where me no was; there my
nation take one, two, great thousand.
Master. 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. Go to other place, where they think.
Master. Do they come hither?
Friday. Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.
Master. Have you been here with them?
Friday. Yes, I been here. (Points to the N.W. 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 same 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, by laying
so many stones on 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
203
ever lost; but that, after a little way out to sea, there was a current
and 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 under-
stood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux of the
mighty river Oroonoko, in the mouth or gulf of which river, as
I found afterwards, our island lay; and this land which I per-
ceived to the W. and N.W. 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 the part of America
which reaches from the mouth of the river Oroonoko to Guiana,
and onwards to St. Martha. He told me that up a great way be-
yond 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 men-
tioned before; and that they had killed much mans, that was his
word; by all which I understood, he meant the Spaniards, whose
cruelties in America had been spread over the whole countries,
and were remembered by all the nations, from father to son.
I inquired if he could tell me how I might go 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 it must be in a large
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 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.
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 foundation of religious knowledge in his mind;
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
particularly I asked him one time, Who made him? The poor
creature did not understand me at all, but thought I had asked
him who was his father; but I took it up 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 Bena-
muckee, that lived beyond all: he could describe nothing of
this great person, but that he was very 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 do say O 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 these 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 had
made it; that He was omnipotent, could do everything for us,
give everything to us, take everything 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 us, even into 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 he ever 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 Oowokakee, that is, as I made
him explain it to me, their religious, or clergy; and that they
went to say O (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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
205
order to preserve the veneration of the people to the clergy, is
not only to be found in the Roman, but perhaps among all reli-
gions 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 O 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 spake 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 wor-
shipped instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems
he made use of to delude mankind to his 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 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 over-ruling, 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 omnipo-
tence, 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 down 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 this 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 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 awhile at this; Well, well," says he, mighty affec-
tionately," 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 revelation can form the knowledge of
Jesus Christ, and of redemption purchased for us, of a Mediator
of the new covenant, and of an Intercessor 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
((
V
i
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
207
people, are the absolutely necessary instructors of the souls of
men in the saving knowledge 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 good 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 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; but which occurred naturally
to my mind upon 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 had
brought me here, but was now to be made an instrument, under
Providence, to save the life, and, for aught I knew, the soul of
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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 so 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 I 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 formed 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
instruct, than if we had been in England. I always applied
myself, in reading the Scripture, to let him know, as well as I
could, the meaning of what I read; and he again, by his serious
inquiries and questionings, 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 salva-
tion 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 repent-
ance for my sins, and laying hold of a Saviour for life and salvation,
to a stated reformation in practice, and obedience to all God's
commands, and this without any teacher or instructor; 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 all the disputes, wrangling, strife, and contention which
have happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
209
doctrines, or schemes of church-government, they were all per-
fectly useless to us; as, for aught I can yet see, they have been
to all the rest of 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.
After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and
that he 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 the place; how I had lived here, and how long; I
let him into the mystery, for such it was to him, of gunpowder
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 country of Europe, particularly Eng-
land, which I came from; how we lived, how we worshipped
God, how we behaved 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 boat like come to place at my nation." I did
not understand him a good while; but, at last, when I had exa-
mined farther into it, I understood by him, that a boat, such as
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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,
"We 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 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, "No, 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 mainland, 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;
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
211
joy!" says he, "O 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 eagerness, as if he had a mind to be in his own country
again; and 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 for-
get 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 circum-
spect, 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 it, 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, "he be much oh
glad to be at his 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-
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 that 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 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 these 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, with-
out 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,
would make it go almost as swift and fast 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 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
213
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 thus: "Why you angry mad with Friday? what me
done?" I asked him what he meant; I told him I was not
(c
CC
"I go there,
He turned very
angry with him at all. "No angry! no angry!" says he, re-
peating the words several times, "why send Friday home away
to my nation?" "Why," says I, " Friday, did not you say you
wished you were there?' Yes, yes," says he, "wish be both
there, no wish Friday there, no master there." In a word, he
would not think of going there without me.
Friday!" says I, "what shall I do there?"
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, comes and gives it 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
I found all the foundation 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, or 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 cavity of this tree out, to make it for a boat, but I
showed him how rather to cut it out with tools; which, after I
had showed him how to use, he did very handily; and in about
a month's hard labour we finished it, and made it very hand-
some; 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 farther design that he
knew nothing of, and that was to make a mast and a sail, and
<<
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
215
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 was 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 tedious 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; be-
cause 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., rig-
ging and fitting my mast and sails; for I finished them very
complete, making a small stay, and a sail, or fore-sail, 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 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 a 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 gibed, and filled this way, or that way,
216
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 the 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
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, fencing, as usual; I gathered and
cured my grapes, and did every necessary thing as before.
The rainy season was, in the meantime, upon me, when I kept
more within doors than at other times; so I had stowed our new
vessel as secure as we could, bringing her up into the creek, where,
as I said in the beginning, I landed my rafts from the ship; and
hauling 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
217
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 in-
tended, 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 run-
ning 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, "Oh master! oh
master! oh sorrow! oh bad!" What's the matter, Friday?"
says I.
"Oh yonder, there," says he, "one, two, three canoe;
one, two, three!
By this way of speaking I concluded there
were six: but, on inquiry, I found it was but three.
‹ Well,
Friday," says I, " do not be frighted." 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 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;
"but there come many great number."—" No 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
him 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 load 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
(C
218
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, 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 close almost 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
was 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 first 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 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 bullet; 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 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 be discovered, which I had seen, by my
glass, it was easy to do.
While I was making this march, my former thoughts return-
ing, 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
219
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 me or 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 exe-
cutioner 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 meantime, 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 me. 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
waryness 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 im-
mediately 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, whom
he had told me of, that came to their country in the boat. I
was filled with horror at the very naming the white, bearded
220
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 them; so I with-
held 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;

C
derf
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 now 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 Fri-
day" 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
221
savages, bidding him to do the like; then asking him 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 up upon their feet, but did not im-
mediately 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 Fri-
day; 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 scream-
ing like mad creatures, all bloody, and miserably wounded most
of them; whereof three more of them fell quickly after, not
quite dead.
"Now, Friday," says I, laying down the discharged pieces,
and taking up the musket which was yet loaden, "follow me,'
says I, 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 loaded
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 him step forwards, and fire
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•
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 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 ate. Then I asked him what countryman he
was; and he said, Espagnole; and being a little recovered, 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 thank-
fully, 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 crea-
tures 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 re-
ceived, 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
223
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 weapon that was to have killed him before, if I had not pre-
vented it. The Spaniard, who was as bold and as 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.
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 know not whether he died or no, were all that escaped our
hands of one and twenty; the account of the rest is as follows:
3 killed at our first shot from the tree.
2 killed at the next.
2 killed by Friday in the boat.
2 killed by ditto, of those at first wounded.
I killed by ditto in the wood.
3 killed by the Spaniard.
4 killed, being found dropped here and there, of their
wounds, or killed by Friday in his chase of them.
4 escaped in the boat, whereof one wounded, if not dead.
21 in all.
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Those that were in the canoe worked hard to get out of
gun-shot, and though Friday made two or three shot 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 alive, 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 but 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 look 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
225
many times: when he went in to him, he would sit down by
him, open his breast, and hold his father's head close to his
bosom, half-an-hour together, to nourish it; then he took his
arms and ancles, 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, "None; 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 himself,
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 handful 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 out 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
P
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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. This water revived his father more than all the rum
or spirits I had given him, for he was just fainting with thirst.
When his father had drank, 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 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 thankfulness that could appear in any countenance; but
was so weak, notwithstanding 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, turn 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 laid himself down to ease his limbs, so Friday came back to
me presently; and then I 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
227
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 both safe into our creek, and leaving them in the boat,
runs away to fetch the other canoe. As he passed me, I spoke
He told me,
"Go
to him, and asked him whither he went.
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 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 forti-
fication, we were at a worse loss than before, for it was impos-
sible 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.
My 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 absolutely 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.
•
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 hin-
der-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,
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; and 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
performed, and defaced 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
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229
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 impos-
sible 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 afterwards; 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 en-
chanted island would be destroyed with fire from the gods.
This, however, I knew not, and therefore was under continual
apprehensions for a good while, and kept always upon my guard,
I and 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 like-
wise 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 dis-
course with the Spaniard, and when I understood that there
were sixteen 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 Rio de la Plata to the Havanna,
being directed to leave their loading there, which was chiefly
hides and silver, and to bring back what European goods they
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could meet with there; that they had five Portuguese seamen
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 ex-
pected 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, or 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 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 per-
suaded, 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, north-
ward; 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
231
1.
He answered, with a great deal of candour and ingenuity,
that their condition was so miserable, and that they were so
sensible of it, that, he believed, they would abhor the thought
of using any man unkindly that should contribute to their deli-
verance; 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 should be abso-
lutely under my leading, as their commander and captain; and
that they should swear upon the holy sacraments and the gospel,
to be true to me, and to 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 or clothes, or 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 possible, and to send the old savage and this Spaniard over to
them to treat. But when we had gotten all things in a readi-
ness 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 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 support; and he saw evidently what stock of corn and
rice I had laid up; which, as it was more than sufficient for
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myself, so it was not sufficient, at least without good husbandry,
for my family, now it was increased to number 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 other two 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, other-
wise 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 per-
mitted; 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 supposed 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 occasion; 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 pur-
pose, I marked out several trees which I thought fit for our
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
233
work, and I set Friday and his father to cutting them down;
and then I caused the Spaniard, to whom I imparted my
thoughts on that affair, to oversee 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, for 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
above twenty young kids to breed up with the rest; for when-
ever we shot the dam, we saved the kids, and added them to
our flock. But, above all, the season for curing the grapes com-
ing 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, how-
ever, 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 sixteen 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 wicker-work, 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
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see what he could do with those he had left behind him 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 no way injure, fight with, or attack
the person he should find in the island, who was so kind as
send for them in order to their deliverance; but that they would
stand by him, and defend him against all such attempts, and
wherever they went would be entirely under and subjected to
his commands; and that this should be put in writing, and signed
with their hands. How we were to have done this, when I
knew they had neither pen or 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 occasion.
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 themselves 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 reckoning 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 that 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
235
my hutch one morning, when my man Friday came 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 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 that side which 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 on the hill, when my eye plainly discovered
a ship lying at an anchor, at about two leagues and a half dis-
tance from me, S.S.E., 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 whom 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 hung 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 English really, it was most probable that they were here
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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?
me;
The present question abundantly confirms me in the justice of
this reasoning; for had I not been made cautious by this secret ad-
monition, come it from whence it will, I had been undone inevit-
ably and in a far worse condition than before, as you will see pre-
sently. I had not kept 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
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 that 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 extravagance; the other
two, I could perceive, lifted up their hands sometimes, and ap-
peared 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
237
•
as well as he could, "O master! you see English mans eat
prisoner as well as savage mans.” "Why," says I, “ Friday
Yes," says
do you think they are going to eat them then ?”
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."
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 cut-
lass, 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 undis-
covered within shot of them, that I might have rescued the
three men, for I saw no firearms 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 land, 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 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 round me; what dreadful apprehen-
sions 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 providential 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
He does not leave His creatures so absolutely destitute, but that,
in the worst circumstances, they have always something to be
thankful 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 pri-
soners 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 drank 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 inquiry of what countrymen they
All this while I kept myself very close, not once daring
to stir out of my castle, any farther than to my place of obser-
vation, 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 their 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
marksman 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 skin coat on,
were.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
239
1
with the great cap I have mentioned, a naked sword hy 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, were laid down to sleep.
The three poor distressed men, too anxious for their condition
to get any sleep, were, however, sat 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 something of their con-
dition; 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, gentlemen?" 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 you, 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, and,
when you seemed to make applications 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 trem-
bling, 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 armed after
another manner than you see me in: pray lay aside your fears
I am a man, an Englishman, and disposed to assist you; you
<<
;
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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; but, in short, sir, I was commander of that ship;
my men have mutinied against me; they have been hardly pre-
vailed 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, be-
lieving the place to be uninhabited, and know not yet what to

うと
​''
""
think of it."-"Where are those 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 had only two pieces, and one which
they 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
241
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 describe
them; but he would obey my orders in anything I would direct.
“Well," says I, "let us retreat out of their view or hearing, lest
they awake, and we will resolve further.”" 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 antici-
pated my proposals, by telling me, that both he and the ship, if
recovered, should be wholly directed and commanded by me in
everything; 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. 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 in 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; secondly,
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 and faith of
man could devise, that he would comply with these most reason-
able 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 anything; 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 providence
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 incor-
rigible villains, and had been the authors of all the mutiny in
Q
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the ship, and if they escaped, we should be undone still; for
they would go on board and bring the whole ship's company,
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 they
should go themselves, 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 of the men who he had said 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, with 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 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; but not being dead, he started up on his feet, and
called eagerly for help to the other; 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 company, 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 faith-
ful 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
243
h
against, only that I obliged him 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 by 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.
It 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. But
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 unpassable in any part of it, but at that one side
where I had reserved my little winding passage into it. I told
him this 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 per-
fectly at a loss what measures to take, for that there were still six
and twenty hands on board, who having entered into a cursed
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
conspiracy, by which they had all forfeited their lives to the law,
would be hardened in it now by desperation; and would carry it
on, knowing that, if they were reduced, they should 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 attack-
ing 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 very speedily, as well to draw the 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 see for them;
and that then, perhaps, they might come armed, and be too
strong for us: this he allowed to be 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 everything 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 away 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
245
main strength, heaved the boat up upon the beach so high, that
the tide would not float her off at high water mark; and be-
sides, bad broke a hole in her bottom too big to be quickly
stopped, and were sat down musing what we should do, we
heard the ship fire a gun, and saw her make a waft with her
ensign 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 was 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 of the men,
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, 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 apprehen-
sive 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 seeing almost every condition that
could be was better than that which we were supposed to be in,
we ought to expect that the consequence, whether death or life,
would be 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 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, considered of separating our prisoners; and had, indeed,
secured them effectually. 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 provi-
visions; 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 confinement with patience, and
were very thankful that they had such good usage as to have
provisions and 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 their
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
a 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 ran their boat
into the beach, and came all on shore, hauling the boat up after
them, which I was glad to see; for I was afraid they would
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
247
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
that 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 a while 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 them
know 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,
believing they would go on board the ship again, and set sail,
giving their comrades 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 per-
ceived them all coming on shore again; but with this new
measure in their conduct, which it seems they consulted to-
gether 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 now we were 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 recovering 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
-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 aboard. 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 con-
sider 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.
The captain made a very just proposal to me upon this con-
sultation 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 the proposal, pro-.
vided 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 them there would be nothing to
be 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 un-
easy, when, after long consultations, we saw them start all up,
and march down towards the sea; it seems they had such dread-
ful apprehensions upon them of the danger of the place, that
!
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
249
they resolved to go on board the ship again, give their com-
panions over for lost, and so go on with their intended voyage
with the ship.
As soon as I perceived them 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, to-
wards 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 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 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 them.
They were just going into the boat when Friday and the mate
hallooed; and they presently heard them, and answering, run
along the shore westward, towards the voice they heard, when
they were presently 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 up 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 fore-
most, ran in upon him, and knocked him down: and then called
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 there-
fore 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
one to another in a most lamentable manner, telling one another
they were gotten into an enchanted island; that either there
were inhabitants in it, and they should all be murdered, or else
there were devils and 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 given them leave to fall upon them at once in the dark; but
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
251
1
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 un-
willing 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, therefore, to make sure of them, I drew my am-
buscade 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, but that 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 their crew; the
captain was so eager at having this 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
run 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 lieutenant-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 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,"
252
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
says he;
"here's our captain and fifty men with him, have been
hunting you these two hours; the boatswain is killed, Will Fry
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'll go and 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 cap-
tain 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 that 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 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 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 further wickedness
of their design, and how certainly it must bring them to misery
and distress in the end, and perhaps to the gallows. They all
appeared very penitent, and begged hard for their 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
to direct them, that it was inhabited, and that the governor was an
Englishman; that he might hang them all there, if he pleased;
but as he had given them all quarter, he supposed he would
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
253
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 this was all a fiction of his own, yet it had its desired
effect: Atkins fell upon his knees, to beg the captain to nter-
cede 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 captain 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 com-
mander 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 of
wonderfully well, and resolved to put it in execution the next
morning. But, in order to execute it with more art, 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.
To these in the morning I sent the captain, who was to enter
into a parley with 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 that though
254
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the governor had given them quarter for their lives as to the
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 join
in so just an attempt as to recover the ship, he would have the
governor'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 impreca-
tions, 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 to
them 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
of them, and tell them, that they might see he did not want
men, 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: first,
The captain, his mate, and passenger: second, Then the two
prisoners of the first gang, to whom, having their character from
the captain, I had given their liberty, and trusted them with
arms: third, The other two who I had kept till now in my
bower pinioned, but, on the captain's motion, had now released:
fourth, The single man taken in the boat: fifth, These five re-
leased at last; so that they were thirteen in all, besides five we
kept prisoners in the cave, and the two hostages.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
255
I asked the captain if he was willing to venture with these
hands on board the ship: for 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 employment 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, 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 anywhere 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
governor, so 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 other men; and
himself, and 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 but-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 who 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 cook-room, making three men they found there
prisoners. When this was done, and all safe upon deck, the cap-
256
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
tain ordered the mate, with three men, to break into the round-
house, where the new rebel captain lay, and having taken alarm,
was gotten 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. 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
with 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
a 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 the little creek; and the tide being up, the captain had brought
the pinnace in near the place where I at first landed my rafts,
and so landed just at my door. I was at first ready to sink down
with 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
257
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 had drank it, I sat down upon 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 while 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 tender things to me, to
compose me 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 from 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 manner provided for one 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,
not that was to be carried away along with them, but as if I had
been to dwell upon the island still, and they were to go without
me. First, he had brought me a case of bottles full of excellent
cordial waters, six large bottles of Madeira wine (the bottles
held two quarts a-piece), 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 an hundredweight of biscuit; he
R
258
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
brought me 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, be 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, and 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 anything 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 passed, 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 he 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
malefactors, 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 would 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.”—“Well,” says I,
"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, 1
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
259
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 might 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 which was best
for them, unless they had a mind to take their fate in the island;
if they desired that, I did not care, 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, 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 priso-
ners, not his; and 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 I found them;
and if he did not like it, 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
sonie firearms, some ammunition, and some directions how they
260
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 apartment, and entered seriously into discourse with them of
their circumstances. 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; accord-
ingly, 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 sixteen 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 firearms, viz., five muskets, three fowling-
pieces, and three swords. I had above a barrel and a half of
powder left; for after the first year or two I used but little, and
wasted none. I give 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 told them I would 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
261
board 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 intercession, 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 power to
send any vessel to take them in, I would not forget them.
When I took leave of this island, I carried on board, for relics,
the great goat-skin cap I had made, my umbrella, 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. 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 this second
captivity the same day of the month that I first made my escape
in the longboat, from among the Moors of Sallee. In this vessel,
after a long voyage, I arrived in England the 11th 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, who I had left in trust with my money,
was alive, but had had great misfortunes in the world; was be-
come a widow the second time, and very low in the world. I
made her easy as to what she owed me, assuring her I would
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give her no trouble; but on the contrary, in gratitude to 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 for-
get her former kindness to me; nor did I forget her when I had
sufficient to help her, as shall be observed in its 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 pro-
vision made for me: so that, in a word, I found nothing to re-
lieve 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 who I had so
happily delivered, and by the same means saved the ship and
cargo, having given a very 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 con-
cerned, and all together made me a very handsome complimen
upon the subject, and a present of almost £200 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 information of the state of my plantation in the
Brazils, and of what was become of my partner, who, I had
reason to suppose, had some years now given me over for dead.
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 inan, 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
263
and as soon brought myself to his remembrance when I told
him who I was.
After some passionate expressions of our 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 look-
ing 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 up on 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, 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
also enrolled in the register of the country; also he told me,
that the survivors 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, &c.
(C
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,
as they called the sugar-house, and had given his son, who was
now at the Brazils, orders 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, 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' profits, 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 re-
ceived in all, and how I have disposed of it."
re
After a few days' farther conference with this ancient friend,
he brought me an account of the six first 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, &c., which is the consequence
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
265
of a sugar-work; and I found, by this account, that every year
the income considerably increased; but, as above, the disburse-
ments being large, the sum at first was small; however, 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 com-
plain 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.
Everything 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
came to receive what he gave me reason to expect, I would
never have a penny more from him.
When this was passed, the old man began to ask me if he
should put me into a method to make my claim to my planta-
tion? 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 immediately to appropriate.
the profits to my use: and as there were ships in the river of
Lisbon just ready to go away to Brazil, he made me enter my
name in a public register, with his 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,
for whose account I went to sea, in which were 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 moi-
dores 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 administration, 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 nine-
teen thousand four hundred and forty-six crusadoes, which made
three thousand two hundred and forty-one moidores.
Thirdly, There was the prior of the Augustines account who
had received the profits for above fourteen years; but not being
to account for what was disposed to the hospital, very honestly
declared he had eight hundred and seventy-two moidores not
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
267
distributed, which he acknowledged to my account; as to the
king's part, that refunded nothing.
There was a letter of my partner's congratulating me very
affectionately 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; in-
viting me very passionately to come over and take possession of
my own; and, in the meantime, to give him orders to whom
he should deliver my effects, if I did not come myself; conclud-
ing with a hearty tender of his friendship, and that of his family;
and sent me as a present, seven fine leopards' skins, which he
had, it seems, received from Africa, by some other ship which
he had sent thither, and who, it seems, had made a better voyage
than I. He sent me also five chests of excellent sweetmeats, and
a hundred pieces of gold uncoined, not quite so large as moidores.
By the same fleet, my two merchant trustees shipped me one
thousand two 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 flut-
terings 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 a vent
given in that manner to the spirits, I should have died.
I was now master, all on a sudden, of above five thousand
268
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 it. 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 a
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 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; 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 anybody 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
269
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 mer-
chant 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 an 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 each of them an hundred pounds, 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 husband 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 myself there, for I was, as it were, naturalised to the
place: but I had some little scruple in my mind about religion,
which insensibly drew me back, of which I shall say more pre-
sently. However, it was not religion that kept me from going
there for the present; 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 with.
But, as I have said, this was not the main thing that kept me
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 it, 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 for 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 eight hundred
and seventy-two moidores which were undisposed of, which I
desired might be given, five hundred to the monastery, 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 acknow-
ledgment that so much justice and honesty called for ; as for send-
ing them any present, they were far above having any occasion for
it. Lastly, I wrote to my partner, acknowledging his industry
in the improving 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 became
due to me, till he should hear from me more particularly; assur-
ing 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 broadcloth, 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 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 going 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
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271
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, and this might
be some of the reasons; but let no man slight the strong im-
pulses 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, that is to say, so as in one of them
to put my things on board, and in the other to have 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 everything, pressed me earnestly not to
go by sea, but either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over
the Bay of Biscay to Rochelle, 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
France. 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 more English merchants
also, and two young Portuguese gentlemen, the last going to
Paris only; so that we were in all six of us, and five servants;
the two merchants and the two Portuguese contenting them-
selves with one servant between two, to save the charge; and 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, 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.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
As I have troubled you with none of my sea journals, so I shall
trouble you now with none of my land journal; but some ad-
ventures 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 in-
deed to countries where we could scarce bear any clothes on,
the cold was insufferable: nor indeed, was it more painful than
it was surprising, to come but ten days before out of Old Castile,
where the weather was not only warm, but very hot, and im-
mediately to feel a wind from the Pyrenean mountains so very
keen, so severely cold, as to be intolerable, and to endanger be-
numbing 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 snowing 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 stayed 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
273
take shipping for Bourdeaux, which was a very little voyage.
But while we were considering this, there came in four French
gentlemen, 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 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 ensure us
from a kind of two-legged wolves, which, we were told, we
were in most danger from, especially on the French 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, about 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, turn-
ing 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, that we were insensibly passed the height of the moun-
tains without being much encumbered with the snow; and, all
on a sudden, he showed us the pleasant fruitful provinces of
Languedoc and Gascoigne, all green and flourishing, though,
S
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indeed, they were 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 bid us be easy; we should soon be past it all; we found, in-
deed, 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 de-
voured indeed before we could have helped him; one 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, "O
master! O master!" but, like a bold fellow, rode directly up to
the poor 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 that kind of creature in his country,
had no fear upon him, but went close up to him and shot him,
as above; whereas any of us would have fired at a farther dis-
tance, 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 heard on both sides the dismallest howling of
wolves; and the noise, redoubled by the echo of the mountains,
that it was to us as if there had been a prodigious multitude of
them; and perhaps there was not such a few as that we had no
cause of apprehensions; 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
275
bosses of the bridle had 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 in the arm, and the
other time a little above his knee; and he was just as it were
tumbling down by the disorder of his 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 difficult, 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 sur-
prising 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, who is swift and light, so he has two particular qualities,
which generally are the rule of his actions: first, as to men, who
are not his proper prey, I say, not his proper prey, because,
though I cannot say what excessive hunger might do, which
was now their case, the ground being all covered with snow;
but as to men, he does not usually attempt them, unless they
first attack him; on the contrary, if you meet him in the woods,
if you do not meddle with him, he will not meddle with you;
but then you must take care to be very civil to him, and give
him the road, for he is a very nice gentleman; he will not go a
step out of his way for a prince; nay, if you are really afraid,
your best 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; but if you throw or toss anything
at him, and it hits him, though it were but a bit of stick as big 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; this is his first quality: the next is, that if he be once
affronted, he will never leave you, night or day, till he has his
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
revenge, but follows, 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 from 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 easy to see joy and courage
in the fellow's countenance; "O! O! O!" says Friday, three
times, pointing to him: "O master! you give me te leave, me
shakee te hand with him; me makee you good laugh."
I was surprised to see the
says I," he will eat you 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, and
which he had in his pocket, gives my other servant his horse,
and with his gun away he flew, swift like the wind.
fellow so pleased; "You fool,"
"Eatee me up! eatee me up!"
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 understand 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 it had 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 it at him, and hit him just on the head, but did him no
more harm than if he had thrown it against 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 blow, and
saw him, he turns about, and comes after him, taking devilish
long strides, and shuffling along at a strange rate, so as would
have put a horse to a middling gallop; away runs Friday, and
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
277
takes his course as if he run towards us for help; so we all
resolved to fire at once upon the bear, 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,"
said I, “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, 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 to 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 anything 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 end 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:" so he falls a jump-
ing 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 no come farther?
pray you come farther;" so he left jumping and shaking the
tree; 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 called to Friday to stand still, and
;
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
we would shoot the bear; but he cried out earnestly, "O pray!
O 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. But 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
go 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 run to his
gun, takes it up, and stands still. "Well," said I to him,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
279
"Friday, what will you do now? Why don't you shoot him?
"No 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 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 upon
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 him-
self 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 ran much in my head; and, in-
deed, except the noise I once heard on the shore of Africa, of
which I have said something already, I never heard anything
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 people, killed a great many of their sheep and horses,
and some people too. We had one dangerous place to pass,
which our guide told us, if there were any more wolves in the
country we should find them there; and this was a small plain,
surrounded with woods on every side, and a long narrow defile, or
}
280
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
t
Jane, 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 wood;
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 a wretched 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 business
upon our hands than we were aware of. We were not gone
half over the plain, but we began to hear the wolves howl in
the wood 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 experienced officers. 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 that then those who had fired at first
should not pretend to load their fusees again, but stand ready
with every one a pistol, for we were all armed with a fusee and
a pair of pistols each man; so we were, by this method, able to
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
281
fire six volleys, half of us at a time: however, at present we had
no necessity; 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 we could; and I found the notion not altogether mis-
taken; for upon our shout they began to retire, and turn about.
Then I 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 fusees, and put ourselves into a 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 troops of wolves, one on our left, one behind us, and one
on our front, so that we seemed to be surrounded with them:
however, as they did not fall upon us, we kept our way for-
ward, as fast as we could make our horses go, which, the way
being very rough, was only a good large trot. In this manner
we came in view of the entrance of a wood, through which we
were to pass, at the 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 a 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.
But here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
entrance where the horse came out, we found the carcass of
another horse and of two men, devoured by the ravenous crea-
tures; and one of the men was no doubt the same whom we
heard fire the gun, for there lay a gun just by him fired off;
but as to the man, his head and the 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
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 those 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 us with a growling kind of a noise, and
mounted the piece of timber, which, as I said, was our breast-
work, as if they were only rushing upon their prey; and this
fury of theirs, it seems, was principally occasioned by their see-
ing 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 indeed 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 our second volley of our fusees, 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 our pistols; and I believe in these four
firings we had 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 mny servant, not my man Friday,
for he was better employed; for, with the greatest dexterity
imaginable, he had charged my fusee and his own while we
were engaged; but as I said, I called my other man, and giving
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
283
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 but
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: 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 despatched
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 ter-

HACKSON?
rible, 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 imme-
diately upon near twenty lame ones, who 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 threescore of them; and
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 be-
fore the wolves and some bears had broke into the 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 so
swelled with the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go
no farther; so we were obliged to take a new guide there, and
go to Thoulouse, where we found a warm climate, a fruitful
pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves, or anything like.
them: but when we told our story at Thoulouse, they 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 much 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 which made the wolves so furious, seeing their
prey; and that, at other times, they are really afraid of a gun;
but the being excessive hungry, and raging on that account, the
eagerness to come at the horses had made them senseless of
danger; and that 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 other-
wise; and withal they told us, that at last, if we had stood all
together, and left our horses, they would have been so eager to
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
285
have devoured them, that we might have come off safe, especially
having our firearms 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 tra-
velled from Thoulouse to Paris, and without any considerable
stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover, the 14th of
January, after having had a severely cold season to travel in.
I was now come to the centre of my travels, and had in a
little time all iny new-discovered estate safe about me; the bills
of exchange which I brought with me having been very cur-
rently 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 everything, that I was perfectly
easy as to the security of my effects: 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 my 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; except 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.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 were 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 order 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
bills of exchange for 32,800 pieces-of-eight for the estate; re-
serving the payment of 100 moidores a year to him, the old
man, during his life, and 50 moidores afterwards to his son for
his life, which I had promised them, 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 adventure, 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 circumstances had concurred: but I was inured
to a wandering life, had no family, not 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 the
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
ao far prevailed with me, that, for almost seven years, she pre-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
287
vented 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 gentle-
man, 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 dis-
satisfaction, and had three children, two sons and one daughter;
but my wife dying, and my nephew coming home with good
success from a voyage to Spain, my inclination to go abroad, and
his importunity, prevailed, and engaged me to go in his ship as
a private trader to the East Indies: this was in the year 1694.
In this voyage I visited my new colony in the island, saw my
successors the Spaniards, had the whole story of their lives, and
of the villains I left there; how at first they insulted the poor
Spaniards, how they afterwards agreed, disagreed, united, se-
parated, and how at last the Spaniards were obliged to use
violence with them; how they were subjected to the Spaniards;
how honestly the Spaniards used them; a history, if it were
entered into, as full of variety and wonderful accidents as my
own part: particularly also as to their battles with the Carib-
beans, who landed several times upon the island, and as to the
improvement they had made upon the island itself; and how
five of them made an attempt upon the mainland, and brought
away eleven men and five women prisoners; by which, at my
coming, I found about twenty young children on the island.
Here I stayed about twenty days; left them supplies of all
necessary things, and particularly of arms, powder, shot, clothes,
tools, and two workmen, which I brought from England with
me; viz., a carpenter and a smith.
Besides this, I shared the lands into parts with them, reserved
to myself the property of the whole, but gave them such parts re-
spectively as they agreed on; and having settled all things with
them, and engaged them not to leave the place, I left them there.
288
LIFE OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
From thence I touched at the Brazils, from whence I sent a
bark, which I bought there, with more people, to the island; and
in it, besides other supplies, I sent seven women, being such as
I found proper for service, or for wives to such as would take
them. As to the Englishmen, I promised them to send them
some women from England, with a good cargo of necessaries,
if they would apply themselves to planting; which I afterwards
could not perform: the fellows proved very honest and diligent,
after they were mastered, and had their properties set apart for
them. I sent them also from the Brazils five cows, three of
them being big with calf, some sheep, and some hogs, which,
when I came again, were considerably increased.
But all these things, with an account how three hundred
Caribbees came and invaded them, and ruined their plantations,
and how they fought with that whole number twice, and were at
first defeated and one of them killed; but at last a storm destroy-
ing their enemies' canoes, they famished or destroyed almost
all the rest, and renewed and recovered the possession of their
plantation, and still lived upon the island.
All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some
new adventures of my own, for ten years more, I may perhaps
give a farther account of hereafter.

GCK
THE FARTHER ADVENTURES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE.
1
T

CHILLIAN &
THE FARTHER ADVENTURES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE, &c.
HAT homely proverb used on so many occasions in Eng-
land, 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 cir-
cumstances, 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
setting out into 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; so that I had
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 plantation in the island, and the
colony I left there, run in my head continually. 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 discourses, that it made my conversation
tiresome; for I could talk of nothing else, all my discourse run
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
293
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 oftentimes 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 provisions they had laid up, on purpose to distress and starve
them; things that I had never heard of, and that indeed were
never all of them true in fact; but it was so warm in my ima-
gination, 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 Spaniards 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 very much of it true, I say. I own, that this
dream had nothing in it literally and specifically true; but the
general part was so true, the base 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.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
But to return to my story; in this kind of temper I had 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 chil-
dren. 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 obstruc-
tion; for if I thought fit, and resolved to go-here she found
me very intent upon her words, and that
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 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,
"rather than I will be the only hindrance, I will go with you;
for though I think it a most 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 is no resisting it; and if Heaven makes it your duty
to go, He will also make it mine to go with you, or otherwise
dispose of me, that I may not obstruct it.”
<<
This affectionate behaviour of my wife's brought me a little
out of the vapours, and I began to consider what I was doing; I
corrected my wandering 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 ROBINSON CRUSOE.
295
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 an impulse from Heaven, and that it should be my duty
to go, I had no notion of that; so after many of these cogita-
tions, 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 parti-
cularly, 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 anything of moment immediately before me.
To this purpose I bought a little farm in the county of Bed-
ford, and resolved to remove myself thither. I had a little con-
venient house upon it, and the land about it I found was capable
of great improvement, and that it was many ways suited to my
inclination, which delighted in cultivating, managing, planting,
and improving of land; and particularly being an inland county,
I was removed from conversing among ships, sailors, and things
relating to the remote parts of 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 setting seriously 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, &c.; and I lived, as I thought, the most 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 life, as to this world.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
T
Now I thought indeed, that I enjoyed that middle state of life
which my father so earnestly recommended 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 pain, and youth no snare.
But in the middle of all this felicity, one blow from unfore-
seen Providence unhinged me at once; and not only made a
breach upon me, inevitable and incurable, but drove me, by its
consequences, into a deep relapse into the wandering disposi-
tion; which, as I may say, being born in my very blood, soon
recovered its hold of me, and, like the returns of a violent dis-
temper, 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 enter-
prises, 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 in-
structions, 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 there; and as much alone,
except as to the assistance of servants, as I was in my island. I
knew neither what to do, or what not to do; I saw the world
busy around me, one part labouring for bread, and the other
squandering in vile excesses or empty pleasures, equally miser-
able, because the end they proposed still fled from them; for
the men of pleasure every day surfeited of their vice, and heaped
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
297
•
up work for sorrow and repentance, and the men of labour spent
their strength in daily strugglings 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 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 to search farther than human enjoyments for a full
felicity, and that there 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 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 run
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 I was 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's 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 circumstances 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 idleness is the very dregs
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
of life;" and indeed I thought I was much more suitably em-
ployed when I was twenty-six days a making me a deal board.
It was now the beginning of the year 1693, when my nephew,
whom, as I have 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, 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 wander-
ing 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 revolv-
ing every part of my circumstances in my mind, come to this
resolution, viz., 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 awhile at his words, and looking steadily at him,
"What devil," said I, "sent you of this unlucky errand?"
My nephew stared, as if he had been frighted at first; but per-
ceiving 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
299
colony there, where you once reigned with more felicity than
most of your brother monarchs in the world.”
(C
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 re-
He told me, it would not be possible to do so; that
the merchants would never allow 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, sir, if I should mis-
carry," said he, "and not return at all, then you would be just
reduced to the condition you were in before."
turn?"
This was yery 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 carpenters, 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 nobody that concerned themselves 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 consider my
years, my easy circumstances, and the needless hazards 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 for my absence, and providing for
the education of my children.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
i
In order to this I made my will, and settled the estate I had
in such a manner for my children, and placed it in such hands,
that I was perfectly easy and satisfied they would have justice
done them, whatever might befall me; and for their education,
I left it wholly to my widow, and 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 under-
stood 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 proposed to
place there as inhabitants, or at least to set on work there upon
my own account while I stayed, and either to leave them there,
or carry them forward, as they should appear willing; particu-
larly, I carried two carpenters, a smith, and a very handy, in-
genious 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 anything 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 quanity 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
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301
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,
&c., besides near a hundred pounds more in iron-work, 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 fusees,
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 pro-
viding for, I carried an 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 occa-
sion; that when we came there we might build a fort, and man
it against all sorts of enemies: and indeed I at first thought
there would be need enough for it all, and much more, if we
hoped to maintain our possession of the island, as shall be seen
in the course of that 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 inter-
rupt 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; and I, who
had never made but one voyage, viz., my first voyage to Guinea,
in which I might be said to come back again as the voyage was
at first designed, began to think the same ill fate still attended
me; and that I was born to be never 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 exceeding cheap, and in
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1
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 ashore in my island; but we
found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.
We set out 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 very great light, and found that there was some very
terrible fire at a distance. 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 W.N.W. Upon this we concluded
it must be some ship on fire at sea; and as by our hearing the
noise of guns just before, we concluded it could not be far off,
we stood directly towards it, and 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 anything but the light for a while; in about half an
hour's sailing, the wind being fair for us, though not much of
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
303
it, and the weather clearing up a little, we could plainly discern
that 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 acquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recol-
lected my former circumstances, and in what condition I was in
when taken up by the Portugal 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 of 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, that is to say, in a few minutes,
all the fire was out, that is to say, the rest of the ship sunk.
This was terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake
of the poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all de-
stroyed 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.
We immediately spread our antient, 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
little more than half an hour we came up with them, and in a
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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 put out: but they soon found that some
sparks of the first fire had gotten into some part of the ship, so
difficult to come at, that they could not effectually 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 skiff, 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 possi-
bility, that some ship might happen to be at sea, and might take
them in. They had sails, oars, and a compass; and were pre-
paring to make the best of their way to Newfoundland, the
wind blowing pretty fair; for it blew an easy gale at S.E. by
E. 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
contrary 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
305
they were 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, viz., that there was a ship at hand for their help.
It was upon hearing these guns, that they took down their
masts and sails; and the sound coming from the windward, they
resolved to lie by till morning. Some time after this, hearing
no more guns, they fired three muskets, one a considerable while

Gia
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 the 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 de-
U
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}
livered people run into, to express the joy of their souls at so
unexpected a deliverance; grief and fear are easily described;
sighs, tears, groans, and a very few motions of the 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
downright lunatic; some ran about the ship stamping with their
feet, others wringing their hands; some were dancing, some sing-
ing, 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 it was but a very
few who were composed and serious in their joy.
Perhaps also the case may have some addition to it, from the
particular 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 philosopher enough 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 sur-
prise of the master and his two companions, whom I delivered
from the villains that set them on shore in the island, came a
little way towards it; but nothing was to compare to this, either
that I saw in Friday, or anywhere else in my life.
It is farther observable, that these extravagances did not show
themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in diffe-
rent 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 con-
founded, should the next minute be dancing and hallooing like
an antic; and the next moment be tearing his hair, or pulling
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309
his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like a
madman; a few moments after that, we should have him all
in 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 im-
mediately 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 mind, and this again put him into an
ecstasy of joy; his spirits whirled about faster than the vessels
could convey them; the blood grew hot and feverish; 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 passions, and was really an example of a serious well-
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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 dis-
turbed him, really thinking he had been in a swoon: but he
spake 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 affection, 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 it 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
so 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, as 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.
We were something disordered by these extravagances among
our new guests for the first day; but when they had been re-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
309
tired, lodgings provided for them as well as our ship would
allow, and they had slept heartily, as most of them did, 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 con-
sult 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 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 passage to France.
My nephew was for accepting their money at first word, and
to consider 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 Portugal captain that took me up
at sea had served me so, and took all I had for my deliverance,
I must have starved, or have been as much a slave at the Brazils
as I had been in 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 then kill them ourselves;
save them from drowning and abandon them to starving: and
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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
East Indies; and though we were driven out of our course to
the westward a very great way, which perhaps was directed by
Heaven on purpose 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
the way of Brazil; and all I knew he could do for them was,
to put ourselves in the way of meeting with other ships home-
ward-bound from the West Indies, and get them passage, if
possible, to England 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 very
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 probable 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
therefore 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 set them on shore somewhere or other, for their
deliverance; so I consented that we would carry them to New-
foundland, if wind and weather would permit; and, if not, that
I would carry them to Martinico in the West Indies.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
311
The wind continued fresh easterly, but the weather pretty
good; and as it had blowed continually in the points between
N.E. and S.E. 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 long 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,
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, steer-
ing away S. and S. by E. for about twenty days together, some-
times little or no wind at all, when we met with another subject
for our humanity to work upon, almost as deplorable as that
before.
It was in the latitude of 27 degrees 5 minutes N. and the
19th day of March 1694-5, when we espied a sail, our course
S.E. and by S. 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 N.N.W. 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
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}
captain and chief mate were both gone on shore; so that beside
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 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 N.N.W., 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 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 sweetmeats they had at first, but
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, unhappily 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,
that they were in a deplorable condition; "Nay," says he, "I
believe they are dead, for I have heard nothing of them for
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
313
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 reserved nothing from the
men, and went share and share alike with them in every bit
they ate.
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 the
men; I ordered victuals to be given them, and the poor creatures
rather devoured than ate it; they were so exceeding hungry,
that they were in a manner ravenous, and had no command of
themselves; and two of them ate 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
creatures in the great cabin; viz. 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,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
their own extremities being so great; by which I understood,
that they had really given them no food at all; and that there-
fore 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 taking it to eat raw, or taking it out
of the pot before it was well boiled, and then to give every man
but a very 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 refresh-
ment was proper; and the surgeon gave him 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, 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 man he placed there, after using all possible per-
suasion 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
315
for their own safety that he was obliged to give them but little
at a time. But it was all in vain, and had I not come on board,
and their own commander and officers with me, and with good
words, and some threats also of giving them no more, I believe
they would have broke into the cook-room by force, and tore
the meat out of the furnace; for words are indeed of 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 affectionately for her son, that at last she entirely
sunk 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, be-
tween 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, endeavoured to get some of the broth into her mouth;
and, as he said, got 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 affec-
tionate mother's life, was not so far gone; yet he lay in a cabin-
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 an apoplexy, 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 for 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 hands as to her senses, for she was little less than dis-
tracted 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
to 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 a 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, a barrel of pork, two hogsheads of biscuit, and a
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
317
proportion of peas, fiour, and what other things we could spare;
and taking three casks of sugar, some rum, 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
sustenance to the poor helpless widow, that might have pre-
served her life, though it had been but just to keep her alive.
But 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 circumstances, almost, as those we found them in;
that is to say, starving in the world. He said he 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 where 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 himself to go, as soon as he came to Bristol,
to one Mr. Rogers, 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 probable, lost at sea, being
in so disabled a condition, and so far from any land, that I am
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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 we met with her.
I was now in the latitude of 19 deg. 32 min., 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 inci-
dents of wind, weather, currents, &c., 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 landmark, I did not
know it when I saw it, or know whether I saw it or no.
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 mistake before, viz., 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 one 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 Spaniards, and thought they had lived there; but
speaking with them, 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 10
and II degrees.
But at last 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
319
their very good will; at length I came fair on the south side of
my island, and I presently knew the very countenance of the
place; so I brought the ship safe to an anchor broadside with
the little creek where was my old habitation.
CC
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 plen-
tifully. "What is the matter, Friday?" says 1; are you
troubled because you may see your father?
"No, no,” says
(C
CC
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," says I, " Friday, you
don't know: but shall we see any one 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 that we were friends; and in about half a quarter of an
hour after, we perceived a smoke 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 flag of truce, I went directly on
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 of 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 lied
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
lied 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 run 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 he would
come to fetch something or other for him to the boat, either a
lump of sugar, or a dram, a biscuit, or something or other that
was good. In the afternoon his frolics ran another way; for
then he would set the old man down upon the ground, and
dance about him, and make a thousand antic postures and ges-
tures; and all the while he did this he would be talking to him,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
321
and telling him one story or another of his travels, and of what
had happened to him abroad, to divert him. In short, if the same
filial affection was to be found in Christians to their parents in
our parts of the world, one would be tempted to say there
would hardly 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, ast
I said, I knew very well, was he whose life I had 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,
1,
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 a 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
X
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
I would walk to my old habitation, where he would give me
possession of my own house again, and where I should see they
had made but mean improvements; 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 inaccessible, except by such windings and blind
ways as they themselves only who made them could find.
İ 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 me 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 away 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.
""
"C
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 was so small. And," says he,
"had they been strong enough, we had been all long ago in
purgatory; and with that he crossed himself on 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 sub-
jects, who would not be content with being moderately our
masters, but would be our murderers." 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
everything first, and left the others in a state of subjection, as
they deserved; but if they had reduced them to it, I was very
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
323
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 gene-
men who owe their lives to you; and then turning to them,
and pointing to me, he let them know who I was; upon
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 ambassadors 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 very 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 shall 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.
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 in which the persons were of whom I am to speak. And
first it is necessary to repeat, that I had sent away Friday's
father and the Spaniard, the two whose lives I had rescued
324
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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
companions 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 afterward 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 other-
wise 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 the way, they having very
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 cap-
tain 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; but 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
astonishment, they said, was somewhat 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
immediately prepared to come away with him.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
325
Their first business was to get canoes; and in this they
were obliged not to stick so much upon 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 bag-
gage, neither clothes, or provisions, or anything 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, un-
luckily for them, I had the occasion offered for my escape, as I
mentioned in my other part, and to get off from the island;
leaving three of the most impudent, hardened, ungoverned, dis-
agreeable villains behind me that any man could desire to meet
with, to the poor Spaniards' great grief and disappointment, 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 particular methods 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, everything I
did; all this being written down, they gave to the Spaniards,
two of whom understood English well enough; nor did they
refuse to accommodate the Spaniards with everything else, for
they agreed very well for sometime; 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
326
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
other but have let 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 themselves, and would not let
others eat neither; the differences, nevertheless, 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 in-
solence that can be imagined, without reason, without provoca-
tion, contrary to nature, and indeed to common sense; and
though, it is true, the 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 sup-
ply 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 have turned 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 into 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 gaol, 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
327
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 weapons; what powder or shot they
had we knew not; and had taken the ship's pinnace, which was
not yet haled up, and run away with her to their companions
in roguery on shore.
for
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 or any of the rest;
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, burnt all their household
stuff and furniture, and left them to shift without it; but having
no order, he let it all alone, left everything as they 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 nothing but industry and application would make them
live comfortably, 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.
Here they built them 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
328
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the peas which I had left them, they dug and planted, and en-
closed, 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 little time, yet it was enough to relieve
them, and find them with bread and 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 unnatural rogues, their own countrymen too, in mere hum-
our, 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,
damn 'em, they should build no houses upon their ground, un-
less they would pay them rent for them.
The two men thought they had jested at first, and asked them
to come in 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, if they were ground-
landlords, he hoped if they built tenements upon their land and
made improvements, they would, according to the custom of
landlords, grant them a long lease; and bid them go fetch
a scrivener to draw the 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 set 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,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
329
seeing the danger they were both in, ran in after him, and im-
mediately they came both out with their muskets; and the man
that was first struck at with the pole, knocked the fellow down
that had begun 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 at them, they stood together, and presenting
the other ends of their pieces to them, bade them stand off.
The other had firearms 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 so resolute, it brought them to a parley, and they
consented to take their wounded man with them, and be gone;
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 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
330
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 only putting themselves in a way to subsist
by their labour, and that it had cost them a great deal of pains
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
they should not plant or build upon 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
and be damn'd, 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! d-n them, they should
be servants, and work for them."
"But how can you expect
that of them?" says the Spaniard; "they are not bought with
your money; you have no right to make them servants.' The
Englishman answered, "The island was theirs, the governor
had given it to them, and no man had anything to do there but
themselves;" and with that swore by his Maker, that they
would go and burn all their new huts; they should build none
upon their land.
"Why, Seignior," says the Spaniard, "by the same rule, we
must be your servants too." "Ay," says the bold dog, "and
so you shall too, before we have done with you;" mixing two
or three G―d d-mme's in the proper intervals of his speech.
The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made him no answer.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
331
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 t'other brush with
them : we will demolish their castle, I'll 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 case was this: they
had resolved to stay till midnight, and so to take the two poor
men when they were asleep; and as they acknowledged after-
wards, intended 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 there and found the men gone, Atkins, who
it seems was the forwardest man, called out to his comrades,
'Ha! Jack, here's the nest; but d-n them, the birds have
flown." They mused awhile to think what should be the occa-
sion of their being gone 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 habita-
332
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
tion; they did not set fire indeed to anything, 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 tore all their little house-
hold-stuff in pieces, and threw everything about in such a
manner, that the poor men afterwards found some of their
things a mile off of their habitation.
When they had done this, they pulled up all the young trees
the poor men had planted; pulled up an enclosure they had
made to secure their cattle and their corn; and, in a word,
sacked and plundered everything, as completely as a horde 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 cer-
tainly 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 themselves 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 back 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 had 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 he to him, "And you, Seignior Jack Spaniard, shall
have the same sauce, if you do not mend your manners." The
Spaniard, who though a quiet, civil man, was as brave as a man
could be desired 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
333
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 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 country-
men, 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 killing 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 threatened them
all to make them their servants.
The rogues were now more capable to hear reason than to
act reason; and being refused their arms, they went raving
away, and raging like madmen, threatening what they would.
do, though they had no firearms: but the Spaniards, despising
their threatening, told them they should take care how they
offered any 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 would certainly be hanged. However, this was far
from cooling them; but away they went, raging and swearing
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
334
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
demolished and destroyed, as above, it will easily be supposed
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 disarmed them, made light of all their threatenings; but
the two Englishmen resolved to have their remedy against them,
what pains soever it cost to find them out.
But the Spaniards interposed here too, and told them that
as they had disarmed them, they could not consent that they
(the two) should pursue them with firearms, 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 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; upon this
condition we hope you will promise to use no violence with them,
other than in your defence.
CC
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 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 wander-
ing, and almost starved with hunger, having chiefly lived on
turtles' eggs all that while, came back to the grove; and find-
ing my Spaniard, who, as I have said, was the governor, 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 civilly,
but told them, they had acted so unnaturally by their country-
men, and so very grossly by them (the Spaniards), that they
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
335
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.
It may be guessed that they were very hard put to it; for it
seems, as they were to wait this half-hour for an answer, they
begged he would send them out some bread in the meantime;
which he did, and sent them at the same time a large piece of
goat's flesh, and a broiled parrot, which they ate very heartily,
for they were hungry enough.
After half an hour's consultation they were called in, and a
long debate had among 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 the 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 build their fellows' two
huts, one of the same, and the other of larger dimensions than
they were before; 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 everything in the same state as
they found it, as near as they could; for entirely it could not
be, the season for the corn, and the growth of the trees and
hedges, not being possible to be recovered.
Well, they submitted to all this, and as they had plenty of
provisions given them all the while, they grew very orderly, and
the whole society began to live pleasantly and agreeably together
again; only that these three fellows could never be persuaded
to work, I mean for themselves, except now and then a little,
just as they pleased; however, the Spaniards told them plainly,
that if they would but live sociably and friendly together, and
study in the whole the good of the plantation, they would be
content to work for them, and let them walk about and be as
idle as they pleased; and thus having lived pretty well together
for a month or two, the Spaniards gave them their arms again,
and gave them liberty to go abroad with them as before.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
It was not above a week after they had these arms, and went
abroad, but the ungrateful creatures began to be as insolent and
troublesome as before; but however, an accident happened pre-
sently upon this, which endangered the safety of them all; they
were obliged to lay by all private resentments, and look to the
preservation 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, as he told me the
story, only found his thoughts tumultuous; his mind ran upon
men fighting, and killing one another, but was broad awake,
and could not by any means get any sleep; in short, he lay a
great while; but growing more and more uneasy, he resolved
to rise as they lay, being so many of them, upon goat-skins,
laid thick upon such couches and pads as they made for them-
selves, not in hammocks and ship-beds, as I did, who was but
one; so they had little to do, when they were willing to rise,
but to get up upon their feet, and perhaps put on a coat, such
as it was, and their pumps, and they were ready for going any
way that their thoughts guided them.
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 starlight 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 anything.
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. CC
Say you so?" says the other Spaniard;
"such things are not to be slighted, I assure you; there is cer-
tainly some mischief working," says he, "near us;
near us;" and pre-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
337
sently 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 themselves, 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 satisfied our
spirits embodied have converse with, and receive intelligence
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 if we find nothing at all in it to justify the
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,
not 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 un-
concerned 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.
In all the discoveries I had made of the savages landing on
the island, it was my constant care to prevent them making the
least discovery of there being any inhabitant upon the place;
and when by any necessity they came to know it, they felt it
so effectually, that they that got away, were scarce able to give
any account of it, for we disappeared as soon as possible, nor did
ever any that had seen me, escape to tell any one else, except it
was the three savages in our last encounter, who jumped into
the boat, of whom I mentioned that I was afraid they should
go home, and bring more help.
Whether it was the consequence of the escape of those men,
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, either to have concealed them-
Y
338
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
selves, as not to have seen them at all; much less to have let
the savages have seen that there were any inhabitants in the
place; or 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
stood.
While it was dark indeed, they were well enough, and they
had opportunity enough, for some hours, to view them by the
light of the three fires they had made at a 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, first or last, 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 destroyed; so the first thing they resolved upon, was
to despatch three men away before it was light, viz., two Spa-
niards and one Englishman, to drive all the goats away to the
great valley where the cave was, and if need were, to drive
them into the very cave itself.
Could they have seen the savages all together in one body,
and at any 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
339
off from the other, and, as it appeared afterwards, were of two
different nations.
After having mused a great while on the course they should
take, and beaten their brains in considering their present circum-
stances, they resolved at last, while it was still dark, to send the
old savage, Friday's father, out as a spy, to learn if possible some-
thing concerning them, what they came for, and what they
intended to do. The old man readily undertook it, 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 in 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 day-
light began to appear; but he did not perceive that they had
any notion of anybody's being on the island but themselves.
He had hardly made an end of telling the story, when they
could perceive, by the unusual 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 be seen; he told them their
safety consisted in it, and that they had nothing to do but lie
still, and the savages would kill one another to their hands, and
then the rest would go away; and it was so to a tittle. But it
was impossible to prevail, especially 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, viz., they did not go openly just by their own dwelling,
but went farther into the woods, and placed themselves to
advantage, where they might securely see them manage the
fight, and, as they thought, not to be seen by them; but it
seems the savages did see them, as we shall find hereafter.
340
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
The battle was very fierce, and if I might believe the English-
men, one of them said he could perceive that some of them
were men of great bravery, of invincible spirits, and of great
policy in guiding the fight. The battle, they said, held two
hours before they could guess which party would be 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 for 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 possible 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, but 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 knowing 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, viz., 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
three fugitives; but sending three men out by the top of the
hill, ordered them to go round and come in behind them, sur-
prise 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, 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
afternoon, they also marched to their canoes. And thus the
Spaniards had their island again free to themselves, their fright
was over, and they saw no savages in several years after.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
341
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; some were killed with great
long arrows, some of which were found sticking in their bodies,
but most of them were killed with their great wooden swords,
sixteen or seventeen of which they found in the field of battle,
and as many bows, with a great many arrows. These swords
were strange great unwieldy things, and they must be very
strong men that used them; most of those men that were killed
with them had their heads mashed to pieces, as we may say, or,
as we call it in English, their brains knocked out, and several
their arms and legs broken; so that it is evident they fight with
inexpressible rage and fury. They found not one wounded man
that was not stone dead; for either they 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, even to them, if ever they
should 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. And they professed to me, that the thoughts of being
eaten up like beef or mutton, though it was supposed it was not
to be till they were dead, had something in it so horrible that it
nauseated their very stomachs, made them sick when they
thought of it, and filled their minds with such unusual terror,
that they were not themselves for some weeks after.
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 some time after this they fell
all into such measures, which brought them into a great 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
342
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
enough; but they did not take their measures with them as I did
by my man Friday, viz., to begin with them upon the principle
of having saved their lives, and then instruct 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,
for common 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, and manifestly to their advan-
tage, they should not rather remove their habitation, and plant
in some more proper place for their safety, and especially for
the security of their cattle and corn.
Upon this, after a long debate, it was concluded that they
would not remove their habitation, because that some time or
other they thought they might hear from their governor again,
meaning me; and if I should send any one to seek them, I
should be sure to direct them to that side, where if they should
find the place demolished they would conclude the savages had
killed us all, and we were gone, and so our 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 for 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 destroyed, the other might be saved; and one piece of
prudence they used, which it was very well they did; viz., that
they never trusted those three savages, which they had prisoners,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
343
with knowing anything 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 whither they carried also the two barrels of powder which
I had sent 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, or 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: to this pur-
pose, as I had planted trees, or rather thrust in stakes which in
time grew up to be trees, for some good distance before the
entrance into my apartment, they went on in the same manner,
and filled up the rest of that whole space of ground, from the
trees I had set quite down to the side of the creek, where, as I said,
I landed my floats, and even into the very ouze where the tide
flowed, not so much as leaving any place to land, or any sign
that there had been any landing thereabout. These stakes also
being of a wood very forward to grow, as I have noted formerly,
they took care to have generally very much larger and taller
than those which I had planted, and as they grew apace, so they
planted them so very thick and close together, that when they
had been three or four years grown there was no piercing with
the eye any considerable way into the plantation. And as for
that part which I had planted, the trees were grown as thick as
a man's thigh; and among them they placed so many other
short ones, and so thick, that, in a word, it stood like a palisado
a quarter of a mile thick, and it was next to impossible to
penetrate it but with a little army to cut it all down; for
a little dog could hardly get between the trees, they stood so
close.
But this was not all; for they did the same by all the ground
to the right hand, and to the left, and round even to the top of
the hill, leaving no way, not so much as for themselves to come
out, but by the ladder placed up to the side of the hill, and
then lifted up and placed again from the first stage up to the
34,4
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
top;
which ladder, when it was taken down, nothing but what
had wings or witchcraft to assist it could come at them.
This was excellently well contrived, nor was it less than what
they afterwards found occasion for; which served to convince
me, that as human prudence has the authority of Providence to
justify it, so it has, doubtless, the direction of Providence to set
it to work, and, would we listen carefully to the voice of it, I
am fully persuaded we might prevent many of the disasters
which our lives are now by our own negligence subjected to;
but this by the way.
I return to the story: They lived two years after this in per-
fect retirement, and had no more visits from the savages; they
had indeed an alarm given them one morning, which put them
into a great consternation: for some of the Spaniards being out
early one morning on the west side, or rather the end of the
island, which, by the way, was that end where I never went,
for fear of being discovered, they were surprised with 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 observation; but
they had the good luck to be mistaken, for wherever the savages
went, they did not land 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 bid him do,
and seemed a little untractable in his showing him, drew a
hatchet out of a frog-belt, in which he wore it by his side, and
fell upon 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, clapt in between him and the savage to
prevent the mischief.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
345
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 shovel which he had in his hand,
for they were all working in the field about their 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 firearms, or any other weapons but hatchets and
other tools, except this third Englishman; he had one of my

old rusty cutlasses, with which he made at the two last Spa-
niards, 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 mis-
chievous to the highest degree, and valued not what hurt they
did to any man; so that, in short, it was not safe to live with
them.
The Spaniard who was governor told them, in so many words,
346
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
that if they had been of his own country he would have hanged
them; for all laws and all governors were to preserve society,
and those who were dangerous to the society ought to be ex-
pelled 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 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
he gives an account how Will Atkins, one of the three, had
proposed to have all the five Englishmen join together, and
murder 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, "would 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
G—d d—mn him 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 will kill us? And what
would you get by killing us? And what must we do to pre-
vent your killing us? Must we kill you, or will you kill us?
Why will you put us to the necessity of this, Seignior Atkins?"
says the Spaniard very calmly and smiling.
Seignior Atkins was in such 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 at-
tempted to have killed the Spaniard in the middle of all the
company.
This harebrained carriage obliged them to consider seriously
what was to be done. The two Englishmen, and the Spaniard
who saved the poor savage, were of the opinion that they should
hang one of the three for an example to the rest; and that par-
ticularly it should be he that twice attempted to commit murder
with his hatchet; and indeed there was some reason to believe
he had done it, for the poor savage was in such a miserable con-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
347
dition with the wound he had received, that it was thought he
could not live.
But the governor Spaniard still said, no, it was an English-
man that had saved all their lives, and he would never consent
to put an Englishman to death though he had murdered half
of them ; nay, he said, if he had been killed himself by an Eng-
lishman, and had time left to speak, it should be that they should
pardon him.
This was so positively insisted on by the governor Spaniard,
that there was no gainsaying it; and as merciful counsels are
most apt to prevail, where they are so earnestly pressed, so they
all came into it; but then it was to be considered what should
be done to keep them from doing the mischief they designed;
for all agreed, governor and all, that means were to be used for
preserving the society from danger. After a long debate it was
agreed, first, that they should be disarmed, and not permitted to
have either 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 anything 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, and they would shoot them
wherever they could find them.
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
be 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
348
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
store; and that they should have tools given them for their
work in the fields; 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 of their fellow
Englishmen.
Thus they dismissed them the society, and turned them out
to shift for themselves. They went away sullen and refractory,
as neither contented to go away or to stay; but as there was no
remedy they went, pretending to go and choose a place where
they would settle themselves, to plant and live by themselves;
and some provisions were given them, but no weapons.
About four or five days after they came again for some
victuals, and gave the governor an account where they had
pitched their tents, and marked themselves out an habita-
tion and plantation: it was a very convenient place indeed, on
the remotest part of the island, N.E., much about the place
where I landed in my first voyage when I was driven out to
sea, the Lord knows whither, in my attempt to surround the
island.
Here they built themselves two handsome huts, and con-
trived them in a manner like my first habitation, being close
under the side of a hill, having some trees growing already on
three sides of it; so that by planting others it would be very
easily covered from the sight, unless narrowly searched for.
They desired some dry goat-skins for beds and covering, which
were given them; and upon their giving their words that they
would not disturb the rest, or injure any of their plantations,
they gave them hatchets, and what other tools they could spare;
some peas, barley, and rice, for sowing, and, in a word, any-
thing they wanted but arms and ammunition.
They lived in this separate condition about six months, and
had gotten in their first harvest, though the quantity was but
small, the parcel of land they had planted being but little; for
indeed having all their plantation to form, they had a great deal
of work upon their hands; and when they came to make
boards, and pots, and such things, they were quite out of their
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
349
element, and could make nothing of it; and when the rainy
season came on, for want of a cave in the earth, they could not
keep their grain dry, and it was in great danger of spoiling:
and this humbled them much; 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 :
but it was but a poor place at best compared to mine; and
especially as mine was then; for the Spaniards had greatly
enlarged it, and made several new apartments in it.
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
new associates began, it seems, to be weary of the laborious life
they led, and that without hope of bettering their circumstances;
and a whim took them that they would make a voyage to the
continent from whence the savages came, and would try if they
could not seize upon some prisoners among the natives there,
and bring them home, so as to make them do the laborious part
of their work for them.
The project was not so preposterous if they had gone no
farther; but they did nothing and proposed nothing but had
either mischief in the design or mischief in the event; and if 1
may give my opinion, they seemed to be under a blast from
Heaven; for if we will not allow a visible curse to pursue visible
crimes, how shall we reconcile the events of things with the
divine justice? It was certainly an apparent vengeance on their
crime of mutiny and piracy that brought them to the state they
were in; and as they showed not the least remorse for the
crime, but added new villanies to it, such as particularly the
piece of monstrous cruelty of wounding a poor slave because he
did not, or perhaps could not understand to do what he was
directed, and to wound him in such a manner as, no question,
made him a cripple all his life, and in a place where no surgeon
or medicine could be had for his cure; and what was still worse,
the murderous intent, or, to do justice to the crime, the inten-
350
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
tional murder, for such to be sure it was, as was afterwards the
formed design they all laid to murder the Spaniards in cold
blood, and in their sleep.
But I leave observing, and return to the story: 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 for their defence, they would go
over to the main, and seek their fortune, and so deliver them
from the trouble of supplying them with any other provisions.
The Spaniards were glad enough to be rid of them; but yet
very honestly represented to them the certain destruction they
were running into; told them they had suffered such hardships
upon that very spot, that they could, without any spirit of pro-
phecy, tell them that they would be starved or be murdered;
and bade them consider of it.
The men replied audaciously, they should be starved if they
stayed here, for they could not work, and would not work;
and they could not but be starved abroad; and if they were
murdered, there was an end of them, they had no wives or
children to cry after them; and, in short, insisted importunately
upon their demand, declaring that they would go, whether they
would give them any arms or no.
The Spaniards told them with great kindness, that if they
were resolved 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 firearms, having not enough for themselves,
yet they would let them have two muskets, a pistol, and a cut-
lass, and each man a hatchet, which they thought was sufficient
for them.
In a word, they accepted the offer, and having baked them
bread enough to serve them a month, and given them as much
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
351
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
carried 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's-skins dried,
which they had sewed or laced together; and away they went
merrily enough; the Spaniards called after them, "Buén
viáge;" and no man ever thought of seeing them any more.
The Spaniards were often saying to one another, and to the
two honest Englishmen who remained behind, how quietly and
comfortably they lived now those three turbulent fellows were
gone; as for their ever coming again, that was the remotest
thing from their thoughts that could be imagined; when, be-
hold, after twenty-two days absence, one of the Englishmen
being abroad upon his planting work, sees three strange men
coming towards him at a distance, two of them with guns upon
their shoulders.
Away runs the Englishman, as if he was bewitched, comes
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 a while,
says to him, "How do you mean, you cannot tell who? They
are savages, to be sure."-" No, 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, hal-
looed to them; they presently knew their voices, and so all the
wonder of that kind ceased. But now the admiration was
turned upon another question, viz., What could be the matter,
and what made them come back again?
352
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
It was not long before they brought the men in; and inquiring
where they had been, and what they had been doing, they gave
them a full account of their voyage in a few words, viz., 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 some-
where, 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 that they gave them several roots, and
some dried fish, and appeared very sociable: and the women,
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.
as
They continued here 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 themselves, they said, that
they never ate men or women, except only such as they took
in the wars; and then they owned that they made a great feast,
and ate their prisoners.
The Englishmen inquired when they had a feast of that kind,
and they told them about 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
353
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 seaport town to victual a ship.
As brutish and barbarous as these fellows were at home, their
stomachs turned at this sight, and they did not know what to
do; 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 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,
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.
The Englishmen were obliged to come away as soon as they
had them, or else they that gave them this noble present would
certainly have expected that they should have gone to work
with them, have killed two or three of them the next morning,
and perhaps have invited the donors to dinner.
But having taken their leave with all the respects and thanks
that could well pass between people, where, on either side,
they understood not one word they could say, they 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 communica-
tion with their prisoners, but it was impossible to make them
understand anything; 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 anything 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
2
354
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
more particularly, the party presently concluded it was to see
whether he or she was fattest and fittest to kill; nay, after they
had brought them quite over, and began to use them kindly
and treat them well, still they expected every day to make a
dinner or a 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 up to beg some victuals for them; they, the
Spaniards, and the other two 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, straight and fair limbs,
about thirty to thirty-five years of age, and five women; whereof
two might be from thirty to forty, two more not above four
or five and twenty, and the fifth, a tall, comely maiden, about
sixteen or seventeen. The women were well favoured, agree-
able 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 pleasant, agree-
able countenances, and of a very modest behaviour, especially
when they came afterwards to be clothed, and dressed, as they
called it, though the dress was very indifferent, it must be con-
fessed, of which hereafter.
The sight, you may be sure, was something uncouth to our
Spaniards, who were, to give them a just character, men of the
best behaviour, of the most calm, sedate tempers, and perfect
good humour that ever I met with; and, in particular, of the
most modesty, as will presently appear: I say the sight was
very uncouth, to see three naked men and five naked women,
all together bound, and in the most miserable circumstances
that human nature could be supposed to be, viz., to be expect,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
355
•
ing every moment to be dragged out, and have their brains
knocked out, and then to be eaten up like a calf that is killed
for a dainty.
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.
However, 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 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 discovered 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, in the next
place, 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 all fell a dancing; and presently one fell
to taking up this, and another that, anything 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 servants or as
women? One of the Englishmen answered very boldly and
readily, that they would use them as both.
To which the go-
vernor 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, viz., that you will all engage, that if
any of you take any of these women as a woman, or wife, he
shall take but one; and that, having taken one, none else shall
touch her; for though we cannot marry any of you, yet it is but
i
356
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
reasonable that while you stay here, the woman any of you
takes should be maintained by the man that takes her, and
should be his wife; I mean," says he,
says he, "while he continues
here; and that none else shall have anything to do with her."
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 of them answered, "No:"
some of them said they had wives in Spain; and the others did
not like women that were not Christians; 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 be short, the five Englishmen.
took them every one a wife; that is to say, a temporary 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 were
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 anything 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 naked 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
357
to expect assistance in as much as anything else, and she proved
the best wife of the parcel.
When the poor women saw themselves set in a row thus,
and fetched out one by one, the terrors of their condition re-
turned upon them again, and they firmly believed that they
were now a going to be devoured: accordingly, when the
English sailor came in and fetched out one of them, the rest
set up a most lamentable cry, and hung about her, and took
their leave of her with such agonies and such affection as would
have grieved the hardest heart in the world; nor was it possible
for the Englishmen to satisfy them that they were not to be
immediately murdered, till they fetched the old man, Friday's
father, who instantly let them know, that the five men who
had fetched them out one by one, had chosen them for their
wives.
When they had done this, and the fright the women were
in was a little over, 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; for those
they had already were crowded with their tools, household
stuff, and provisions. The three wicked ones had pitched far-
thest 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 providences
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, or 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 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.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
Another observation I must make, to the honour of a diligent
application on the one hand, and to the disgrace of a slothrul,
negligent, idle temper on the other, that when I came to the
place, and viewed the several improvements, plantings, and
management of the several little colonies, the two men had so
far out-gone the three, that there was no comparison; they had
indeed both of them as much ground laid out for corn as they
wanted; and the reason was, because, according to my rule,
nature dictated, that it was to no purpose to sow more corn
than they wanted; but the difference of the cultivation, of the
planting, of the fences, and indeed of everything else, was easy
to be seen at first view.
The two men had innumerable young trees planted about
their huts, that when you came to the place nothing was to be
seen but a wood; and though they had twice had their planta-
tion demolished, once by their own countrymen, and once by
the enemy, as shall be shown in its place, yet they had restored
all again, and everything was thriving and flourishing about
them they had grapes planted in order, and managed like a
vineyard, though they had themselves never seen anything of
that kind; and by their good ordering their vines, their grapes
were as good again as any of the others. They had also found
themselves out a retreat in the thickest part of the woods,
where, though there was not a natural cave, as I had found, yet
they made one with incessant labour of their hands, and where,
when the mischief which followed happened, they secured their
wives and children so as they could never be found; they
having, by sticking innumerable stakes and poles of the wood,
which, as I said, grew so easily, made the wood impassable except
in one place, where they climbed up to get over the outside part,
and then went in by ways of their own leaving.
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 pro-
fligate mind never left them, and that was their idleness. It
is true, they planted corn and made fences; but Solomon's
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
359
words were never better verified than in them: "I went by the
vineyard of the slothful, and it was all 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 success 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:
"That the diligent hand makes 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.
It is true, the wives of the three were very handy and cleanly
within doors; and having learnt the English ways of dressing
and cooking from one of the other Englishmen, who, as I said,
was a cook's mate on board the ship, they dressed their husbands'
victuals very nicely and well; whereas the other could not be
brought to understand it but then the husband, who, as I said,
had been cook's mate, did it himself; but as for the husbands
of the three wives, they loitered about, fetched turtles' eggs,
and caught fish and birds; in a word, anything but labour, and
they fared accordingly. The diligent lived well and comfort-
ably;
and the slothful lived hard and beggarly; and so I be-
lieve, generally speaking, it is all over the world.
.
But now I come to a scene different from all that had hap-
pened before, either to them or to me; and the original 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 feed-
ing upon their slaves; but that part was now so familiar to the
Spaniards, and to our men too, that they did not concern them-
selves about it as I did; but having been made sensible by their
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
experience, that their only business was to lie concealed, and
that, if they were not seen by any of the savages they would go
off again quietly when their business was done, having as yet.
not the least notion of there being any inhabitants in the island;
I say, having been made sensible of this, 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 inhabitants there, which was, in the end, the desola-
tion of almost the whole colony. 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 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; it was supposed they had either
been so gorged with their inhuman feast, that, like beasts, they
were asleep, and would not stir when the others went, or they
were wandered into the woods, and did not come back in time
to be taken in.
The Spaniards were greatly surprised at this sight, and per-
fectly at a loss what to do; the Spaniard governor, as it hap-
pened, was with them, and his advice was asked; but he pro-
fessed he knew not what to do; as for slaves, they had enough
already; and as to killing them, they were none of them in-
clined to that. The Spaniard governor told me they could not
think of shedding innocent blood: for as to them, the poor
creatures had done them no wrong, invaded none of their pro-
perty; and they thought they had no just quarrel against them
to take away their lives.
And here I must, in justice to these Spaniards, observe, that
let the accounts of Spanish cruelty in Mexico and Peru be what
they will, I never met with seventeen men, of any nation what-
soever, in any foreign country, who were so universally modest,
temperate, virtuous, so very good humoured, and so courteous
as these Spaniards; and, as to cruelty, they had nothing of it
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361
in their very nature; no inhumanity, no barbarity, no outrageous
passions, and yet all of them men of great courage and spirit.
Their temper and calmness had appeared in their bearing the
insufferable usage of the three Englishmen; and their justice.
and humanity appeared now in the case of the savages as above.
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 recollected 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 inhabitants 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. The poor fellows were
strangely frighted when they were seized upon and bound, and
afraid, like the women, that they should be murdered and eaten;
for it seems those people think all the world do as they do, eat-
ing men's flesh; but they were soon made easy as to that: and
away they carried them.
It was very happy for them that they did not carry them
home to their castle; I mean to my palace under the hill; but
they carried them first to the bower, where was the chief of
their country work; such as the keeping the goats, the planting
the corn, &c.; and afterwards they carried them to the habita-
tion 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 guard-
ing 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
362
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
account that there were people in the island, as also how few
and weak they were; for this savage, as I observed before, had
never been told, and it was very happy he had not, how many
they were, or where they lived, nor had he ever seen or heard
the fire of any of their guns, much less had they shown him any
other of their retired places, such as the cave in the valley, or the
new retreat which the two Englishmen had made, and the like.
The first testimony they had that this fellow had given intelli-
gence 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 sun-
rise, at a convenient place, about a mile from the habitation of
the two Englishmen, where this escaped man had been kept.
As the Spaniard governor said, had they been all there the
damage would not have been so much, for not a man of them
would have escaped; but the case differed now very much; for
two men to fifty were too much odds. The two men had the
happiness to discover them a league off, so that it was above an
hour before they landed, and as they landed about a mile from
their huts, it was some time before they could come at them.
Now having great reason to believe that they were betrayed,
the first thing they did was to bind the two slaves which were
left, and cause two of the three men whom they brought with
the women, who, it seems, proved very faithful to them, to lead
them with their two wives, and whatever they could carry
away with them, to their retired place in the woods, which I
have spoken of above, and there to bind the two fellows hand
and foot till they heard farther.
In the next place, seeing the savages were all come on shore,
and that they bent their course directly that way, they opened
the fences where their milch-goats were kept, and drove them
all out, leaving their goats to straggle into the wood, whither
they pleased; that the savages might think they were all bred
wild; but the rogue who came with them was too cunning for
that, and gave them an account of it all, for they went directly
to the place.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
363
When the poor frighted men had secured their wives and
goods, they sent the other slave 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 sent, keeping at a
distance; yet so that they might see, if possible, which way the
savages took.
They had not gone far but 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, to them irretrievable,
at least for sometime. They kept their station for a while, till
they found the savages, like wild beasts, spread themselves all over
the place, rummaging every way, and every place they could
think of, in search for prey, and in particular for the people, of
whom it now plainly appeared they had had intelligence.
The two Englishmen, seeing this, thinking themselves not
secure where they stood, as it was likely some of the wild people
might come that way, so they might come too many together,
thought it proper to make another retreat about half a mile
farther, 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 grown
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 there what might offer.
They had not stood there long, but two of the savages ap-
peared running directly that way, as if they had already had
notice where they stood, and were coming up to attack them;
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.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
The poor men were now in great perplexity, whether they
should stand and keep their posture, or fly; but after a very
short debate with themselves, they considered that if the savages
ranged the country thus before help came, they might, perhaps,
find out their retreat in the woods, then all would be lost; so
they resolved to stand them there; and if there were too many
to deal with, then they would get up to the top of the tree,
from whence they doubted not to defend themselves, fire ex-
cepted, as long as their ammunition lasted, though all the savages
that were landed, which were near fifty, were to attack them.
Having resolved upon this, they next considered whether
they should fire at the first two, or wait for the three, and so
take the middle party, by which the two and the five that
followed would be separated: and 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 confirmed them in
this resclution, 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 English-
men were there.-
Seeing them come so straight towards them, they resolved to
take them in a line as they came; and as they resolved to fire
but one at a time, perhaps the first shot might hit them all
three; to which purpose, the man who was to fire put three
or four small bullets into his piece, and having a fair loophole,
as it were, from a broken hole in the tree, he took a sure aim,
without being seen, waiting till they were within about thirty
yards of the tree, so that he could not miss.
While they were thus waiting, and the savages came on, they
plainly saw, that one of the three was the runaway savage that
had escaped from them, and they both knew him distinctly,
and resolved that, if possible, he should not escape, though they
should both fire; so 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, in
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
365
a word he fired, and hit two of them directly; the foremost
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 dreadfully frighted, though not much
hurt, sat down upon the ground, screaming and yelling in a
hideous manner.
The five that were behind, more frighted with the noise than
sensible of the danger, stood still at first; for the woods made
the sound a thousand times bigger than it really was; the
echoes rattling from one side to another, and the fowls rising
from all parts, screaming and making, every sort, a several kind
of noise, according to their kind; just as it was, when I fired
the first gun that, perhaps, was ever shot off in that place since
it was an island.
However, all being silent again, and they not knowing what
the matter was, came on unconcerned, till they came to the
place where their companions lay, in a condition miserable
enough; 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, talking, and, as may be sup-
posed, inquiring of him how he came to be hurt; and who, it
is very rational to believe, told them that a flash of fire first,
and immediately after that, thunder from their gods, had killed
those two, and wounded him. This, I say, is rational; for
nothing is more certain than that, as they saw no man near
them, so they had never heard a gun in all their lives, or so
much as heard of a gun; neither knew they anything of killing
or wounding at a distance with fire and bullets; if they had,
one might reasonably believe they would not have stood so
unconcerned in viewing the fate of their fellows without some
apprehension of their own.
Our two men, though, as they confessed to me, it grieved
them to be obliged to kill so many poor creatures, who at the
same time had no notion of their danger; yet, having them all
thus in their power, and the first having loaded his piece again,
366
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
?
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.
The belief that the savages were all killed 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 run-
away 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
moans to them by gestures and signs for his life, but could not
say one word to them that they could understand.
However they signed 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 great chance in his pocket, tied his feet
fast together, and his hands behind him, and there they left
him; and with what speed they could made after the other 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, which they were afraid of; and being satis-
fied with that, they went back to the tree where they had left
their prisoner, who as they supposed was delivered by his com-
rades ;
for he was gone, and the two pieces of rope-yarn with
which they had bound him, lay just at the foot of the tree.
7
They were now in as great a concern as before, not knowing
what course to take or how near the enemy might be, or in
what numbers; so they resolved to go away to the place where
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
367
their wives were, to see if all was well there, and to make them
easy, who were in fright enough to be sure; for though the
savages were their own country-folks, yet they were most ter-
ribly afraid of them, and perhaps the more, for the knowledge
they had of them.
When they came there, 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, as
before, unless the persons seeking it had been directed by those
that knew it, which these were not; they found, therefore,
everything very safe, only the women in a terrible fright.
While they were here they had the comfort to have seven of the
Spaniards come to their assistance: the other ten with their
servants, and old Friday, I mean Friday's father, were gone in
a body to defend their bower, and the corn and cattle that were
kept there, in case the savages should have roved over to that
side of the country; but they did not spread so far. With the
seven Spaniards came one of the three 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, where, however, they were obliged to bind
him again, as they had done the two others, who were left
when the third run away.
The prisoners began now to be a burthen to them: and they
were so afraid of their escaping, that they were once resolving
to kill them all, believing they were under an absolute necessity
to do so for their own preservation: however, the Spaniard
governor would not consent to it; but ordered that they should
be sent out of the way to my old cave in the valley, and be kept
there, with two Spaniards to guard them and give them food
for their sustenance; which was done; and they were bound
there hand and foot for that night.
When the Spaniards came, the two Englishmen were so
encouraged, that they could not satisfy themselves to stay any
longer there; but taking five of the Spaniards, and themselves,
368
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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; but neither could they here see any of the savages;
they then resolved, though with all possible caution, to go for-
ward towards their ruined plantation; but a little before they
came thither, coming in sight of the seashore, they saw plainly
the savages all embarking again in their canoes, in order to be
gone.
They seemed sorry at first that there was no way to come at
them to give them a parting blow; but upon the whole were
very well satisfied to be rid of them.
The poor Englishmen being now twice ruined, and all their
improvements destroyed, the rest all agreed to come and help
them to rebuild, and to assist them with needful supplies.
Their three countrymen, who were not yet noted for having
the least inclination to do any good, yet, as soon as they heard
of it, for they, living remote eastward, knew nothing of the
matter till all was over, came and offered their help and assist-
ance, and did very friendly work for several days to restore their
habitations and make necessaries for them, and thus in a little
time they were set upon their legs again.
About two days after this they had the farther satisfaction of
seeing three of the savages' canoes come driving on shore, and
at some distance from them, two drowned men; by which they
had reason to believe that they had met with a storm at sea,
which had overset some of them, for it blew very hard the
night after they went off.
However, as some might miscarry, so on the other hand
enough of them escaped to inform the rest, as well of what they
had done, as of what had happened to them; and to whet them
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
369
on to another enterprise of the same nature, which they, it
seems, resolved to attempt, with sufficient force to carry all
before them; for except what the first man had told them of
inhabitants, they could say little to it of their own knowledge;
for they never saw one man, and the fellow being killed that
had affirmed it, they had no other witness to confirm it to
them.
It was five or six months after this before they heard any
more of the savages, in which time our men were in hopes they
had not forgot their former bad luck, or had given over the
hopes of better; 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.
As they came on shore in the evening, and at the eastern-
most side of the island, our men had that night to consult and
consider what to do; and in the first place, knowing that their
being entirely concealed was their only safety before, and would
much more be so now, while the number of their enemies was
so great, they therefore resolved, first of all, to take down the
huts which were built for the two Englishmen, and drive away
their goats to the old cave; because they supposed the savages
would go directly thither as soon as it was day, to play the old
game over again, though they did not now land within two
leagues of it.
In the next place, they drove away all the flock of goats they
had at the old bower, as I called it, which belonged to the
Spaniards; and, in short, left as little appearance of inhabitants
anywhere as possible; and the next morning early they posted
themselves with all their force at the plantation of the two men,
waiting for their coming. As they guessed, so it happened:
these new invaders, leaving their canoes, at the east end of the
island, came ranging along the shore, directly towards the place,
to the number of two hundred and fifty, as near as our men
could judge. Our army was but small indeed; but that which
2 A
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 faithful.
3 Other slaves who lived with the Spaniards.
II Muskets.
5 Pistols.
To arm these they had:
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.
To their slaves they did not give either musket or fusee, but
they had every one an 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, which I have spoken of, where the Indians
fought with one another; and the women had hatchets too.
The Spaniard governor, whom I have described so often,
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 advan-
tage 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, as nimbly
as he could, round a part of the wood, and so come in behind
the Spaniards where they stood, having a thicket of trees also
before them.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
371
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 orders three of his men to fire, having
loaded their muskets with six or seven bullets apiece, about as
big as large pistol-bullets. How many they killed or wounded
they knew not; but the consternation and surprise was inex-
pressible among the savages; they 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 immediately, as
soon as they had fired, as they were ordered to do; 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; viz., that
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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; some of the savages who
were at a distance, spying them, came upon them behind; and
though Atkins and his men fired at them also, two or three
times, and killed above twenty, retiring as fast as they could,
yet they wounded Atkins himself, and killed one of his fellow
Englishmen with their arrows, as they did afterwards one Spa-
niard, and one of the Indian slaves who came with the women.
This slave was a most gallant fellow, and fought most desper-
ately, killing five of them with his own hand, having no weapon.
but one of the armed staves and a hatchet.
Our men being thus hard laid at, Atkins wounded, and two
other men killed, retreated to a rising ground in the wood; and
the Spaniards, after firing three volleys upon them, retreated
also; for their number was so great, and they were so desperate,
that though above fifty of them were killed, and more than so
many wounded, yet they came on in the teeth of our men, fear-
less of danger, and shot their arrows like a cloud; and it was
observed that their wounded men, who were not quite disabled,
were made outrageous by their wounds, and fought like mad-
men.
When our men retreated, they left the Spaniard and the
Englishman that were killed behind them; and the savages,
when they came up to them, killed them over again in a
wretched manner, breaking their arms, legs, and heads, with
their clubs and wooden swords, like true savages. But finding
our men were gone, they did not seem to pursue them, but
drew themselves up in a kind of a ring, which is, it seems, their
custom, and shouted twice in token of their victory; after which,
they had the mortification to see several of their wounded men
fall, dying with the mere loss of blood.
The Spaniard governor having drawn his little body up
together upon a rising ground, Atkins, though he was wounded,
would have had him march, and charge them again all toge-
ther at once: but the Spaniard replied, "Seignior Atkins, you
see how their wounded men fight; let them alone till morning;
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
373
all these wounded men will be stiff and sore with their wounds,
and faint with the loss of blood, 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 behaved gallantly, and done your
part; we will fight for you, if you cannot come on; but I think
it best 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, especially if
they could come to give them but one volley before they were
discovered. This they had a fair opportunity to do; for 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 then 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 abun-
dance 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 altogether. They had in each body eight
persons; that is to say, twenty-four, whereof were twenty-two
men, and the two women, who, by the way, fought desperately.
They divided the firearms equally in each party, and so of
the halberts and staves. They would have had the women
keep back; but they said they were resolved to die with their
husbands. Having thus formed their little army, they marched
out from among the trees, and came up to the teeth of the
enemy, shouting and hallooing as loud as they could. The
savages stood all together, but were in the utmost confusion,
hearing the noise of our men shouting from three quarters
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
together; they would have fought if they had seen us; and as
soon as we came near enough to be seen, some arrows were
shot, and poor old Friday was wounded, though not danger-
ously. 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 as we did not
trouble ourselves much to pursue them, they got all together
to the sea-side, where they landed, and where their canoes lay.
But their disaster was not at an end yet, for it blew a terrible
storm of wind that evening from the sea-ward, so that it was
impossible for them to put off; nay, the storm continuing all
night, when the tide came up their canoes were most of them
driven by the surge of the sea so high upon the shore, that it
required infinite toil to get them off; and some of them were
even dashed to pieces against the beach, 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, and see what posture they were in. This
necessarily led them over the place where the fight had been,
and where they found several of the poor creatures not quite
dead, and yet past recovering life; a sight disagreeable enough
to generous minds; for a truly great man, though obliged by
the law of battle to destroy his enemy, takes no delight in his
misery.
However, there was no need to give any order in this case;
for their own savages, who were their servants, despatched those
poor creatures with their hatchets.
At length they came in view of the place where the more
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
375
miserable remains of the savages' army lay, where there appeared
about an hundred still: their posture was generally sitting upon
the ground, with their knees up towards their mouth, and the
head put between the two hands, leaning down upon the knees.
When our men came within two musket-shot of them, 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, viz., 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 up upon their
feet in the greatest consternation imaginable; and as our men ad-
vanced swiftly towards them, they all ran screaming and yawling
away, with a kind of a howling noise, which our men did not
understand, and had never heard before; and thus they ran
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 they did not then con-
sider, that this might probably have been the occasion of their
coming again in such multitudes as not to be resisted; or, at
least, to come so many, and so often, as would quite desolate
the island and starve them. Will Atkins, therefore, who,
notwithstanding his wound, kept always with them, proved the
best counsellor in this case. His advice was, to take the advan-
tage 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.
They consulted long about this, and some were against it, for
fear of making the wretches fly to the woods, and live there
desperate; and so they should have them to hunt like wild
beasts, be afraid to stir about their business, and have their
plantations continually rifled, all their tame goats destroyed,
and, in short, be reduced to a life of continual distress.
Will Atkins told them they had better have to do with an
hundred men than with an hundred nations; that as they must
destroy their boats, so they must destroy the men, or be all of
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 not burn. How-
ever, 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 running out of
the woods, and coming as near as they could to our men, kneeled
down and cried, Oa, Oa, Waramokoa, and some other words
of their language, which none of the others understood anything
of; but as they made pitiful gestures and strange noises, it was
easy to understand they begged to have their boats spared, and
that they would be gone, and never come there again.
But our men were now satisfied, that they had no way to
preserve themselves or to save their colony, but effectually to
prevent any of these people from ever going home again; de-
pending upon this, that if ever so much as one of them got back
into their country to tell the story, the colony was undone; so
that letting them know that they should not have any mercy,
they fell to work with their canoes, and destroyed 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; so that, in a word, our men did not
really know at first what to do with them.
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 it is true they had driven away their cattle, and the
Indians did not find out their main retreat, I mean my old
castle at the hill, nor the cave in the valley; 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 to our men an inestimable damage, though to themselves
not one farthing's worth of service,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
377
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
best was, they had no weapons; for though they had bows they
had no arrows left, nor any materials to make any, nor had they
any edged tools or weapon among them.
The extremity and distress they were reduced to was great,
and indeed deplorable, but at the same time our men were also
brought to very hard circumstances by them; for though their
retreats were preserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and
their harvest spoiled; and what to do, or which way to turn
themselves, they knew not; the only refuge they had now was
the stock of cattle they had in the valley by the cave, and some
little corn which grew there; and the plantation of the three
Englishmen, William Atkins and his comrades, who were now
reduced to two, one of them being killed by an arrow, which
struck him on the side of his head, just under the temples, so
that he never spoke more; and it was very remarkable, that
this was the same barbarous fellow who cut the poor savage
slave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended to have
murdered all the Spaniards.
I looked upon their case to have been worse at this time than
mine was at any time after I first discovered the grains of barley
and rice, and got into the method of planting and raising my
corn, and my tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, an
hundred wolves upon the island, which would devour every-
thing they could come at, yet could very hardly be come at
themselves.
The first thing they concluded when they saw what their cir-
cumstances 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 their number;
and if they could at last tame them, and bring them to any-
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
thing, they would give them corn, and teach them how to plant,
and live upon their daily labour.
In order to this, they so 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, yet 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 or wounding some of them, they
kept up in the woods and hollow places so much, that it re-
duced them to the utmost misery for want of food; and many
were afterwards found dead in the woods, without 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 a
most gentlemanly, generous minded man as ever I met with in
my life; and he proposed, if possible, to take one of them alive,
and bring him to understand what they 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 depended
upon, to save their lives, and do us no spoil.
It was some while before any of them could be taken; but
being weak and half-starved, one of them was at last surprised,
and made a prisoner; he was sullen at first, and would neither
eat or drink; but finding himself kindly used, and victuals given
him, and no violence offered him, he at last grew tractable, and
came to himself.
They brought old Friday to him, who talked often with him,
and told him how kind the others would be to them all: that
they would not only save their lives, but would give them a part
of the island to live in, provided they would give satisfaction
that they would keep in their own bounds, and not come beyond
them, to injure or prejudice others; and that they should have
corn given them, to plant and make it grow for their bread, and
some bread given them for their present subsistence; and old
Friday bade the fellow go and talk with the rest of his country-
men, and see what they said to it, assuring them that if they
did not agree immediately they should be all destroyed.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
379
The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in
number to about thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the
first offer, and begged to have some food given them; upon
which twelve Spaniards and two Englishmen, well armed, with
three Indian slaves, and old Friday, marched to the place where
they were; the three Indian slaves carried them a large quantity
of bread, 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, ate the provisions 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 both to plant corn, make bread, breed
tame goats, and milk them; they wanted nothing but wives,
and they soon would have been a nation: they were confined
to a neck of land surrounded with high rocks behind them, and
lying plain towards the sea before them, on the south-east
corner of the island; they had land enough, and it was very
good and fruitful; they had a piece of land about a mile and a
half broad, three or four miles in length.
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 ever were heard of.
After this the colony enjoyed a perfect tranquillity with respect
to the savages, till I came to revisit them, which was above two
Not but that now and then some canoes of savages
years.
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 inquiry after their countrymen; and if they had, it
would have been very hard to have found them out.
Thus, I think, I have given a full account of all that happened
to them to my return, at least that was worth notice. The
Indians, or savages, were wonderfully civilised by them, and
they frequently went among them; but forbid, on pain of
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
death, any one of the Indians coming to them, because they
would not have their settlement betrayed again.
One thing was very remarkable, viz., that they taught the
savages to make wickerwork, or baskets; but they soon outdid
their masters; for they made abundance of most ingenious.
things in wickerwork; particularly all sorts of baskets, sieves,
bird-cages, cupboards, &c., as also chairs to sit on, stools, beds,
couches and abundance of other things, being very ingenious at
such work when they were once put in the way of it.
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 hand-
somely; 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 exceeding 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 English-
men'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 be-
come a very industrious, necessary, and sober fellow, he had
made himself such a tent of basket-work as I believe was never
seen. It was one hundred and twenty paces round on the out-
side, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close worked
as a basket, in pannels or squares of thirty-two in number, and
very strong, standing about seven feet high: in the middle was
another not above twenty-two paces round, but built stronger,
being eight-square in its form, and in the eight corners stood
eight very strong posts, round the top of which he laid strong
pieces, pinned together with wooden pins, from which he raised
a pyramid for the roof of eight rafters, very handsome I assure
you, and joined together very well, though he had no nails, and
only a few iron spikes, which he made himself too, out of the
old iron that I had left there; and indeed this fellow showed
abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had no
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
381
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. But
to return to the house: after he had pitched the roof of his
innermost tent, he worked it up between the rafters with basket-
work, so firm, and thatched that over again so ingeniously with
rice-straw, and over that a large leaf of a tree, which covered
the top, that his house was as dry as if it had been tiled or slated.
Indeed he owned that the savages made the basket-work for him.
The outer circuit was covered, as a lean-to, all round this
inner apartment, and long rafters lay from the thirty-two
angles to the top posts of the inner house, being about twenty
feet distant; so that there was a space like a walk within the
outer wicker wall, and without the inner, near twenty feet
wide.
The inner place he partitioned off with the same wicker-work,
but much fairer, and divided it into six apartments, so that he
had six rooms on a floor, and out of every one of these there
was a door: first, into the entry, or coming into the main tent;
and another door into the space or walk that was round it; so,
that walk was also divided into six equal parts, which served
not only for retreat, but to store up any necessaries which the
family had occasion for. These six spaces not taking up the
whole circumference, what other apartments the outer circle
had, were thus ordered: as soon as you were in at the door of
the outer circle, you had a short passage straight before you to
the door of the inner house; but on either side was a wicker
partition, and a door in it, by which you went first into a large
room or store-house, twenty feet wide, and about thirty feet
long, and through that into another not quite so long: so that
in the outer circle were ten handsome rooms, six of which were
only to be come at through the apartments of the inner tent,
and served as closets or retiring rooms to the respective chambers
of the inner circle; and four large warehouses or barns, or what
you please to call them, which went in through one another,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
two on either hand of the passage that led through the outer
door to the inner tent.
Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never seen in the
world; nor an house or tent so neatly contrived, much less so
built. In this great beehive lived the three families; that is to
say, Will Atkins and his companion; the third was killed, but
his wife remained with three children; for she was, it seems,
big with child when he died, and the other two were not at all
backward to give the widow her full share of everything, I mean
as to their corn, milk, grapes, &c., and when they killed a kid, or
found a turtle on the shore; so that they all lived well enough,
though it was true, they were not so industrious as the other
two, as has been observed already.
One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz., that, as for
religion, I don't know that there was anything of that kind
among them; they pretty often indeed put one another in mind
that there was a God, by the very common method of seamen, viz.,
swearing 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 them-
selves, so they were utterly incapable of entering into any dis-
course with their wives about a God, or to talk anything to them
concerning religion.
The utmost of all the improvement 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. There were none of these
children above six years old when I came thither; for it was
not much above seven years that they had fetched these five
savage ladies over, but they had all been pretty fruitful, for they
had all children, more or less: I think the cook's mate's wife
was big of her sixth child; and 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
383
but to be well instructed in the Christian religion, and to be
legally married; both which were happily brought about after-
wards by my means, or at least in the consequence of my
coming among them.
Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and
pretty much of my five runagate Englishmen, I must say some-
thing 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 circum-
stances 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, had yet so abandoned themselves to despair, and so
sunk under the weight of their misfortunes, that they thought
of nothing but starving. One of them, a grave and very sen-
sible man, told me he was convinced they were in the wrong;
that it was not the part of wise men to give up themselves to
their misery, but always to take hold of the helps which reason
offered, as well for present support, as for future deliverance;
he told me that grief was the most senseless insignificant pas-
sion in the world, for that it regarded only things past, which
were generally impossible to be recalled or to be remedied, but
had no view to things to come, and had no share in anything
that looked like deliverance, but rather added to the affliction
than proposed a remedy; and upon this he repeated a Spanish
proverb, which though I cannot repeat in just the same words
that he spoke it in, yet I remember I made it into an English
proverb of my own, thus;
In trouble to be troubled,
Is to have your trouble doubled.
He ran then on in remarks upon all the little improvements I
had made in my solitude; my unwearied application, as he
called it, and how I had made a condition, which in its circum-
stances was at first much worse than theirs, a thousand times
more happy than theirs was, even now when they were all
384
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
together.
He told me it was remarkable that Englishmen had
a greater presence of mind in their distress than any people
that ever he met with; that their unhappy nation, and the
Portuguese, were the worst men in the world to struggle with
misfortunes; for that their first step in dangers, after the com-
mon efforts were over, was always to despair, lie down under it
and die, without rousing their thoughts up to proper remedies
for escape.
I told him their case and mine differed exceedingly; that
they were cast upon the shore without necessaries, without
supply of food, or of present sustenance, till they could provide
it; that it is true, I had this disadvantage and discomfort, that
I was alone; but then the supplies I had providentially thrown
into my hands, by the unexpected driving of the ship on shore,
was such a help as would have encouraged any creature in the
world to have applied himself as I had done. Seignior," says
the Spaniard, "had we poor Spaniards been in your case we
should never have gotten half those things out of the ship as
you did." "Nay," says he,
<< we should never have found
means to have gotten a raft to carry them, or to have gotten
the raft on shore without boat or sail; and how much less
should we have done," said he, "if any of us had been alone!"
Well, I desired him to abate his compliment, and go on with
the history of their coming on shore, where they landed. He
told me they unhappily landed at a place where there were
people without provisions; whereas, had they had the common
sense to have put off to sea again, and gone to another island a
little farther, they had found provisions though without people;
that is to say, that the Spaniards of Trinidad had frequently been
there, and had filled the island with goats and hogs at several
times, where they have bred in such multitudes, and where
turtle and sea-fowls were in such plenty, that they could have
been in no want of flesh though they had found no bread;
whereas here they were only sustained with a few roots and
herbs, which they understood not, and which had no substance
in them, and which the inhabitants gave them sparingly enough,
and who could treat them no better unless they would turn
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
385
cannibals, and eat man's flesh, which was the great dainty of
the country.
They gave me an account how many ways they strove to
civilise the savages they were with, and to teach thein rational
customs in the ordinary way of living, but in vain; and how
they retorted it upon them as unjust, that they, who came there
for assistance and support, should attempt to set up for instruc-
tors of those that gave them bread; intimating, it seems, that
none should set up for the instructors of others but those who
could live without them.
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 was
less supplied with the necessaries of life than they had reason to
believe others were in the same part of the world; and yet they
found that these savages were less ravenous and voracious than
those who had better supplies of food.
Also they added, that they could not but see with what
demonstrations of wisdom and goodness the governing provi-
dence of God directs the events of things in the world, which
they said appeared in their circumstances; for if, pressed by the
hardships they were under, and the barrenness of the country
where they were, they had searched after a better place to live
in, they had then been out of the way of the relief that hap-
pened to them by my means.
Then they gave me an account how the savages whom they
lived among expected them to go out with them into their
wars; and it was true, that as they had firearms with them,
had they not had the disaster to lose their ammunition, they
should not have been serviceable only to their friends, but have
made themselves terrible both to friends and enemies; but
being without powder and shot, and yet in a condition that
they could not in reason deny to go out with their landlords to
their wars; so when they came into the field of battle they
were in a worse condition than the savages themselves, for they
neither had bows or arrows, nor could they use those the savages
2 B
386
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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; and then indeed the three halberts they had were of
use to them, and they would often drive a whole little army
before them with those halberts and sharpened sticks put into
the muzzles of their muskets: but that for all this, they were
sometimes surrounded with multitudes, and in great danger
from their arrows; till at last they found the way to make
themselves large targets of wood, which they covered with skins
of wild beasts, whose names they knew not, 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 imagin-
able, and would willingly have all ventured their lives to have
rescued him.
They told me, that when they were so knocked down, the
rest of their company rescued them, and stood over them fight-
ing till they were come to themselves, all but him who they
thought had been dead; and then they made their way with
their halberts and pieces, standing close together in a line,
through a body of above a thousand savages, beating down all
that came in their way, got the victory over their enemies, but
to their great sorrow, because it was with the loss of their friend;
whom the other party, finding him alive, carried off with some
others, as I gave an account in my former.
They described, most affectionately, how they were surprised
with joy at the return of their friend and companion in misery,
who they thought had been devoured by wild beasts of the
worst kind, viz., by wild men; and yet how more and more
they were surprised with the account he gave them of his
errand, and that there was a Christian in any place near, much
more one that was able, and had humanity enough to contribute
to their deliverance.
}
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
387
They described 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;
how often they crossed it, and blessed it as bread sent
from heaven; and what a reviving cordial it was to their spirits
to taste it, as also of the other things I had sent for their supply.
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 com-
forts came; but they told me it was impossible to express it by
words, for their excessive joy naturally driving them to unbe-
coming extravagances, they had no way to describe them but
by telling me that they bordered upon lunacy, having no way
to give vent to their passion suitable to the sense that was upon
them; that in some it worked one way, and in some another;
and that some of them, through a surprise of joy, would burst
out into tears; others be half mad, and others immediately faint.
This discourse extremely affected me, and called to my mind
Friday's ecstacy when he met his father, and the poor people's
ecstacy when I took them up at sea, after their ship was on
fire; the mate of the ship's joy, when he found himself delivered
in the place where he expected to perish; and my own joy,
when after twenty-eight years' captivity I found a good ship
ready to carry me to my own country. 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. It was their opinion,
and mine too, that they would be troubled no more with the
savages; or that, if they were, they would be able to cut them
off, if they were twice as many as before; so they had no con-
cern about that. Then I entered into a serious discourse with
the Spaniard whom I called governor, about their stay in the
island; for as I was not come to carry any of them off, so it
would not be just to carry off some and leave others, who per-
haps would be unwilling to stay if their strength was diminished.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
On the other hand, 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 neces-
sary, as well for their convenience as for their defence; and
that I had such and such particular persons with me, as well to
increase and recruit their number, as by the particular 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 would shake
hands with one another, and engage in a strict friendship and
union of interest, so that there might be no more misunder-
standings or jealousies.
Will 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 would live and die with them; and was so far from
designing anything against the Spaniards, that he owned they
had done nothing to him but what his own mad humour made
necessary, and what he would have done, and perhaps much
worse, in their case and that he would ask them pardon, if I
desired it, for the foolish and brutish things he had done to
them; and was very willing and desirous of living on terms of
entire friendship and union with them; and would do anything
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 Will Atkins and his two countrymen, for their ill
conduct as they had let me know; and they appealed to me for
the necessity they were under to do so; but that Will Atkins
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
389
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 confidence
in him and all his countrymen, so they acknowledged they had
merited that confidence by all the methods that honest men
could merit to be valued and trusted; and 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 all together, and indeed we
made a splendid feast. I caused the ship's cook and his mate
to come on shore and dress our dinner, and the old cook's mate
we had on shore assisted. We brought on shore six pieces of
good beef, and four pieces of pork, out of the ship's provision,
with our punch-bowl, and materials to fill it; and, in particular,
I gave them ten bottles of French claret, and ten bottles of
English beer, things that neither the Spaniards or the English-
men had tasted for many years; and which it may be supposed
they were exceeding glad of.
The Spaniards added to our feast five whole kids, which the
cooks roasted; and three of them were sent, covered up close,
on board our ship to the seamen, that they might feast on fresh
meat from on shore, as we did with their salt meat from on
- board.
After this 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 suffi-
cient for them all; and desired that they might all take an
equal quantity of goods that were for wearing; that is to say,
equal when made up. As first, I distributed linen sufficient to
make every one of them four shirts; and, at the Spaniards'
request, afterwards made them up six; these were exceeding
comfortable to them, having been what, as I may say, they had
long since forgot the use of, or what it was to wear them.
I allotted the thin English stuffs, which I mentioned before,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
to make every one a light coat like a frock, which I judged
fittest for the heat of the season, cool and loose; and ordered,
that whenever they decayed, they should make more, as they
thought fit. The like for pumps, shoes, stockings, and hats, &c.
I cannot express what pleasure, what satisfaction, sat upon
the countenances of all these poor men when they saw the care
I had taken of them, and how well I had furnished them; they
told me I was a father to them; and that having such a corre-
spondent as I was, in so remote a part of the world, it would
make them forget that they were left in a desolate place; and
they all voluntarily engaged to me not to leave the place with-
out my consent.
Then 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 anything that was more useful
to them; and the tailor, to show his concern for them, went to
work immediately, and, with my leave, 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 them assist to make the shirts for their hus-
bands and for all the rest.
As to the carpenters, I scarce need mention how useful they
were, for they took in pieces all my clumsy unhandy things,
and made them clever convenient tables, stools, bedsteads, cup-
boards, lockers, shelves, and everything they wanted of that kind.
But to let them see how nature made artificers at first, I
carried the carpenters to see Will Atkins's basket house, as I
called it, and they both owned they never saw an instance of
such natural ingenuity before, nor anything so regular and so
handily built, at least of its kind; and one of them, when he
saw it, after musing a good while, turning about to me, "I am
sure," says he, "that man has no need of us; you need do
nothing but give him tools."
Then I brought them out all my store of tools, and gave
every man a digging spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no
harrows or ploughs; and to every separate place a pickaxe, a
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
391
crow, a broad axe, and a saw; always appointing, that as often
as any were broken, or worn out, they should be supplied, with-
out 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; for no man would care to take more than he wanted,
and he must be a fool that would waste or spoil them on any
account whatever. 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

33 MID
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. She had, indeed, an
unhappy life with us, there being no woman in the ship but
herself: but she bore it with patience. After a while, seeing
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, or reason for taking so long a
voyage; I say, considering all this, both of them came to me,
and 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, palisadoed like Atkins's, adjoin-
ing to his plantation. Their tents were contrived so, that they
had each of them a room apart to lodge in, and a middle tent,
like a great storehouse, to lay all their goods in, and to eat and
drink in. And now the other two Englishmen removed their
habitation to the same place, and so the island was divided into
three colonies, and no more; viz., 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 where they
had so enlarged and extended their works, as well under as on
the outside of the hill, that they lived, though perfectly con-
cealed, yet full at large. Never was there such a little city in
a wood, and so hid, I believe, in any part of the world; for I
verily believe a thousand men might have ranged the island a
month, and if they had not known there was such a thing, and
looked on purpose for it, they would not have found it; for the
trees stood so thick and so close, and grew so fast matted into
one another, that nothing but cutting them down first, could
discover the place, except the only two narrow entrances where
they went in and out, could be found, which was not very easy.
One of them was just down at the water's edge, on the side of
the creek; and it was afterwards above two hundred yards to
the place; and the other was up the ladder at twice, as I have
already formerly described it; and they had a large wood, thick
planted, also on the top of the hill, which contained above an
acre, which grew apace, and covered the place from all dis-
covery there, with only one narrow place between two trees,
not easy to be discovered, to enter on that side.
The other colony was that of Will Atkins, where there were
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
393
four families of Englishmen, I mean those I had left there,
with their wives and children; three savages that were slaves;
the widow and children of the Englishman that was killed; the
young man and the maid; and by the way, we made a wife of
her also before we went away. There were also the two car-
penters and tailor, whom I brought with me for them; also the
smith, who was a very necessary man to them, especially, as a
gunsmith to take care of their arms; and my other man, whom
I called Jack-of-all-Trades, who was in himself as good 'almost
as twenty men, for he was not only a very ingenious 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, 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 up at sea.
It is true,
this man was a Roman, and perhaps it may give offence to some
hereafter, if I leave anything extraordinary upon record of a
man, whom before I begin, I must, to set him out in just
colours, represent in terms very much to his disadvantage in
the account of Protestants; as, first, that he was a Papist ;
secondly, a Popish priest; and thirdly, a French Popish priest.
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, extensive in his charity, and exemplary
in almost everything he did. What then can any one say
against my being very sensible of the value of such a man,
notwithstanding his profession? though it may be my opinion,
perhaps as well as the opinion of others who shall read this, that
he was mistaken.
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; and he first began
with me about religion, in the most obliging manner imagin-
able.
(c
Sir," says he, "you have not only, under God," and at that
he crossed his breast, "saved my life, but you have admitted
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
me to go this voyage in your ship, and by your obliging civility
have taken me into your family, giving me an opportunity of free
conversation. Now, sir," says he, "you see by my habit what my
profession is, and I guess by your nation what yours is. I may
think it is my duty, and doubtless it is so, to use my utmost
endeavours on all occasions to bring all the souls I can to the
knowledge of the truth, and to embrace the Catholic doctrine;
but as I am here under your permission, and in your family, I
am bound in justice to your kindness, as well as in decency and
good manners, to be under your government; and therefore I
shall not, without your leave, enter into any debates on the
points of religion, in which we may not agree, further than you
shall give me leave.”
I told him his carriage was so modest that I could not but
acknowledge it; that it was true, we were such people as they
call heretics, but that he was not the first Catholic that I had
conversed with without falling into any inconveniences, or
carrying the questions to any height in debate; that he should
not find himself the worse used for being of a different opinion
from us; and if we did not converse without any dislike on
either side, upon that score, it should be his fault, not ours,
He replied, that he thought all our conversation might be
easily separated from disputes; that it was not his business to
cap principles with every man he discoursed with: and that
he rather desired rne to converse with him as a gentleman than as
a religieux; that if I would give him leave at any time to dis-
course upon religious subjects, he would readily comply with it;
and that then he did not doubt but I would allow him also to
defend his own opinions as well as he could; but that without
my leave he would not break in upon me with any such
thing.
He told me further, that he would not cease to do all that
became him in his office as a priest, as well as a private Chris-
tian, to procure the good of the ship, and the safety of all that
was in her; and though perhaps we would not join with him,
and he could not pray with us, he hoped he might pray for us,
which he would do upon all occasions. In this manner we
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
395
conversed; and as he was of a most obliging gentleman-like
behaviour, so he was, if I may be allowed to say so, a man of
good sense, and, as I believe, of great learning.
:
He gave me a most diverting account of his life, and of the
many extraordinary events of it; of many adventures which
had befallen him in the few years that he had been abroad in
the world, and particularly this was very remarkable; viz., that
during the voyage he was now engaged in he had had the mis-
fortune 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 that his first intent was to have gone to Martinico,
and that he went on board a ship bound thither at St. Maloes;
but being forced into Lisbon by bad weather, the ship received
some damage by running aground in the mouth of the river
Tagus, and was obliged to unload her cargo there: that finding a
Portuguese ship there, bound to the Madeiras, and ready to sail,
and supposing he should easily meet with a vessel there bound
to Martinico, he went on board in order to sail to the Madeiras ;
but the master of the Portuguese ship being but an indifferent
mariner, had been out in his reckoning, and they drove to Fyal;
where, however, he happened to find a very good market for
his cargo, which was corn, and therefore resolved not to go to
the Madeiras, but to load salt at the isle of May, to go away to
Newfoundland. He had no remedy in this exigence but to go
with the ship, and had a pretty good voyage as far as the Banks,
so they call the place where they catch the fish, where meeting
with a French ship bound from France to Quebec, in the river
of Canada, and from thence to Martinico, to carry provisions,
he thought he should have an opportunity to complete his first
design. But when he came to Quebec, the master of the ship
died, and the ship proceeded no farther. So the next voyage.
he shipped himself for France, in the ship that was burnt, when
we took them up at sea, and then shipped with us for the East
Indies, as I have already said. Thus he had been disappointed
in five voyages, all, as I may call it, in one voyage, besides
what I shall have occasion to mention farther of the same
person.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
But I shall not make digressions into other men's stories
which have no relation to my own. I return to what concerns
our affair in the island. He came to me one morning, for he
lodged among us all the while we were upon the island, and it
happened to be just when I was going to visit the Englishmen's
colony at the farthest part of the island; I say, he came to me,
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 would not be displeasing to me, because her
thought it might in some measure correspond 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.
I looked a little surprised at the last part of his discourse, and
turning a little short, How, sir," said I, “can it be said, that
we are not in the way of God's blessing, after such visible
assistances and wonderful deliverances as we have seen here, and
of which I have given you a large account?"
CC
"If you had pleased, sir," said he, with a world of modesty,
and yet with great readiness, to have heard me, you would
have found no room to have been displeased, much less to think
so hard of me, that I should suggest, that you have not had
wonderful assistances and deliverances; and I hope, on your be-
half, that you are in the way of God's blessing, and your design
is exceeding good, and will prosper: but, sir, though it were
more so than is even possible to you, yet there may be some
among you that are not equally right in their actions; and you
know that in the story of the children of Israel, one Achan, in
the camp, removed God's blessing from them, and turned His
band so against them, that thirty-six of them, though not con-
cerned in the crime, were the objects of divine vengeance, and
bore the weight of that punishment.”
I was sensibly touched with his discourse, and told him hist
inference was so just, and the whole design seemed so sincere,
and was really so religious in its own nature, that I was very
sorry I had interrupted him, and begged him to go on; and in
the meantime, because it seemed that what we had both to say
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
397
might take up some time, I told him I was going to the English-
men's plantation, and asked him to go with me, and we might
discourse of it by the way. He told me he would more willingly
wait on me thither, because there, partly, the thing was acted
which he desired to speak to me about. So we walked on, and I
pressed him to be free and plain with me in what he had to say.
"Why then, sir," says he, "be pleased to give me leave to lay
down a few propositions as the foundation of what I have to say,
that we may not differ in the general principles, though we may
be of some differing opinions in the practice of particulars. First,
sir, though we differ in some of the doctrinal articles of religion,
and it is very unhappy that it is so, especially in the case before us,
as I shall show afterwards, yet there are some general principles
in which we both agree; viz., first, that there is a God, and that
this God, having given us some stated general rules for our service
and obedience, we ought not willingly and knowingly to offend
Him, either by neglecting to do what He has commanded, or by
doing what He has expressly forbidden; and let our different
religions be what they will, this general principle is readily
owned by us all, that the blessing of God does not ordinarily
follow a presumptuous sinning against His command; and
every good Christian will be affectionately concerned to prevent
any that are under his care, living in a total neglect of God
and His commands. It is not your men being Protestants,
whatever my opinion may be of such, that discharges me from
being concerned for their souls, and from endeavouring, if it lies
before me, that they should live in as little distance from and
enmity with their Maker as possible; especially if you give me
leave to meddle so far in your circuit."
I could not yet imagine what he aimed at, and told him I
granted all he had said; and thanked him that he would so far
concern himself for us; and begged he would explain the par-
ticulars of what he had observed, that like Joshua, to take his
own parable, I might put away the accursed thing from us.
"Why then, sir," says he, "I will take the liberty you give
me; and there are three things which, if I am right, must stand
in the way of God's blessing upon your endeavours here, and
398
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
on: "
which I should rejoice, for your sake, and their own, to see re-
moved. And, sir," says he, "I promise myself that you will fully
agree with me in them all as soon as I name them; especially
because I shall convince you that every one of them may with
great ease, and very much to your satisfaction, be remedied.”
He gave me no leave to put in any more civilities, but went
First, sir," says he, "you have here four Englishmen, who
have fetched women from among the savages, and have taken
them as their wives, and have had many children by them all,
and yet are not married to them after any stated legal manner,
as the laws of God and man require; and therefore are yet, in
the sense of both, no less than adulterers, and 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 profession, to per-
form 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 agreement that he obliged them to make when
they took these women, viz., 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.
But, sir, the essence of the sacrament of matrimony (so he
called it, being a Roman) consists not only in the mutual con-
sent of the parties to take one another as man and wife, but in
the formal and legal obligation that there is in the contract to
compel the man and woman at all times to own and acknow-
ledge each other; obliging the man to abstain from all other
women, to engage in no other contract while these subsist;
and on all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for
them and their children; and to oblige the women to the same,
or like conditions, mutatis mutandis, on their side.
"
'Now, sir," says he, "these men may, when they please, or
when occasion presents, abandon these women, disown their
children, leave them to perish, and take other women and marry
them while these are living." And here he added, with some
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
399
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 dominion, are allowed by you to live
in open adultery?"
I confess I was struck at the thing itself, but much more
with the convincing arguments he supported it with. For it
was certainly true, that though they had no clergyman on the
spot, yet a formal contract on both sides, made before witnesses,
and confirmed by any token which they had all agreed to be
bound by, though it had been but breaking a stick between
them, engaging the men to own these women for their wives
upon all occasions and never to abandon them or their children,
and the women to the same with their husbands, had been an
effectual lawful marriage in the sight of God, and it was a great
neglect that it was not done.
But 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 if it was
adultery it was past remedy, they could do nothing in it now.
"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 utmost now to put an end to it. How
can you think, but that, 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 was so dull still, that I did not take him right, but 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," says he, "I do
not mean that you should separate them, but legally and effec-
400
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
tually marry them now. And as, sir, my way of marrying them
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 sin-
cerity of zeal, besides the unusual impartiality in his discourse, as
to his own party or church, and such true warmth for the preserv-
ing people that he had no knowledge of or relation to; I say, for
preserving them from transgressing the laws of God; the like
of which I had indeed not met with anywhere. But recollect-
ing what he had said of marrying them by a written contract,
which I knew would stand too, I returned it back upon him,
and 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 now when I came to them. And I knew no
reason why they should scruple to let him marry them all;
which I knew well enough would be granted to be as authentic
and valid in England as if they were married by one of our
own clergymen. What was afterwards done in this matter I
shall speak of by itself.
I then pressed him to tell me what was the second complaint
which he had to make, acknowledging that I was very much
his debtor for the first, and thanked him heartily for it. He
told me he would use the same freedom and plainness in the
second, and hoped that I would take it as well; and this was,
that notwithstanding these English subjects of mine, as he called
them, had lived with these women for almost seven years, 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 instruction; yet they had not till this hour
taught them anything 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 who, was false and absurd.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
401
This, he said, was an unaccountable neglect, and what God
would certainly call them to account for; and perhaps at last
take the work out of their hands. He spoke this very affec-
tionately 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, have 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 glad to see the devil's servants, and the subjects of his king-
dom, taught to know the general principles of the Christian
religion; that they might at least hear of God, and of a Re-
deemer, 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 em-
braced him with an excess of passion. "How far," said I to
him, “have I been from understanding the most essential part
of a Christian, viz., 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 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; and if you will give me leave, and God His
blessing, I do not doubt but the poor ignorant souls shall be
brought home into the great circle of Christianity, if not into
the particular faith that we all embrace; and that even while
you stay here." Upon this I said, "I shall not only give you
(c
20
402
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
leave, but give you a thousand thanks for it.”
What followed
on this account I shall mention also again in its place.
I now pressed him for the third article in which we were to
blame. 'Why really," says he, "it is of the same nature, and
I will proceed, asking your leave, with the same plainness as
before; it is about your poor savages yonder, who are, as I may
say, your conquered subjects. It is a maxim, sir, that is, or
ought to be received among all Christians, of what Church, or
pretended Church soever, viz., the Christian knowledge ought
to be propagated by all possible means, and on all possible occa-
sions. It is on this principle that our Church sends missionaries
into Persia, India, and China; and that our clergy, even of the
superior sort, willingly engage in the most hazardous voyages,
and the most dangerous residence among murderers and bar-
barians, to teach them the knowledge of the true God, and to
bring them over to embrace the Christian faith. Now, sir,
you have such 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 such an occasion of doing good, which is really worth
the expense of a man's whole life.
soever.
I was now struck dumb indeed, and had not one word to
say; I had here a spirit of true Christian zeal for God and
religion before me, let his particular principles be of what kind
As for me, I had not so much as entertained a thought
of this in my heart before, and I believe should not have thought
of it; for I looked upon these savages as slaves, and people
whom, had we any work for them to do, we would have used
as such, or would have been glad to have transported them to
any other part of the world; for our business was to get rid of
them, and we would all have been satisfied if they had been
sent to any country, so they had never seen their own. But to
the case: I say I was confounded at his discourse, and knew
not what answer to make him. He looked earnestly at me,
seeing me in some disorder; "Sir," said he, "I shall be very
sorry, if what I have said gives you any offence.”—“ No, no,
no,"
said I, "I am offended with nobody but myself; but I am
t
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
403
perfectly confounded, not only to think that I should never
take any notice of this before, but with reflecting what notice I
am able to take of it now. You know, sir," said I, "what
circumstances I am in; I am bound to the East Indies, in a ship
freighted by merchants, and to whom it would be an insuffer-
able piece of injustice to detain their ship here, the men lying
all this while at victuals and wages upon the owners' account.
It is true, I agreed to be allowed twelve days here, and if I stay
more I must pay £3 sterling per diem demurrage; nor can I
stay upon demurrage above eight days more, and I have been
here thirteen days already; so that I am perfectly unable to
engage in this work, unless I would suffer myself to be left
behind here again; in which case, if this single ship should
miscarry in any part of her voyage, I should be just in the
same condition that I was left in here at first, and from which
I have been so wonderfully delivered."
He owned the case was very hard upon me as to my voyage,
but 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 sensible of that as he was;
I returned upon him thus, "Why, sir, it is a valuable thing
indeed to be an instrument in God's hand to convert seven-
and-thirty heathens to the knowledge of Christ; but as you are
an ecclesiastic, and are given over to the work, so that it seems
so naturally to fall into the way of your profession, how is it
that you do not rather offer yourself to undertake it, than press
me to it?"
Upon this he faced about, just before me, as we 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 it a happy reward 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."
I discovered a kind of rapture in his face while he spoke this
}
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
to me; his eyes sparkled like fire, his face glowed, and his
colour came and went as if he had been falling into fits;
in a word, he was fired with the joy of being embarked in
such a work. I paused a considerable while before I could tell
what to say to him, for I was really surprised to find a man of
such sincerity and zeal, and carried out in his zeal beyond the
ordinary rate of men, not of his profession only, but even of any
profession whatsoever. But after I had considered it awhile, I
asked him seriously if he was in earnest, and that he would
venture on the single consideration of an attempt on those poor
people, to be locked up in an unplanted island for perhaps his
life, and at last might not know whether he should be able to
do them any good or not?
He turned short upon me, and asked me what I called a
venture? "Pray, sir,” said he, "what do you think I consented
to go in your ship to the East Indies for?". 'Nay," said I,
"that I know not, unless it was to preach to the Indians."-
"Doubtless it was," said he; "and do you think if I can con-
vert these seven-and-thirty men to the faith of Christ, it is not
worth my time, though I should never be fetched off the island
again? Nay, is it not infinitely of more worth to save so many
souls than my life is, or the life of twenty more of the same
profession? Yes, sir," says he, "I would give Christ and the
Blessed Virgin thanks all my days, if I could be made the least
happy instrument of saving the souls of these poor men, though
I was never to set my foot off this island, or see my native
country any more. But since you will honour me,” says he,
"with putting me into this work, for which I will pray for you
all the days of my life, I have one humble petition to you,”
said he, "besides."-"What is that?" said I. Why," says
he, "it is, that you will leave your man Friday with me, to be
my interpréter to them, and to assist me; for without some
help I cannot speak to them, or they to me."
I was sensibly troubled 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
405
I had resolved to do something considerable for him if he out-
lived 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; and 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 to his first
idolatry.
However, a sudden thought relieved me in this strait, and it
was this: I told him that I could not say that I was willing to
part with Friday on any account whatever; though a work that to
him was of more value than his life, ought to be to me of much
more value than the keeping or parting with a servant.
But on
the other hand, I was persuaded, that Friday would by no
means consent to part with me; and then to force him to it
without his consent would be manifest injustice, because 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 very much concerned at it; 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 learnt 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 very happy turn to all
this.
I come back now to the first part of his objections. When
we came to the Englishmen I sent for them all together; and
after some account given them of what I had done for them,
viz., what necessary things I had provided for them, and how
they were distributed, which they were very sensible of, and
very thankful for; I 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 them if they were
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
married 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 lie with
them as they had done, 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, viz., that there
was nobody to marry them; that they agreed before the gover-
nor to take them as their wives; and to keep them and own
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 their wives, being poor, desolate
women, friendless and moneyless, would have no way to help
themselves: I therefore told them, that unless I was assured of
their honest intent, I could do nothing for them; but would
take care that what I did should be for the women and their
children without 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;
for that it was both scandalous to men and offensive to
God, who they could not think would bless them if they went
on thus.
All this went on 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 been born in their own
native country, and would not leave them upon any account
whatever; and they did verily believe their wives were as
virtuous and as modest, and did to the utmost of their skill as
much for them and for their children as any women could
possibly do, and they would not part with them on any account :
and Will Atkins for his own particular added, if any man would
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
407
take him away, and offer to carry him home to England, and
make him captain of the best man-of-war in the navy, he would
not go with him if he might not carry his wife and children
with him; and if there was a clergyman in the ship, he would
be married to her now with all his heart.
This was just as I would have it. The priest was not with
me at that moment, but was not far off. So to try him further,
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 con-
sider 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
was glad I had a minister with me; and he believed they would
be all willing also. I then told him that my friend the minister
was a Frenchman, and could not speak English, but that I would
act the clerk between them. He never so much as asked me
whether he was a Papist or Protestant, which was indeed what
I was afraid of. But I say they never inquired about it. So we
parted; I went back to my clergyman, and Will Atkins went
in to talk with his companions. I desired the French gentleman
not to say anything to them till the business was thorough ripe,
and I told him what answer the men had given me.
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 I had a clergyman in my company; and
they were very 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 very 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, as indeed they had
reason to be; so they failed not to attend all together at my
apartment the next morning, where I brought out my clergy-
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
man; and though he had not on a minister's gown, after the
manner of England, or the habit of a priest, after the manner
of France; yet having a black vest, something like a cassock,
with a sash round it, he did not look very unlike a minister;
and as for his language I was his interpreter.
But the seriousness of his behaviour to them, and the scruple
he made of marrying the women because they were not baptized
and professed Christians, gave them an exceeding reverence for
his person; and there was no need after that to inquire whether
he was a clergyman or no.
Indeed I was afraid his scruple would have been carried so far
as that he would not have married them at all: nay, notwith-
standing all I was able to say to him, he resisted me, though
modestly, yet very steadily; and at last refused absolutely to
marry them, unless he had first talked with the men and the
women too; and though at first I was a little backward to it,
yet at last I agreed to it with a good will, perceiving the sin-
cerity of his design.
When he came to them, he let them know that I had ac-
quainted him with their 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 take the liberty to talk with them. He
told them that in the sight of all indifferent 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 con-
senting to marry, or effectually 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, viz., that of marrying
one that is a professed Christian to a savage, an idolater, and a
heathen, one that is not baptized; and yet that he did not see
that there was time left for it to endeavour to persuade the
women to be baptized, or to profess the name of Christ, whom
they had, he doubted, heard nothing of, and without which
they could not be baptized.
He told me he doubted they were but indifferent Christians
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
409
themselves; that they had but little knowledge of God or of
His ways, and therefore he could not expect that they had said
much to their wives on that head yet; but that 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; for he would have no hand in join-
ing Christians with savages; nor was it consistent with the
principles of the Christian religion, and was indeed expressly
forbidden in God's law.
They heard all this very attentively, and I delivered it very
faithfully to them from his mouth, as near his own words as I
could, only sometimes adding something of my own, to convince
them how just it was, and how I was of his mind; and I always
very faithfully distinguished between what I said from myself
and what were the clergyman's words. 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." Lord, 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, 'twould
be to make them laugh at us, and ask us what we believe our-
selves; and if we should tell them we believe all the things that
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 are such
wicked fellows, as we indeed are: why, sir, 'tis enough to give
them a surfeit of religion, at first hearing: folks must have some
religion themselves before they pretend to teach other people."
"Will Atkins," said I to him, though I am afraid what you
say has too much truth in it, yet can you not tell your wife that
she is in the wrong; that there is a God, and a religion better
than her own: that her gods are idols; that they can neither
hear or speak; that there is a great Being that made all things,
and that can destroy all that He has made; that He rewards the
(c
410
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
1
good, and punishes the bad; that we are to be judged by Him,
at last, for all we do here? You are not so ignorant but even
nature itself will teach you that all this is true; and I am satis-
fied you know it all to be true, and believe it yourself.”:
"That's true, sir," said Atkins; "but with what face can I
say anything to my wife of all this, when she will tell me im-
mediately it cannot be true?
"Not true!" said I ; "what do you mean by that?
"Why, sir," said he, "she will tell me it cannot be true; that
this God, I shall tell her of, can be just, or can punish or reward,
since I am not punished and sent to the devil, that have been
such a wicked creature as she knows I have been, even to her,
and to everybody else; and that I should be suffered to live,
that have been always acting so contrary to what I must tell her
is good, and to what I ought to have done."
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 not their reward, or wicked
inen their punishment, till they come into another world; and
this will lead him to teach his wife the doctrine of the resur-
rection, 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 ordi-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
4II
narily affected with it: when being eager, and hardly suffering
me to make an end-" I know all this, master," says he, “and
a great deal more; but I hadn't the impudence to talk thus to
my wife, when God and my own conscience 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." "Past it, Atkins!" said
"what dost thou mean by that?"—"I know well enough
what I mean, sir," says he; "I mean 'tis too late; and that is
too true."
I;
I told my clergyman word for word what he said. The poor
zealous priest, I must call him so; for, be his opinion what it
will, he had certainly a most singular affection for the good of
other men's souls; and it would be hard to think he had not
the like for his own,-I say, this 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 ques-
tion fairly to Atkins; and he answered with a great deal of
passion, "How could any man be easy in a condition that cer-
tainly must end in eternal destruction? That he was far from
being easy; but that, on the contrary, he believed it would one
time or other ruin him."
"What do you mean by that?" said I.-"Why,” he said,
"he believed he should, one time or other, cut his own throat
to put an end to the terror of it."
The clergyman shook his head, with a great concern in his
face, when I told him all this; but turning quick to me upon
it, said, "If that be his case, you may assure him it is not too
late; Christ will give him repentance. But pray," says he,
"explain this to him, that as no man is saved but by Christ,
and the merit of His passion, procuring Divine mercy for him,
how can it be too late for any man to receive mercy? Does he
think he is able to sin beyond the power or reach of Divine
mercy? Pray tell him, there may be a time when provoked
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
:
mercy will no longer strive, and when God may refuse to hear;
but that 'tis never too late for men to ask mercy; 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 earnest-
ness; 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 awhile, and we talked to the rest.
I per-
ceived they were all stupidly ignorant as to matters of religion;
much as I was when I went rambling away from my father;
and yet 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 per-
suade them to turn Christians.
The clergyman smiled upon me when I reported what answer
they gave, but said nothing a good while; but at last shaking
his head, "We that are Christ's servants," says he, “can go no
further than to exhort and instruct; and when men comply,
submit to the reproof, and promise what we ask, 'tis all we can
do; we are bound to accept their good words; but believe me,
sir,' said he, "whatever you may have known of the life of
that man you call William Atkins, I believe he is the only
sincere convert among them; I take that man to be a true
penitent; I won't despair of the rest; but that man is appa-
rently struck with the sense of his past life; and I doubt not
but when he comes to talk of religion to his wife, he will talk
himself effectually into it; for attempting to teach others is
sometimes the best way of teaching ourselves. I knew a man,”
added he, "who having nothing but a summary notion of reli-
gion himself, and being wicked and profligate to the last degree
in his life, made a thorough reformation in himself by labouring
to convert a Jew; if that poor Atkins begins but once to talk
seriously of Jesus Christ to his wife, my life for it he talks him-
self into a thorough convert, makes himself a penitent; and
who knows what may follow."
Upon this discourse, however, and their promising as above
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
413
to endeavour to persuade their wives to embrace Christianity,
he married the other three couple; but Will Atkins and his
wife were not yet come in. After this, my clergyman waiting
awhile, was curious to know where Atkins was gone; and
turning to me, says he, "I entreat you, sir, let us walk out of
your labyrinth here and look; I dare say we shall find this poor
man somewhere or other, talking seriously to 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 showed 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,
&c. "I believe he is," said I. Immediately we perceived
Will Atkins start up upon his feet, fall down on his knees, and
lift up both his hands; we supposed he said something, but we
could not hear him; it was too far for that: he did not con-
tinue kneeling half a minute, but comes and sits down again by
his wife, and talks to her again. We perceived then the woman
very attentive, but whether she said anything 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 anything that
passed between them.
Well, however, we could come no nearer for fear of disturb-
414
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
}
ing 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 most 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, St. Paul, behold he prayeth !"-I was afraid Atkins would
hear him; therefore I entreated him to withhold himself awhile,
that we might see an end of the scene, which to me, I must
confess, was the most affecting, and yet the most agreeable that
ever I saw in my life. Well, he strove with himself, and con-
tained himself for awhile, but was in such raptures of joy to
think that the poor heathen woman was become a Christian,
that he was not able to contain himself; he wept several times:
then throwing up his hands, and crossing his breast, said over
several things ejaculatory, and by way of giving God thanks for
so miraculous a testimony of the success of our endeavours :
some he spoke softly, and I could not well hear; others audibly;
some in Latin, some in French; then two or three times the
tears of joy would interrupt him, that he could not speak at all.
But I begged that he would compose himself, and let us more
narrowly and fully observe what was before us, which he did
for a time, and the scene was not ended there yet; for after
the poor man and his wife were risen again from their knees,
we observed he stood talking still eagerly to her; and we
observed by her motion that she was greatly affected with what
he said, by her frequent lifting up her hands, laying her hand
to her breast, and such other postures as usually express the
greatest seriousness and attention. 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.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
415
upon
I took this interval to talk with my clergyman; and first I
told him, I was glad to see the particulars we had both been
witnesses to; that though I was hard enough of belief in such
cases, yet that I began to think it was all very sincere here, both
in the man and his wife, however ignorant they might both be;
and I hoped such a beginning would have yet a more happy
end: "And who knows," said I, "but these two may in time,
by instruction and example, work upon some of the others?"
"Some of them!" said he, turning quick upon me, “ay,
all of them: depend upon it, if those two savages, for he
has been but little better as you relate it, should embrace Jesus
Christ, they will never leave till they work upon all the rest :
for true religion is naturally communicative, and he that is once
made a Christian will never leave a pagan behind him if he
can help it." I owned it was a most Christian principle to
think so, and a testimony of a true zeal, as well as a generous
heart in him. "But, my friend," said I, "will you give me
leave to start one difficulty here? I cannot tell how to object
the least thing against that affectionate concern which you show
for the turning the poor people from their paganism to the
Christian religion; but how does this comfort you, while these
people are, in your account, out of the pale of the Catholic
Church, without which, you believe, there is no salvation; so
that you esteem these but heretics; and, for other reasons, as
effectually lost as the pagans themselves?"
To this he answered with abundance of candour and Chris-
tian charity, thus: "Sir, I am a Catholic of the Roman Church,
and a priest of the order of St. Benedict, and I embrace all the
principles of the Roman faith. But yet, if you will believe me,
and that I do not speak in compliment to you, or in respect to
my circumstances and your civilities; I say, nevertheless, I do
not look upon you, who call yourselves reformed, without some
charity; I dare not say, though I know it is our opinion in
general; I say, I dare not say, that you cannot be saved; I
will by no means limit the mercy of Christ, so far as to think
that He cannot receive you into the bosom of His Church, in a
manner to us unperceivable, and which it is impossible for us
}
416
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
to know; and I hope you have the same charity for us. I pray
daily for your being all restored to Christ's Church, by what-
soever methods He, who is all-wise, is pleased to direct. In
the meantime, sure you will allow it to consist with me, as a
Roman, to distinguish far between a Protestant and a pagan;
between one that calls on Jesus Christ, though in a way which
I do not think is according to the true faith; and a savage, a
barbarian, that knows no God, no Christ, no Redeemer; and
if you are not within the pale of the Catholic Church, we hope
you are nearer being restored to it than those that know
nothing of God or His Church. I rejoice, therefore, when I
see this poor man, who, you say, has been a profligate, and
almost a murderer, kneel down and pray to Jesus Christ, as we
suppose he did, though not fully enlightened; believing that
God, from whom every such work proceeds, will sensibly touch
his heart, and bring him to the further knowledge of the truth
in His own time; and if God shall influence this poor man to
convert and instruct the ignorant savage his wife, I can never
believe that he shall be cast away himself; and have I not
reason then to rejoice the nearer any are brought to the know-
ledge of Christ, though they may not be brought quite home
into the bosom of the Catholic Church, just at the time when
I may desire it; leaving it to the goodness of Christ to perfect
His work in His own time, and in His own way? Certainly
I would rejoice if all the savages in America were brought,
like this poor woman, to pray to God, though they were to be
all Protestants at first, rather than they should continue pagans
and heathens; firmly believing, that He who had bestowed
that first light upon them, would further illuminate them with
a beam of His heavenly grace, and bring them into the pale of
His Church, when He should see good."
I was astonished at the sincerity and temper of this truly pious
Papist, as much as I was oppressed by the power of his reason-
ing; and it presently occurred to my thoughts, that if such a
temper was universal, we might be all Catholic Christians,
whatever church or particular profession we joined to, or joined
in; that a spirit of charity would soon work us all up into right
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
417
principles; and, in a word, as he thought that the like charity
would make us all Catholics, so I told him, I believed had all
the members of his Church the like moderation they would soon
be all Protestants; and there we left that part, for we never
disputed at all.
However, I talked to him another way; and taking him by
the hand, "My friend," said I, "I wish all the clergy of the
Roman Church were blessed with such moderation, and an
equal share of your charity. I am entirely of your opinion;
but I must tell you, that if you should preach such doctrine in
Spain or Italy, they would put you into the Inquisition."
"It may be so," said he; "I know not what they might do
in Spain and Italy; but I will not say they would be the better
Christians for that severity; for I am sure there is no heresy in
too much charity.”
Well, 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. Observing
this, I asked my clergyman, if we should discover to him that
we had seen him under the bush, or no; and it was his opinion
we should not; but that we should talk to him first, and hear
what he would say to us: so we called him in alone, nobody
being in the place but ourselves; and I began with him thus:
"Will Atkins," said I, "pr'ythee what education had you?
What was your father?"
W. A. A better man than ever I shall be.
was a clergyman.
Sir, my father
R. C. What education did he give you?
W. A. He would have taught me well, sir; but I despised
all education, instruction, or correction, like a beast as I was.
R. C. It is true, Solomon says, "He that despiseth reproof is
brutish."
;
W. A. Ay, sir, I was brutish indeed; I murdered my father
for God's sake, sir, talk no more about that, sir; I murdered
my poor father.
Pr. Ha! a murderer?
(Here the priest started, for I interpreted every word as he
2 D
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
spoke it, and looked pale: it seems he believed that
Will had really killed his own father.)
R. C. No, no, sir, I do not understand him so. Will Atkins,
explain yourself: you did not kill your father, did you, with
your own hands?
W. A. No, sir, I did not cut his throat; but I cut the thread
of all his comforts, and shortened his days; I broke his heart
by the most ungrateful, unnatural return for the most tender,
affectionate treatment that ever father gave, or child could
receive.
R. C. Well, I did not ask you about your father to extort
this confession; I pray God give you repentance for it, and for-
give you that and all your other sins; but I asked you, because
I see that, though you have not much learning, yet you are not
so ignorant as some are in things that are good; that you have
known more of religion a great deal than you have practised.
W. A. Though you, sir, did not extort the confession that I
make about my father, conscience does; and whenever we
come to look back upon our lives, the sins against our indulgent
parents are certainly the first that touch us; the wounds they
make lie deepest; and the weight they leave will lie heaviest
upon the mind of all the sins we can commit.
R. C. You talk too feelingly and sensible for me, Atkins:
I cannot bear it.
W. A. You bear it, master! I dare say you know nothing
of it.
R. C. Yes, Atkins, every shore, every hill, nay, I may say
every tree in this island, is witness to the anguish of my soul
for my ingratitude and base usage of a good tender father: a
father much like yours by your description; and I murdered
my father as well as you, Will Atkins, but think for all that,
my repentance is short of yours too, by a great deal.
(I would have said more, if I could have restrained my
passions; but I thought this poor man's repentance was
so much sincerer than mine, that I was going to leave
off the discourse and retire, for I was surprised with
what he said, and thought that, instead of my going
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
419
about to teach and instruct him, the man was made a
teacher and instructor to me, in a most surprising and
unexpected manner.)
I laid all this before the young clergyman, who was greatly
affected with it, and said to me, "Did I not say, sir, that when
this man was converted he would preach to us all? I tell you,
sir, if this one man be made a true penitent, here will be no
need of me, he will make Christians of all in the island." But
having a little composed myself, I renewed my discourse with
Will Atkins.
"But, Will," said I, "how comes the sense of this matter to
touch you just now?”
W. A. Sir, you have set me about a work that has struck a
dart through my very soul; I have been talking about God and
religion to my wife, in order, as you directed me, to make a
Christian of her; and she has preached such a sermon to me as
I shall never forget while I live.
R. C. No, no; it is not your wife has preached to you; but
when you were moving religious arguments to her, conscience
has flung them back upon you.
W. A. Ay, sir, with such a force as is not to be resisted.
R. C. Pray, Will, let us know what passed between you and
your wife; for I know something of it already.
W. A. Sir, it is impossible to give you a full account of it: I
am too full to hold it, and yet have no tongue to express it:
but let her have said what she will, and though I cannot give
you an account of it, this I can tell you of it, that I resolve to
amend and reform my life.
R. C. But tell us some of it. How did you begin, Will? for
this has been an extraordinary case, that is certain; she has
preached a sermon indeed, if she has wrought this upon you.
W. A. Why, I first told her the nature of our laws about
marriage, and what the reasons were that men and women
were obliged to enter into such compacts as it was neither in the
power of one or other to break; that otherwise, order and justice
could not be maintained, and men would run from their wives
and abandon their children, mix confusedly with one another,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
and neither families be kept entire, or inheritances be settled by
legal descent.
R. C. You talk like a civilian, Will. Could you make her
understand what you meant by inheritance and families? They
know no such thing among the savages but marry anyhow, with-
out regard to relation, consanguinity, or family; brother and
sister, nay, as I have been told, even the father and daughter,
and the son and the mother.
W. A. I believe, sir, you are misinformed ;-my wife assures
me of the contrary, and that they abhor it. Perhaps for any
further relations they may not be so exact as we are; but she
tells me they never touch one another in the near relations you
speak of.
R. C. Well, what did she say to what you told her?
W. A. She said she liked it very well; and it was much
better than in her country.
R. C. But did you tell her what marriage was?
W. A. Ay, ay; there began all our dialogue. I asked her,
if she would be married to me our way? She asked me, what
way that was? I told her marriage was appointed of God; and
here we had a strange talk together indeed, as ever man and
wife had, I believe.
(N.B. This dialogue between W. Atkins and his wife, as
I took it down in writing, just after he told it me, was
as follows :)
Wife. Appointed by your God! Why, have you a God in
your country!
W. A. Yes, my dear; God is in every country.
Wife. No your God in my country; my country have the
great old Benamuckee God.
W. A. Child, I am very unfit to show you who God is; God
is in heaven, and made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and
all that in them is.
Wife. No makee de earth; no you God makee de earth; no
makee my country.
(W. A. laughed a little at her expression of God not mak-
ing her country.)
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
421
Wife. No laugh: why laugh me? This no ting to laugh.
(He was justly reproved by his wife, for she was more
serious than he at first.)
W. A. That's true, indeed; I will not laugh any more, my
dear.
Wife. Why you say, you God make all ?
W. A. Yes, child, our God made the whole world, and you,
and me, and all things; for He is the only true God, there is
no God but He; He lives for ever in heaven.
Wife. Why you no tell me long ago?
W. A. That's true, indeed; but I have been a wicked wretch,
and have not only forgotten to acquaint thee with anything
before, but have lived without God in the world myself.
Wife. What have you de great God in your country, you no
know Him? No say O to Him? No do good ting for Him?
That no possible!
W. A. It is too true though, for all that: we live as if there
was no God in heaven, or that He had no power on earth.
Wife. But why God let you do so? Why He no makee you
good live?
W. A. It is all our own fault.
Wife. But you say me He is great, much great, have much
great power; can makee kill when He will: why He no makee
kill when you no serve Him? no say O to Him? no be good
mans?
W. A. That is true; He might strike me dead, and I ought
to expect it; for I have been a wicked wretch, that is true :
but God is merciful, and does not deal with us as we de-
serve.
Wife. But then do not you tell God tankee for that too?
W. A. No, indeed; I have not thanked God for His mercy,
any more than I have feared God for His power.
Wife. Then you God no God; me no tink, believe He be
such one, great much power, strong; no makee kill you,
though you makee Him much angry?
W. A. What! will my wicked life hinder you from believing
in God! What a dreadful creature am I! And what a sad
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
truth is it, that the horrid lives of Christians hinder the con-
version of heathens!
Wife. How me tink you have great much God up there (she
points up to heaven), and yet no do well, no do good ting? Can
He tell? Sure He no tell what you do.
W. A. Yes, yes, He knows and sees all things; He hears us
speak, sees what we do, knows what we think, though we do
not speak.
Wife. What! He no hear you swear, curse, speak the great
damn?
W. A. Yes, yes, He hears it all.
Wife. Where be then the muchee great power strong?
W. A. He is merciful; that is all we can say for it; and this
proves Him to be the true God: He is God, and not man; and
therefore we are not consumed.
(Here Will Atkins told us he was struck with horror to
think how he could tell his wife so clearly that God sees,
and hears, and knows the secret thoughts of the heart,
and all that we do; and yet that he had dared to do all
the vile things he had done.)
Wife. Merciful! what you call dat ?
W. A. He is our Father and Maker; and He pities and
spares us.
Wife. So then He never makee kill, never angry when you
do wicked; then He no good Himself, or no great able.
W. A. Yes, yes, my dear; He is infinitely good, and infinitely
great, and able to punish too; and sometimes, to show His justice
and vengeance, He lets fly His anger to destroy sinners, and make
examples; many are cut off in their sins.
Wife. But no makee kill you yet; then He tell you, may be,
that He no makee you kill, so you makee de bargain with Him,
you do bad ting, He no be angry at you, when He be angry at
other mans?
W. A. No, indeed, my sins are all presumptions upon His
goodness; and He would be infinitely just if He destroyed me
as He has done other men.
Wife. Well, and yet no kill, no makee you dead! What
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
423
you say to Him for that! You no tell Him tankee for all that
too!
W. A. I am an unthankful, ungrateful dog, that is true.
Wife. Why He no makee you much good better! You say
He makee you.
W. A. He made me as He made all the world; 'tis I have
deformed myself, and abused His goodness, and have made my-
self an abominable wretch.
Wife. I wish you makee God know me; I no makee Him
I no do bad wicked ting.
angry;
(Here Will Atkins said his heart sunk within him, to hear
a poor, untaught creature desire to be taught to know
God, and he such a wicked wretch that he could not
say one word to her about God, but what the reproach
of his own carriage would make most irrational to her
to believe; nay, that already she had told him, that she
could not believe in God, because he that was so wicked
was not destroyed.)
W. A. My dear, you mean you wish I could teach you to
know God, not God to know you, for He knows you already,
and every thought in your heart.
Wife. Why then He know what I say to you now; He know
me wish to know Him; how shall me know who makee me?
W. A. Poor creature, He must teach thee, I cannot teach
thee; I'll pray to Him to teach thee to know Him; and to
forgive me that I am unworthy to teach thee.
(The poor fellow was in such agony at her desiring him to
make her know God, and her wishing to know Him,
that he said he fell down on his knees before her, and
prayed to God to enlighten her mind with the saving
knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to pardon his sins, and
accept of his being the unworthy instrument of instruct-
ing her in the principles of religion; after which he sat
down by her again, and their dialogue went on.
(N.B. This was the time when we saw him kneel down
and lift up his hands.)
Wife. What you put down the knee for? What you hold up
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the hand for? What you say? Who you speak to? What is
all that?
W. A. My dear, I bow my knees in token of my submission
to Him that made me; I said O to Him, as you call it, and as
you say your old men do to their idol Benamuckee; that is, I
prayed to Him.
Wife. What you say O to Him for?
W. A. I prayed to Him to open your eyes and your under-
standing, that you may know Him, and be accepted by Him.
Wife. Can He do that too?
W. A. Yes, He can; He can do all things.
Wife. But now He hear what you say?
W. A. Yes, He has bid us pray to Him; and promised to
hear us.
Wife. Bid you pray? When He bid you? How He bid
you? What you hear Him speak?
W. A. No, we do not hear Him speak; but He has revealed
Himself many ways to us.
(Here he was at a great loss to make her understand that
God has revealed Himself to us by His Word; and what
His Word was; but at last he told it her thus :)
W. A. God has spoken to some good men in former days,
even from heaven, by plain words; and God has inspired good
men by His Spirit; and they have written all His laws down in
a book.
Wife. Me no understand that: where is book?
W. A. Alas! my poor creature, I have not this book! but I
hope I shall, one time or other, get it for you and help you to
read it.
(Here he embraced her with great affection; but with in-
expressible grief, that he had not a Bible.)
Wife. But how you makee me know that God teachee them
to write that book?
W. A. By the same rule that we know Him to be
God.
Wife. What rule? what way you know?
W. A. Because He teaches and commands nothing but what
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
425
is good, righteous, and holy, and tends to make us perfectly
good, as well as perfectly happy; and because He forbids, and
commands us to avoid, all that is wicked, that is evil in itself,
or evil in its consequences.
Wife. That me would understand, that me fain see; if He
reward all good thing, punish all wicked thing, He teachee all
good thing, forbid all wicked thing, He makee all thing, He
give all thing; He hear me when I say O to Him, as you go do
just now; He makee me good if I wish be good; He spare me,
no makee kill me when I no be good; all this you say He do :
yes, He be great God; me take, think, believe Him be great
God; me say O to Him too with you, my dear.
Here the poor man said he could forbear no longer; but,
raising her up, made her kneel by him; and he prayed to God
aloud to instruct her in the knowledge of Himself by His Spirit;
and that by some good providence, if possible, she might some
time or other come to have a Bible, that she might read the
Word of God, and be taught by it to know Him.
(This was the time that we saw him lift her up by the
hand, and saw him kneel down by her, as above.)
They had several other discourses, it seems, after this, too
long to set down here; and particularly she made him promise,
that, since he confessed his own life had been a wicked, abomin-
able course of provocations against God, that he would reform
it, and not make God angry any more, lest He should make
him dead as she called it, and then she should be left alone,
and never be taught to know this God better; and lest he
should be miserable, as he had told her wicked men should be
after death.
This was a strange account, and very affecting to us both,
but particularly to the young clergyman; he was indeed wonder-
fully surprised with it; but under the greatest affliction ima-
ginable that he could not talk to her; that he could not speak
English to make her understand him; and as she spoke but
very broken English he could not understand her. However,
he turned himself to me, and told me, that he believed there
must be more to do with this woman than to marry her. I did
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
not understand him at first, but at length he explained himself,
viz., that she ought to be baptized.
I agreed with him in that part readily, and was for going
about it presently: "No, no; hold, sir," said he; "though I
would have her be baptized by all means, yet I must observe,
that Will Atkins, her husband, has indeed brought her, in a
wonderful manner, to be willing to embrace a religious life;
and has given her just ideas of the being of a God, of His
power, justice, and mercy; yet I desire to know of him, if he
has said anything to her of Jesus Christ, and of the salvation of
sinners; of the nature of faith in Him, and redemption by
Him; of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection, the last judgment,
and a future state."
I called Will Atkins again, and asked him; but the poor
fellow fell immediately into tears, and told us he had said some-
thing to her of all those things, but that he was himself so
wicked a creature, and his own conscience so reproached him
with his horrid, ungodly life, that he trembled at the apprehen-
sions, that her knowledge of him should lessen the attention she
should give to those things, and make her rather contemn
religion than receive it: but he was assured, he said, that her
mind was so disposed to receive due impressions of all those
things, that, if I would but discourse with her, she would make
it appear to my satisfaction that my labour would not be lost
upon her.
Accordingly I called her in, and placing myself as interpreter
between my religious priest and the woman, I entreated him to
begin with her. But sure such a sermon was never preached
by a popish priest in these latter ages of the world; and, as I
told him, I thought he had all the zeal, all the knowledge, all
the sincerity of a Christian, without the errors of a Roman
Catholic; and that I took him to be such a clergyman as the
Roman bishops were before the Church of Rome assumed
spiritual sovereignty over the consciences of men.
In a word, he brought the poor woman to embrace the
knowledge of Christ, and of redemption by Him, not with
wonder and astonishment only, as she did the first notions of a
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
427
God, but with joy and faith, 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 baptized.
When he was preparing to baptize her, I entreated him, that
he would perform that office with some caution, that the man
might not perceive he was of the Roman Church, if possible;
because of other ill consequences which might attend a differ-
ence among us in that very religion which we were instructing
the other in. He told me, that as he had no consecrated chapel,
no proper things for the office, I should see he would do it in
a manner that I should not know by it that he was a Roman
Catholic myself if I had not known it before, and so he did;
for saying only some words over to himself in Latin, which I
could not understand, he poured a whole dishful of water upon
the woman's head, pronouncing in French very loud, Mary,
which was the name her husband desired me to give her, for I
was her godfather, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; so that none could know
anything by it what religion he was of: he gave the benediction
afterwards in Latin; but either Will Atkins did not know but
it was in French, or else did not take notice of it at that time.
As soon as this was over, he 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 convictions
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; represented 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.
He said a great many good things to them both, and then
recommending them, in a few words, to God's goodness, gave
them the benediction again, I repeating everything to them in
English and thus ended the ceremony. I think it was the
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
most pleasant, agreeable day to me that ever I passed in my
whole life.
But my clergyman had not done yet; his thoughts hung
continually upon the conversion of the thirty-seven savages, and
fain he would have stayed upon the island to have undertaken
it; but I convinced him, first, that his undertaking was im-
practicable in itself; and secondly, that, perhaps, I would put
it into a way of being done, in his absence, to his satisfaction;
of which by and by.
Having thus brought the affair 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 com-
pany, came to me, and told me, he understood I had a clergy-
man 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 dis-
agreeable to me.
I knew this must be the young woman who was his mother's
servant, for there was no other Christian woman on the island.
So I began to persuade him not to do anything of that kind
rashly, or because he found himself in this solitary circumstance.
I represented to him that he had some considerable substance in
the world, and good friends, as I understood by himself, and by
his maid also; that the maid was not only poor, and a servant,
but was unequal to him, she being twenty-six or twenty-seven
years old, and he not above seventeen or eighteen; that he might
very probably, with my assistance, make a remove from this
wilderness, and come into his own country again, and that then
it would be a thousand to one but he would repent his choice,
and the dislike of that circumstance might be disadvantageous
to both. I was going to say more, but he interrupted me,
smiling; and told me, with a great deal of modesty, that I
mistook in my guesses; that he had nothing of that kind in his
thoughts, his present circumstances being melancholy and discon-
solate enough; and he was very glad to hear that I had thoughts
of putting them in a way to see their own country again; and
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
429
that nothing should have put him upon staying there, but that
the voyage I was going was so exceeding long and hazardous,
and would carry him quite out of the reach of all his friends;
that he had nothing to desire of me, but that I would settle him
in some little property in the island where he was; give him a
servant or two, and some few necessaries, and he would settle
himself here like a planter, waiting the good time when, if ever
I returned to England, I would redeem him, and hoped I would
not be unmindful of him when I came to England; that he
would give me some letters to his friends in London, to let them
know how good I had been to him, and what part of the world,
and what circumstances I had left him in; and he promised
me, that whenever I redeemed him, the plantation, and all the
improvements he had made upon it, let the value be what it
would, should be wholly mine.
His discourse was very prettily delivered, considering his
youth, and was the more agreeable to me, because he told me
positively the match was not for himself." I gave him all pos-
sible assurances, that, if I lived to come safe to England, I would
deliver his letters, and do his business effectually, and that he
might depend I would never forget the circumstances I had left
him in. But still 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 thought it very suitable. The character of that
man I have given already; and as for the maid, she was a very
honest, modest, sober, and religious young woman; had a very
good share of sense; was agreeable enough in her person; spoke
very handsomely, and to the purpose; always with decency
and good manners, and not backwards to speak when anything
required it, or impertinently forward to speak when it was not
her business; very handy and housewifely in anything that was
before her; an excellent manager, and fit indeed to have been
governess to the whole island; she knew very well how to
behave herself to all kind of folks she had about her, and to
better if she had found any there.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
:
The match being proposed in this manner, we married them
the same day and as I was father at the altar, as I may say,
and gave her away, so I gave her a portion, for I appointed her
and her husband a handsome large space of ground for their
plantation; and indeed this match, and the proposal the young
gentleman made, to give him a small property in the island,
put me upon parcelling it out among them, that they might
not quarrel afterwards about their situation.
This sharing out the land to them I left to Will Atkins, who
indeed was now grown a most sober, grave, managing fellow,
perfectly reformed, exceeding pious and religious, and as far as
I may be allowed to speak positively in such a case, I verily
believe was a true sincere penitent.
He divided things so justly and so much to every one's satis-
faction, that they only desired one general writing under my
hand for the whole, which I caused to be drawn up, and signed
and sealed to them, setting out the bounds and situation of
every man's plantation, and testifying that I gave them thereby,
severally, a right to the whole possession and inheritance of the
respective plantations or farms, with their improvements, to
them and their heirs; reserving all the rest of the island as my
own property, and a certain rent for every particular plantation
after eleven years, if I or any one from me, or in my name,
came to demand it, producing an attested copy of the same
writing.
As to the government and laws among them, I told them, I
was not capable of giving them better rules than they were able
to give themselves; only made them promise me to live in love
and good neighbourhood with one another; and so I prepared
to leave them.
One thing I must not omit, and this is, that being now
settled in a kind of commonwealth among themselves, and
having much business in hand, it was but odd to have seven-
and-thirty Indians live in a nook of the island, independent, and
indeed unemployed, for excepting the providing themselves.
food, which they had difficulty enough in too, sometimes, they
had no manner of business or property to manage: I proposed
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
431
therefore to the governor Spaniard, that he should go to them
with Friday's father, and propose to them to remove, and either
plant for themselves, or take them into their several families as
servants, to be maintained for their labour, but without being
absolute slaves, for I would not admit them to make them
slaves by force by any means, because they had their liberty
given them by capitulation, and as it were articles of surrender,
which they ought not to break.
They most willingly embraced the proposal, and came all
very cheerfully along with him; so we allotted them land and
plantations, which three or four accepted of, but all the rest
chose to be employed as servants in the several families we had
settled;
and thus my colony was in a manner settled as follows:
The Spaniards possessed my original habitation, which was the
capital city, and extended their plantations all along the side of
the brook which made the creek that I have so often described,
as far as my bower; and as they increased their culture, it went
always eastward. The English lived in the north-east part,
where Will Atkins and his comrades began, and came on south-
ward and south-west, towards the back part of the Spaniards;
and every plantation had a great addition of land to take in, if
they found occasion, so that they need not jostle one another
for want of room.
All the west end of the island was left uninhabited, that, if
any of the savages should come on shore there, only for their
usual customary barbarities, they might come and go; if they
disturbed nobody, nobody would disturb them; and no doubt
but they were often ashore, and went away again, for I never
heard that the planters were ever attacked or disturbed any more.
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.
He agreed presently in that; "If," said he, "they will do
432
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
their part; but how," says he, "shall we obtain that of them?" I
told him we would call them all together, and leave it in charge
with them, or go to them one by one, which he thought best;
so we divided it-he to speak to the Spaniards, who were all
Papists, and I to the English, who were all Protestants; and we
recommended it earnestly to them, and made them promise
that they would never make any distinction of Papist or Pro-
testant in their exhorting the savages to turn Christians, but
teach them the general knowledge of the true God, and of their
Saviour Jesus Christ; and they likewise promised us that they
would never have any differences or disputes one with another
about religion.
When I came to Will Atkins's house, I may call it so, for
such a house, or such a piece of basket-work, I believe was not
standing in the world again! I say, when I came there I found
the young woman I have mentioned above, and William At-
kins's wife, were become intimates; and this prudent, 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-baptized 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.
It came next into my mind in the morning, before I went
to them, that among all the needful things I had to leave with
them, I had not left them a Bible; in which I showed myself
less considering for them than my good friend the widow was
for me, when she sent me the cargo of £100 from Lisbon,
where she packed up three Bibles and a Prayer-book. How-
ever, the good woman's charity had a greater extent than ever
she imagined, for they were reserved for the comfort and in-
struction of those that made much better use of them than I
had done.
I took one of the Bibles in my pocket; and when I came to
William Atkins's tent, or house, and found the young woman
and Atkins's baptized wife had been discoursing of religion to-
gether, for William Atkins told it me with a great deal of joy, I
asked if they were together now? And he said ves; so I went
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
433
into the house, and he with me, and we found them together, very
earnest in discourse: “O sir," says William Atkins, “when God
has sinners to reconcile to Himself, and aliens to bring home,
He never wants a messenger: my wife has got a new instructor
-I knew I was unworthy, as I was incapable of that work-
that young woman has been sent hither from Heaven-she is
enough to convert a whole island of savages." The young
woman blushed, and rose up to go away, but I desired her to
sit still; I told her she had a good work upon her hands, and I
hoped God would bless her in it.

CC
We talked a little, and I did not perceive they had any 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 assistant, 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 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
2 E
434
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
a 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 was like to have run into a
mistake that none of us were aware of; for she firmly believed
God had sent the book upon her husband's petition: it is true
that providentially it was so, and might be taken so in a con-
sequent sense; but I believe it would have been no difficult
matter at that time to have persuaded the poor woman to have
believed that an express messenger came from Heaven on pur-
pose to bring that individual book; but it was too serious a
matter to suffer any delusion to take place: so I turned to the
young woman, and told her we did not desire to impose upon
the new convert in her first and more ignorant understanding of
things, and begged her to explain to her that God may be very
properly said to answer our petitions, when in the course of His
providence such things are in a particular manner brought to
pass as we petitioned for; but we do not expect returns from
Heaven in a miraculous and particular manner; and that it is
our mercy that it is not so.
This the young woman did afterwards effectually; so that
there was, I assure you, no priestcraft used here; and I should
have thought it one of the most unjustifiable frauds in the world
to have had it so: but the surprise of joy upon Will Atkins is
really not to be expressed; and there we may be sure there was
no delusion. Sure no man was ever more thankful in the world
for anything of its kind than he was for this Bible; and I be-
lieve never any man was glad of a Bible from a better principle;
and though he had been a most profligate creature, desperate,
headstrong, outrageous, furious, and wicked to a great degree,
yet this man is a standing rule to us all for the well instructing
children, viz., that parents should never give over to teach and
instruct, or ever despair of the success of their endeavours, let
the children be ever so obstinate, refractory, or to appearance
insensible of instruction; for if ever God in His providence
touches the consciences of such, the force of their education
returns upon them, and the early instruction of parents is not
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
435
lost, though it may have been many years laid asleep, but some
time or other they may find the benefit of it.
Thus it was with this poor man. However ignorant he was,
or divested of religion and Christian knowledge, he found he
had some to do with now more ignorant than himself; and that
the least part of the instuction of his good father that could now
come to his mind was of use to him.
Among the rest it occurred to him, he said, how his father
used to insist much upon the inexpressible value of the Bible,
the privilege and blessing of it to nations, families, and persons;
but he never entertained the least notion of the worth of it till
now, when being to talk to heathens, savages, and barbarians,
he wanted the help of the written oracle for his assistance.
The young woman was very glad of it also for the present
occasion, though she had one, and so had the youth, on board
our ship among their goods which were not yet brought on
shore. And now, having said so many things of this young
woman, I cannot omit telling one story more of her and myself,
which has something in it very informing and remarkable.
I have related to what extremity the poor young woman was
reduced; how her mistress was starved to death, and did die
on board that unhappy ship we met at sea; and how the whole
ship's company being reduced to the last extremity, the gentle-
woman and her son, and this maid, were first hardly used as to
provisions, and at last totally neglected and starved; that is to
say, brought to the last extremity of hunger.
One day being discoursing with her upon the extremities they
suffered, I asked her if she could describe by what she had felt
what it was to starve, and how it appeared? She told me she
believed she could, and she told her tale very distinctly thus:
(C
First, sir," said she, we had for some days fared exceeding
hard, and suffered very great hunger, but now at last we were
wholly without food of any kind except sugar, and a little wine,
and a little water. The first day after I had received no food
at all, I found myself towards evening, first empty and sickish
at my stomach, and nearer night mightily inclined to yawning
and sleepy; I laid down on a couch in the great cabin to sleep,
436
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
and slept about three hours, and awaked a little refreshed, having
taken a glass of wine when I lay down. After being about
three hours awake, it being about five o'clock in the morning,
I found myself empty, and my stomach sickish, and laid down
again, but could not sleep at all, being very faint and ill; and
thus I continued all the second day with a strange variety-first
hungry, then sick again, with retchings to vomit. The second
night, being obliged to go to bed again without any food more.
than a draught of fair water, and being asleep, I dreamed I was
at Barbadoes, and that the market was mightily stocked with
provisions, that I bought some for my mistress, and went and
dined very heartily.
"I thought my stomach was as full after this as any would
have been after, or at, a good dinner; but when I waked, I was
exceedingly sunk in my spirits to find myself in the extremity
of famine; the last glass of wine we had I drank, and put
sugar in it, because of its having some spirit to supply nourish-
ment; but there being no substance in the stomach for the
digesting office to work upon, I found the only effect of the
wine was to raise disagreeable fumes from the stomach into the
head; and I lay, as they told me, stupid and senseless as one
drunk for some time.
"The third day in the morning, after a night of strange and
confused inconsistent dreams, and rather dozing than sleeping,
I awaked ravenous and furious with hunger; and I question,
had not my understanding returned and conquered it, I say, I
question whether, if I had been a mother, and had had a little
child with me, its life would have been safe or not.
"This lasted about three hours, during which time I was
twice raging mad as any creature in Bedlam, as my young master
told me, and as he can now inform you.
"In one of these fits of lunacy or distraction, whether by the
motion of the ship or some slip of my foot I know not, I fell
down, and struck my face against the corner of a pallet bed, in
which my mistress lay, and with the blow the blood gushed out
of my nose, and the cabin-boy bringing me a little basin, I sat
down and bled into it a great deal, and as the blood ran from
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
437
me I came to myself, and the violence of the flame, or fever, I
was in abated, and so did the ravenous part of the hunger.
"Then I grew sick and retched to vomit, but could not,
for I had nothing in my stomach to bring up. After I had bled
some time I swooned, and they all believed I was dead; but I
came to myself soon after, and then had a most dreadful pain in
my stomach, not to be described, not like the colic, but a gnaw-
ing eager pain for food, and towards night it went off with a
kind of earnest wishing or longing for food, something like, as I
suppose, the longing of a woman with child. I took another
draught of water with sugar in it, but my stomach loathed the
sugar, and brought it all up again; then I took a draught of
water without sugar, and that stayed with me, and I laid me
down upon the bed, praying most heartily that it would please
God to take me away; and composing my mind in hopes of it,
I slumbered awhile; and then waking, thought myself dying,
being light with vapours from an empty stomach: I recom-
mended my soul then to God, and earnestly wished somebody
would throw me into the sea.
"All this while my mistress lay by me just, as I thought,
expiring, but bore it with much more patience than I, and gave
the last bit of bread she had left to her child, my young master,
who would not have taken it, but she obliged him to eat it, and
I believe it saved his life.
“Towards the morning I slept again, and first when I awaked
I fell into a violent passion of crying, and after that had a second
fit of violent hunger; I got up ravenous, and in a most dreadful
condition. Had my mistress been dead, so much as I loved
her, I am certain I should have eaten a piece of her flesh with
as much relish and as unconcerned as ever I did the flesh of any
creature appointed for food; and once or twice I was going to
bite my own arm. At last I saw the basin in which was the
blood I had bled at my nose the day before; I ran to it, and
swallowed it with such haste, and such a greedy appetite, as if
I had wondered nobody had taken it before, and afraid it should
be taken from me now.
'Though after it was down the thoughts of it filled me with
438
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
horror, yet it checked the fit of hunger, and I drank a draught
of fair water, and was composed and refreshed for some hours
after it. This was the fourth day; and thus I held it till to-
wards night, when, within the compass of three hours, I had all
these several circumstances over again, one after another, viz.,
sick, sleepy, eagerly hungry, pain in the stomach, then ravenous
again, then sick again, then lunatic, then crying, then ravenous
again, and so every quarter of an hour; and my strength wasted
exceedingly. At night I laid me down, having no comfort but
in the hope that I should die before morning.
"All this night I had no sleep, but the hunger was now
turned into a disease, and I had a terrible colic and griping, by
wind instead of food having found its way into the bowels; and
in this condition I lay till morning, when I was surprised a little
with the cries and lamentations of my young master, who called
out to me that his mother was dead. I lifted myself up a little,
for I had not strength to rise, but found she was not dead,
though she was able to give very little signs of life.
"I had then such convulsions in my stomach for want of
some sustenance, that I cannot describe them, with such fre-
quent throes and pangs of appetite that nothing but the tortures
of death can imitate; and this condition I was in when I heard
the seamen above cry out 'A sail! a sail!' and halloo and jump
about as if they were distracted.
"I was not able to get off from the bed, and my mistress
much less, and my young master was so sick that I thought he
had been expiring; so we could not open the cabin-door, or
get any account what it was that occasioned such a combustion;
nor had we had any conversation with the ship's company for
two days, they having told us that they had not a mouthful of
anything to eat in the ship; and they told us afterwards they
thought we had been dead.
"It was this dreadful condition we were in when you were
sent to save our lives; and how you found us, sir, you know
as well as I, and better too."
This was her own relation, and is such a distinct account of
starving to death as I confess I never met with, and was exceed-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
439
ing entertaining to me: I am the rather apt to believe it to be a
true account, because the youth gave me an account of a good part
of it; though I must own not so distinct and so feelingly as his
maid, and the rather because it seems his mother fed him at the
price of her own life; but the poor maid, though her constitution
being stronger than that of her mistress, who was in years, and
a weakly woman too, she might struggle harder with it; I say,
the poor maid might be supposed to feel the extremity some-
thing sooner than her mistress, who might be allowed to keep
the last bits something longer than she parted with any to relieve
the maid. No question, as the case is here related, if our ship,
or some other, had not so providentially met them, a few days
more would have ended all their lives, unless they had pre-
vented it by eating one another; and even that, as their case
stood, would have served them but a little while, they being
five hundred leagues from any land, or any possibility of relief,
other than in the miraculous manner it happened. But this
is by the way; I return to my disposition of things among the
people.
And first, it is to be observed here, that for many reasons I
did not think fit to let them know anything of the sloop I had
framed, and which I thought of setting up among them; for I
found, at least at my first coming, such seeds of division among
them, that I saw it plainly, had I set up the sloop, and left it
among them, they would, upon very light disgust, have sepa-
rated, 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, so as I intended it;
nor did I leave the two pieces of brass cannon that I had on
board, or the two' quarter-deck guns, that my nephew took
extraordinarily, for the same reason: I thought they had enough
to qualify them for a defensive war, against any that should in-
vade them; but not to set them up for an offensive war, or to
encourage them to go abroad to attack others, which, in the
end, would only bring ruin and destruction upon themselves and
all their undertakings: I reserved the sloop, therefore, and the
guns, for their service another way, as I shall observe in its place.
440
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
I have now done with the island: I left them all in good
circumstances, and in a flourishing condition, and went on board
my ship again the fifth day of May, having been five-and-twenty
days among them; and, as they were all resolved to stay upon
the island till I came to remove them, I promised to send some
further relief from the Brazils, if I could possibly find an oppor-
tunity; and particularly I promised to send them some cattle;
such as sheep, hogs, and cows; for as to the two cows and calves
which I brought from England, we had been obliged, by the
length of our voyage, to kill them at sea, for want of hay to
feed them.
The 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 remarkable in our
passage but this, that about three days after we sailed, being
becalmed, and the current setting strong to the E.N.E., running,
as it were, into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven
something out of our course; and once or twice our men cried
Land, to the westward; but whether it was the continent, or
islands, we could not tell by any means.
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 discover
what it was; till, after some time, our chief mate going up the
main shrouds a little way, and looking at them with a per-
spective, 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 then, indeed, and so was my nephew
the captain; for he had heard such terrible stories of them in
the island, and having never been in those seas before, 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
441
it the worse; however, I bade him not 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.
As for the savages, I told them they had nothing to fear from
them but fire; and therefore they should get their 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 skeets and buckets, to put out any fire these savages might
endeavour to fix to the outside of the ship.
In this posture we lay by for them, and in a little while they
came up with us
us;
but never was such a horrid sight seen by
Christians; my mate was much mistaken in his calculation of
their number, I mean of a thousand canoes; the most we could
make of them when they came up, being about 126; and a great
many of them too; for 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, as at a sight which they had, doubt-
less, never seen before; nor could they, at first, as we afterwards
understood, know what to make of us. They came boldly up
however, very near to us, and seemed to go about to row round
but we called to our men in the boats, not to let them
come too near them.
us;
This very order brought us to an engagement with them, with-
out 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.
but we
However, I called to them not to fire by any means;
handed down some deal boards into the boat, and the carpenter
presently set up a kind of a fence, like waist boards, to cover
them from the arrows of the savages, if they should shoot again.
442
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
About half an hour afterwards they came all up in a body
astern of us, and pretty near, so near that we could easily discern
what they were, though we could not tell their design. I easily
found they were some of my old friends, the same sort of savages
that I had been used to engage with; and 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, lest they should shoot any
more arrows, 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, as soon as he had called to
them, six of them, who were in the foremost, or nighest boat
to us, turned their canoes from us; and, stooping down, showed
us their naked backsides; just as if, in English, saving your
presence, they had bid us kiss
Whether this was a de-
fiance or challenge, we knew not; or whether it was done in
mere contempt, or as a signal to the rest; but immediately
Friday cried out, they were going to shoot; and unhappily for
him, poor fellow ! 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 near
him; such unlucky marksmen they were.
I was so enraged with the loss of my old servant, the com-
panion 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 broadside as they never had in
their lives before, to be sure.
They were not above half a cable's length off when we fired;
and our gunners took their aim so well, that three or four of
their canoes were overset, as we had reason to believe, by one
shot only.
The ill manners of turning up their bare backsides to us, gave
us no great offence; neither did I know for certain whether that,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
443
which would pass for the greatest contempt among us, might
be understood so by them or not; therefore in return, I had
only resolved to have fired four or five guns at them with
powder only, which I knew would fright them sufficiently:
but when they shot at us directly with all the fury they were
capable of, and especially as they had killed my poor Friday,
whom I so entirely loved and valued, and who, indeed, so well
deserved it; I not only had been justified before God and man,
but would have been very glad, if I could, to have overset every
canoe there, and drowned every one of them.

I can neither tell how many we killed, or how many we
wounded, at this broadside; 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; and our men took up one
444
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
poor fellow swimming for his life, above an hour after they
were all gone.
Our small shot from our cannon must needs kill and wound
a great many; but, in short, we never knew anything how it
went with them; for they fled so fast, that in three hours, or
thereabouts, we could not see above three or four straggling
canoes; 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.
We had a prisoner indeed, but the creature was so sullen,
that he would neither eat or 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 long-boat,
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 come away from him; 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. However, at last,
they took him in again, and then he began to be more tract-
able; nor did I ever design they should drown him.
We were now under sail again; but I was the most disconso-
late creature alive, for want of my man Friday, and would have
been very glad to have gone back to the island, to have taken
one of the rest from thence for my occasion, but it could not
be; so we went on. We had one prisoner, as I have said; and
it was a long while before we could make him understand any-
thing; but in time, our men taught him some English, and he
began to be a little tractable: afterwards we inquired what
country he came from, but could make nothing of what he
said; for his speech was so odd, all gutturals, and spoken in the
throat, in such a hollow and odd manner, that we could never
form a word from him; and we were all of opinion that they
might speak that language as well if they were gagged, as
otherwise; nor could we perceive that they had any occasion
either for teeth, tongue, lips, or palate; but formed their words
just as a hunting-horn forms a tune, with an open throat: he
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
445
told us, however, some time after, when we had taught him to
speak a little English, 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 (we could
not make him understand the plural s), 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 always add
two e's 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 the 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 à 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-easternmost land of all that
part of America. We kept on S. by E. in sight of the shore
four days, when we made 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.
Never ship came to this part that had less business than I had,
and yet it was with great difficulty that we were admitted to
hold the least correspondence on shore. Not my partner him-
self, who was alive, and made a great figure among them, not
my two merchant trustees, nor the fame of my wonderful pre-
servation 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 get leave for
446
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
me personally, with the captain, and one more, besides eight
seamen, to come on shore, and no more; and this upon condi-
tion absolutely capitulated for, that we should not offer to land
any goods out of the ship, or to carry any person away without
license.
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 broadcloths, 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 anything, he sent me on board a
present of fresh provisions, wine, and sweetmeats, worth above
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 broadcloth, English stuffs, lace,
and fine Hollands. Also, I delivered him about the value of
£100 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 instruction 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 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 planta-
tion; 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 which we had taken prisoner
of war, to be his slave, and ordered the governor Spaniard to
give him his share of everything he wanted, with the rest,
When we came to fit this man out, my old partner told me,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
447
there was a certain very honest fellow, a Brazil planter of his
acquaintance, who had fallen into the displeasure of the Church :
"I know not what the matter is with him," says he, "but, on
my conscience, I think he is a heretic in his heart; and he has
been obliged to conceal himself for fear of the Inquisition;
that he 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 my 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, and he had
nothing left but a little household stuff, and two slaves; "And,"
adds he, “ though I hate his principles, yet I would not have
him fall into their hands, for he would assuredly be burnt alive
if he does."
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 sea: and then,
having put all their goods on board the sloop 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, in prepara-
tions, and 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, under-
stood very well.
Among the rest of the supplies sent 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, two
mares, and a stone-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.
448
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
All this cargo arrived safe, and, as you may easily suppose,
very welcome to my old inhabitants, who were now, with this
addition, between sixty and seventy people, besides little chil-
dren, of which there were a great many: I found letters at Lon-
don from them all, by the way of Lisbon, when I came back to
England, being sent back to the Brazils by this sloop; of which
I shall take some notice in its place.
I have now done with my island, and all manner of discourse
about it; and whoever reads the rest of my memorandums,
would do well to turn 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 cooled by almost forty years' misery and disappointments;
not satisfied with prosperity beyond expectation; 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
from England, 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 from the govern-
ment here, to have secured my property, in subjection only to
that of England; had I carried over cannon and ammunition,
servants and people to plant, and taking possession of the place,
fortified and strengthened it in the name of England, and in-
creased it with people, as I might easily have done; had I then
settled myself there, and sent the ship back, loaded with good
rice, as I might also have done in six months' time, and ordered
my friends to have fitted her out again for our supply; had I
done this, 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, like an old patriarchal
monarch; providing for them, as if I had been father of the
whole family, as well as of the plantation: but I never so much
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
449
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, belonging to
nobody; and the people under no discipline or government but
my own; who, though I had influence over them as a father
and benefactor, had no authority or power to act or command
one way or other, further than voluntary consent moved them
to comply: yet even this, had I staid there, would have done
well enough; but as I rambled from them, and came there no
more, the last letters I had from any of them, were by my
partner's means, who afterwards sent another sloop to the place;
and 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
though they had not been much molested by the savages, yet
they had had some skirmishes with them; 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; wherein
the justice of Providence may be duly observed, and we may
see how easily Heaven can gorge us with our own desires, make
the strongest of our wishes be our affliction, and punish us most
severely with those very things which we think it would be our
utmost happiness to be allowed in.
I
say this with respect to the impetuous desire I had from a
youth to wander into the world, and how evident it now was
that this principle was preserved in me for my punishment.
How it came on, the manner, the circumstance, and the con-
clusion of it, it is easy to give you historically, and with its
utmost variety of particulars. But the secret ends of Divine
Power, in thus permitting us to be hurried down the stream of
our own desires, are only to be understood by those who can
2.
450
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
listen to the voice of Providence and draw religious conse-
quences from God's justice and their own mistakes.
Be it, I had business, or no business, away I went. It is no
time now to enlarge any further upon the reason or absurdity
of my own conduct; but to come to the history-I was em-
barked for the voyage, and the voyage I went.
I shall only add here, that my honest and truly pious clergy-
man 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. How happy had it been
for me if I had gone with him!
But it was too late now; all things Heaven appoints are
best. 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 de Bonne Esperance, or, as we call it, the Cape
of Good Hope; and had a tolerable 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 befall me on shore; that it might
appear the land was as well prepared to be our scourge as the
sea, when Heaven, who directs the circumstances of things,
pleases to appoint it to be so.
Our ship was on a trading voyage, and had a supercargo on
board, who was to direct all her motions after she arrived at
the Cape; only being limited to a certain number of days for
stay, by charter-party, at the several ports she was to go to.
This was none of my business, neither did I meddle with it at
all; my nephew the captain, and the supercargo, adjusting all
those things between them as they thought fit.
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 were indeed informed that a French man-
of-war of fifty guns and two large merchant ships were gone
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
451
for the Indies; and as I knew we were at war with France, I
had some apprehensions of them; but they went their own
way, and we heard no more of them.
I shall not pester my account, or the reader with descriptions.
of places, journals of our voyages, variations of the compass,
latitudes, meridian distances, trade-winds, situation of ports, and
the like; such as almost all the histories of long navigation are
full of, and which make the reading tiresome enough, and are
perfectly unprofitable to all that read, except only to those who
are to go to those places themselves.
It is enough to name the ports and places which we touched at,
and what occurred to us upon our passing from one to another.
We touched first at the island of Madagascar, where, though
the people are fierce and treacherous, and, in particular, very
well armed with lances and bows, which they use with incon-
ceivable dexterity, yet we fared very well with them a while ;
they treated us very civilly; and, for some trifles which we
gave them, such as knives, scissors, &c., they brought us eleven
good fat bullocks, middling in size, but very good in flesh, which
we took in, partly for fresh provisions for our present spending,
and the rest to salt for the ship's use.
We were obliged to stay here for some time after we had
furnished ourselves with provisions; and I that was always
too curious to look into every nook of the world wherever I
came, was for going on shore as often as I could. It was on
the east side of the island that we went on shore one evening,
and the people, who by the way are very numerous, came
thronging about us, and stood gazing at us at a distance; as we
had traded freely with them, and had been kindly used, we
thought ourselves in no danger; but, when we saw the people,
we cut three boughs out of a tree, and stuck them up at a dis-
tance from us, which it seems, is a mark in the country not only
of truce and friendship, but when it is accepted, the other side
set up three poles or boughs also, which is a signal that they
accept the truce too; but then this is a known condition of the
truce, that you are not to pass beyond their three poles towards
them, nor they to come past your three poles or boughs towards
452
life and ADVENTURES
you; so that you are perfectly secure within the three poles,
and all the space between your poles and theirs is allowed like a
market for free converse, traffic, and commerce. When you go
there you must not carry your weapons with you; and if they
come into that space they stick up their javelins and lances all
at the first poles, and come on unarmed: but if any violence is
offered them, and the truce thereby broken, away they run to
the poles and lay hold of their weapons, and then the truce is
at an end.
It happened one evening when we went on shore, that a greater
number of their people came down than usual, but all was very
friendly and civil, and they brought in several kinds of provisions,
for which we satisfied them with such toys as we had; their
women also brought us milk and roots, and several things very
acceptable to us, and all was quiet; and we made us a little tent
or hut, of some boughs of trees, and lay on shore all night.
I know not what was the occasion, but I was not so well
satisfied to lie on shore as the rest; and the boat riding 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 fire of five
muskets, which was the number of the guns they had, and that
three times over; for, it seems, the natives here were not so
easily frighted with guns as the savages were in America, where
I had to do with them.
All this while I knew not what was the matter; but rousing
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.
We got the boat soon to the shore; but our men were in too
much haste; for being come to the shore, they plunged into
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
453
the water to get to the boat with all the expedition they could,
being pursued by between three and four hundred men. Our
men were but nine in all, and only five of them had fusils with
them; the rest had, indeed, pistols and swords, but they were
of small use to them.
We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too,
three of them being very ill wounded; and that which was still
worse was, that while we stood in the boat to take our men in,
we were in as much danger as they were in on shore; for they
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 to our great satisfaction we had by
mere accident, or providence rather, in the boat.
And yet had it been daylight, they are, it seems, such exact
marksmen, that if they could have seen but the least part of any
of us, they would have been sure of us. We had, by the light
of the moon, a little sight of them as they stood pelting us from
the shore with darts and arrows, and having got ready our fire-
arms, we gave them a volley, and we could hear by the cries of
some of them, that we had wounded several; however, they stood
thus in battle array on the shore till break of day, which we sup-
posed was that they might see the better to take their aim at us.
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, which, though she rode a league off, yet 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; but we called
to them not to come too near, telling them what condition we
were in; however, they stood in nearer to us; and one of the
men taking the end of a tow-line in his hand, and keeping our
boat between him and the enemy, so that they could not per-
fectly see him, swan on board us, and made fast the line to the
454
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
boat, upon which we slipped our little cable, and leaving our
anchor behind, they towed us out of the reach of the arrows,
we all the while lying close behind the barricado we had made.
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 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 havoc among them.
When we were got on board and out of danger, we had time
to examine into the occasion of this fray; and indeed our super-
cargo, who had been often in those parts, put me upon it; for
he said he was sure the inhabitants would not have touched us
after we had made a truce, if we had not done something to
provoke them to it. At length it came out, viz., 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, whether
she was mother to the young woman or no they could not tell,
was selling us the milk, one of our men offered some rudeness
to the wench 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 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, for 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; so we
were obliged to give him over; and if he alone had suffered for
it, the loss had been the less.
OF
455
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
I could not satisfy myself, however, without venturing on
shore once more, to try if I could learn anything of him or
them. 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. I was
careful to do it in the dark, lest we should be attacked again;
but I ought indeed to have been sure that the men I went with
had been under my command before I engaged in a thing so
hazardous and mischievous, as I was brought into it without my
knowledge or desire.
We took twenty stout fellows with us 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. I landed here, because my
design, as I have said, was chiefly to see if they had quitted the
field, and if they had left any marks behind them of the mis-
chief we had done them; and I thought if we could surprise
one or two of them, perhaps we might get our man again by
way of exchange.
We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two
companies, whereof the boatswain commanded one, and I the
other. We neither could hear nor see anybody stir when we
landed; so 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 by our boatswain, that led the
first party, stumbled and fell over a dead body. This made
them halt awhile; for knowing by the circumstances that they
were at the place where the Indians had stood, they waited for
my coming up. Here we concluded to halt till the moon
began to rise, which we knew would be in less than an hour,
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. Some had an arm, and some a leg,
shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded we sup-
posed they had carried away.
When we had made, as I thought, a full discovery of all we
could come at the knowledge of, I was resolved for going on
456
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
board; but the boatswain and his party sent me word, that they
were resolved to make a visit to the Indian town, where these
dogs, as they called them, dwelt, and asked me to go along
with them, and if they could find them, as they still fancied
they should, they did not doubt getting a good booty, and it
might be they might find Thomas Jeffrys there, that was the
man's name we had lost.
Had they sent to ask my leave to go, I knew well enough
what answer to have given them, for I should have commanded
them instantly on board, knowing it was not a hazard fit for us
to run who had a ship and ship-loading in our charge, and a
voyage to make, which depended very much upon the lives of
the men; but as they sent me word they were resolved to go,
and only asked me and my company to go along with them, I
positively refused it, and rose up, for I was sitting on the ground,
in order to go to the boat. One or two of the men began to
importune me to go, and when I refused positively, began to
grumble, and say they were not under my command, and they
would go.
"Come, Jack," says one of the men, will you go
with me? I will go for one." Jack said he would; and an-
other followed, and then another; and, in a word, they all left
me but one, whom I persuaded to stay; so the supercargo and
I, with the third man, went back to the boat, where, we told
them, we would stay for them, and take care to take in as many
of them as should be left; for I told them it was a mad thing
they were going about, and supposed most of them would run
the fate of Thomas Jeffrys.
<<
They told me, like seamen, they would warrant it they would
come off again, and they would take care, &c. So away they
went. I entreated them to consider the ship and the voyage;
that their lives were not their own; and that they were en-
trusted with the voyage in some measure; that if they mis-
carried, the ship might be lost for want of their help; and that
they could not answer it to God or man. I said a great deal
more to them on that head, but I might as well have talked to
the mainmast of the ship; they were mad upon their journey;
only they gave me good words, and begged I would not be
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
457
angry; that they would be very cautious, and they did not doubt
but they would be back again in about an hour at furthest; for
the Indian town, they said,. was not above half a mile off, though
they found it above two miles before they got to it.
Well, they all went away as above; and though the attempt
was desperate, and such as none but madmen would have gone
about, yet, to give them their due, they went about it as warily as
boldly. They were gallantly armed, that is true; for they had
every inan a fusil or musket, a bayonet, and every man a pistol;
some of them had broad cutlasses, some of them hangers, and the
boatswain and two more had pole-axes; besides all which they
had among them thirteen hand-grenadoes. Bolder fellows, and
better provided, never went about any wicked work in the world.
When they went out their chief design was plunder, and they
were in mighty hopes of finding gold there; but a circumstance,
which none of them were aware of, set them on fire with re-
venge, and made devils of them all. When they came to the
few Indian houses, which they thought had been the town,
which were not above half a mile off, they were under a great
disappointment; for there were not above twelve or thirteen
houses; and where the town was, or how big, they knew not.
They consulted therefore what to do, and were some time before
they could resolve; for if they fell upon these they must cut all
their throats, and it was ten to one but some of them might
escape, it being in the night, though the moon was up; and if
one escaped he would run away, and raise all the town, so they
should have a whole army upon them. Again, on the other
hand, if they went away, and left those untouched, for the
people were all asleep, they could not tell which way to look
for the town.
•
However, the last was the best advice; so they resolved to
leave them, and look for the town as well as they could. They
went on a little way, and found a cow tied to a tree; this they
presently concluded would be a good guide to them; for they
said the cow certainly belonged to the town before them or the
town behind them, and if they untied her they should see which
way she went: if she went back they had nothing to say to her,
458
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
but if she went forward they had nothing to do but to follow
her; so they cut the cord, which was made of twisted flags,
and the cow went on before them. In a word, the cow led
them directly to the town, which, as they reported, consisted of
above two hundred houses or huts; and in some of these they
found several families living together.
Here they found all in silence; as profoundly secure as sleep
and a country that had never seen an enemy of that kind could
make them. Upon this they called another council to consider
what they had to do, and in a word 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; if any resisted, they need not be asked
what to do then, and so to search the rest of the houses for
plunder; but they resolved to march silently first through the
town, and see what dimensions it was of, and if they might
venture upon it or no.
1
They did so, and desperately resolved that they would venture
upon them; but 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
There was an Indian house just by the tree, where they
found sixteen or seventeen of the principal Indians who had
been concerned in the fray with us before, and two or three of
them wounded with our shot; and our men found they were
awake, and talking one to another in that house, but knew not
their number.
cut.
The sight of their poor mangled comrade so enraged them, as
before, that they swore to one another they would be revenged,
and that not an Indian who came into their hands should have
quarter: and to work they went immediately, and yet not so
madly as by the rage and fury they were in might be expected.
Their first care was to get something that would soon take fire;
but after a little search they found that would be to no purpose,
for most of the houses were low, and thatched with flags or
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
459
rushes, of which the country is full: so they presently made
some wild-fire, as we call it, by wetting a little powder in the
palms of their hands; and in a quarter of an hour they set the
town on fire in four or five places, and particularly that house
where the Indians were not gone to bed. 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, and especi-
ally at the door, where they drove them back, the boatswain him-
self killing one or two with his pole-axe; the house being large,
and many in it, he did not care to go in, but called for a hand-
grenado, and threw it among them, which at first frighted them;
but when it burst made such havoc among them, that they cried
out in a hideous manner.
In short, most of the Indians who were in the open part of
the house, were killed or hurt with the grenado, except two or
three more, who pressed to the door, which the boatswain and
two more kept with their bayonets in the muzzles of their
pieces, and despatched all that came that way. But there was
another apartment in the house, where the prince, or king, or
whatever he was, and several others, were; and these they kept
in till the house, which was by this time all of a light flame,
fell in upon them, and they were smothered or burnt together.
All this while they fired not a gun, because they would not
waken the people faster than they could master them; but the
fire began to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were
glad to keep a little together in bodies; for the fire grew so
raging, all the houses being made of light combustible stuff,
that they could hardly bear the street between them, and their
business was to follow the fire for the surer execution. As fast
as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which
were burning, or frighted them out of others, our people were
ready at their doors to knock them on the head, still calling
and hallooing to one another to remember Thomas Jeffrys.
While this was doing I must confess I was very uneasy, and
especially when I saw the flames of the town, which, it being
night, seemed to be just by me.
My nephew the captain, who was roused by his men too,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
seeing such a fire, was very uneasy, not knowing what the
matter was, or what danger I was in; especially hearing the
guns too, for by this time they began to use their firearms. A
thousand thoughts oppressed his mind concerning me and the
supercargo, what should become of us; and at last, though he
could ill spare any more men, yet, not knowing what exigence
we might be in, 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, for one had been left to keep the
boat;
and though he was glad that we were well, yet he was
in the same impatience with us to know what was doing, for
the noise continued and the flame increased. In short, it was
next to an impossibility for any men in the world, to restrain
their curiosity to know what had happened, or their concern
for the safety of the men. In a word, the captain told me he
would go and help his men, let what would come. I argued
with him, as I did before with the men, the safety of the ship,
and the danger of the voyage, the interest of the owners and
merchants, &c., and told him I would go, and the two men,
and only see if we could, at a distance, learn what was like to
be the event, and come back and tell him.
It was all one to talk to my nephew, as it was to talk to the
rest before; he would go, he said, and he only wished he had
left but ten men in the ship, for he could not think of having
his men lost for want of help; he had rather lose the ship, the
voyage, and his life, and all; and away went he.
In a word, I was no more able to stay behind now than I
was to persuade them not to go before; so, in short, the captain
ordered two men to row back the pinnace, and fetch twelve
men more, leaving the long-boat at an anchor; and that when
they came back six men should keep the two boats, and six
more come after us, so that he left only sixteen men in the
ship; for the whole ship's company consisted of sixty-five men,
whereof two were lost in the late quarrel which brought this
mischief on.
Being now on the march, you may be sure we felt little of
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
461
the ground we trod on, and being guided by the fire, we kept
no 'path, but went directly to the place of the flame. If the
noise of the guns were surprising to us before, the cries of the
poor people were now quite of another nature, and filled us
with horror. I must confess
I must confess I never was at the sacking a city,
or at the taking a town by storm; I had heard of Oliver Crom-
well taking Drogheda in Ireland, and killing man, woman, and
child; and I had read of Count Tilly sacking the city of Mag-
debourg, and cutting the throats of 22,000 of both sexes; but
I never had an idea of the thing itself before, nor is it possible
to describe it, or the horror which was upon our minds at
hearing it.
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 we met with was the ruins of a hut or house,
or rather the ashes of it, for the house was consumed; and just
before it, plain now to be seen by the light of the fire, lay four
men and three women killed; and, as we thought, one or two
more lay in the heap among the fire. In short, there were
such instances of a rage altogether barbarous, and of a fury
something beyond what was human, that we thought it impos
sible our men could be guilty of it; or if they were the authors
of it, we thought that they ought to be every one of them put
to the worst of deaths: 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, and crying in a most dreadful manner, come flying as
if they had indeed had wings, and after them sixteen or seven-
teen men, natives, in the same terror and consternation, with
three of our English butchers, for I can call them no better, in
their rear, who, when they could not 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,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
My very soul shrunk 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 know 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; whereupon they crept all together
in a huddle close behind us for protection. I left my men
drawn up together, and charged 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, assuring them that if they staid till daylight.
they would have a hundred thousand men about their ears; I
say, I left them 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 trampling and running through the fire, others their
hands burnt; one of the women had fallen down in the fire,
and was very much burnt 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 was so terrified in my thoughts at this outrage-
ous attempt, that I could not stay there, but went back to my
own men, and resolved to go into the middle of the town
through the fire, or whatever might be in the way, and put an
end to it, cost what it would: accordingly, as soon as I came
back to my 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, roving over the heaps of
bodies they had killed, all covered with blood and dust, as if
they wanted more people to massacre, when our men hallooed
to them as loud as they could halloo, and with much ado one
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
463
of them made them hear, so that they knew who we were, and
came up to us.
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;
and without bearing to hear me, Captain," says he, “noble
captain, I am glad you are come! we have not half done yet:
villanous 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 nation of them from the

G Cm
earth." And thus he ran on, out of breath, too, with action,
and would not give us leave to speak a word.
At last, 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,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
come hither;" and with that he showed me the poor fellow
hanging 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; for, as to
the people, he thought not one of them ought to live; for they
had all glutted themselves with the murder of the poor man, and
that they ought to be used like murderers. 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 pensive and sad, for I could
not bear the sight, much less the horrible noise and cries of the
poor wretches that fell into their hands.
I got nobody to come back with me but the supercargo and two
men, and with these I walked back to the boats.
It was a very
great piece of folly in me, I confess, to venture back as it were
alone; for as it began now to be almost day, and the alarm had
run over the country, there stood about forty men armed with
lances and bows at the little place where the twelve or thirteen
houses stood mentioned before, but by accident I missed the
place, and came directly to the seaside: and by the time I got
to the seaside it was broad day: immediately I took the pinnace
and went aboard, and sent her back to assist the men in what
might happen.
I observed that about the time I came to the boatside the fire
was pretty well out, and the noise abated; but in about half
an hour after I got on board I heard a volley of our men's fire-
arms, and saw a great smoke; this, as I understood afterwards,
was our men falling upon the forty men, who, as I said, stood
at the few houses on the way; of whom they killed sixteen oṛ
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
465
seventeen, and set all those houses on fire, but did not meddle
with the women or children.
By the time the men got to 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, but all in heaps,
straggling here and there in such a manner that a small force
of resolute men might have cut them all off.
The
But the dread of them was upon the whole country.
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. Nor in all this terrible action was there a man who
made any considerable defence; they were so surprised between
the terror of the fire, and the sudden attack of our men in the
dark, that they knew not which way to turn themselves; for if
they fled one way they were met by one party, if back again by
another; so that they were everywhere knocked down. Nor did
any of our men receive the least hurt, except one who strained
his foot, and another had one of his hands very much burnt.
I was very angry with my nephew the captain, and indeed
with all the men, in my mind, but with him in particular, as well
for his acting so out of his duty, as commander of the ship, and
having the charge of the voyage upon him, as in his prompting
rather than cooling the rage of his men in so bloody and cruel an
enterprise: my nephew answered me very respectfully, but told
me that when he saw the body of the poor seaman whom they
had murdered in such a cruel and barbarous manner, he was not
master of himself, neither could he govern his passion; he owned
he should not have done so, as he was commander of the ship,
but as he was a man, and nature moved him, he could not bear it.
As for the rest of the men, they were not subject to me at all, and
they knew it well enough, so they took no notice of my dislike.
The next day we set sail, so we never heard any more of it.
Our men differed in the account of the number they killed;
some said one thing, some another; but, according to the
best of their accounts, put all together, they killed or destroyed
about a hundred and fifty people, men, women, and children,
and left not a house standing in the town.
2 G
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
As for the poor fellow, Thomas Jeffrys, as he was quite dead,
for his throat was so cut that his head was half off, it would do
him no service to bring him away; so they left him where they
found him, only took him down from the tree where he was
hanged by one hand.
However just our men thought this action to be, I was against
them in it, and I always after that time told them God would
blast the voyage; for I looked upon the blood they shed that
night to be murder in them: for though it is true that they had
killed Thomas Jeffrys, yet it was as true that Jeffrys was the
aggressor, had broken the truce and had violated or debauched
a young woman of theirs, who came to our camp innocently,
and on the faith of their capitulation.
The boatswain defended this quarrel when we were after-
wards 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 manner; that
though the poor man had taken a liberty with a wench, he
ought not to have been murdered, and that in such a villainous
manner; and that they did nothing but what was just, and what
the laws of God allowed to be done to murderers.
One would think this should have been enough to have warned
us against going on shore among heathens and barbarians; but
it is impossible to make mankind wise but at their own experi-
ence; and their experience seems to be always of most use to
them when it is dearest bought.
We were now bound to the Gulf of Persia, and from thence
to the coast of Coromandel, only to touch at Surat; but the chief
of the supercargo's design lay at the Bay of Bengal, where if he
missed of his business outward-bound he was to go up to China,
and return to the coast as he came home.
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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
467
carried away into slavery; the rest of the boat's crew were not
able to rescue them, and had but just time to get off their boat.
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, ver.
4, 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 (so I
always called it, though our men could not bear the word mas-
sacre with any patience): and indeed this last circumstance, as
I have said, put me to silence for the present.
But my frequent preaching to them on this subject had worse
consequences than I expected; and the boatswain, who had been
the head of the attempt, came up boldly to me one time, and
told me he found that I continually brought that affair upon the
stage, that I made unjust reflections upon it, and had used the
men very ill on that account, and himself in particular; that as
I was but a passenger, and had no command in the ship, or con-
cern in the voyage, they were not obliged to bear it; that they
did not know but I might have some ill design in my head, and
perhaps to call them to an account for it when they came to
England; and that, therefore, 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 heard him patiently enough till he had done, and then 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 had
on all occasions spoken my mind freely about it, though not
more upon him than any of the rest; that as to my having no
command in the ship, that was true, nor did I exercise any
authority, only took the liberty of speaking my mind in things
which publicly concerned us all: as to what concern I had in
the voyage, that was none of his business; I was a considerable
468
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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 one else; and began to be a little
warm with him: 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 at 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. Any one may guess the sur-
prise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked the man
who bade him deliver that errand to me? He told me, the
coxswain. I said no more to the fellow, but bid him let them
know he had delivered his message, and that I had given him
no answer to it.
I immediately went and found out the supercargo, and told
him the story, adding, what I presently foresaw, viz., that there
would certainly be a mutiny in the ship; and entreated him to
go immediately on board the ship in an Indian boat, and ac-
quaint the captain of it: but I might have spared this intelli-
gence, 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, for the fellow talked very well, and repeating all he
had said to me, 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 there-
fore thought fit to tell him, that as they shipped themselves to
serve in the ship under his command, they would perforın 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; and at that word All, he turned his face
about towards the main-mast, which was, it seems, the signal
:
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
469
agreed on between them, at which all the seamen being got
together, they cried out, "One and All, One and All!”
My nephew, the captain, was a man of spirit, and of great
presence of mind; and though he was surprised, you may be
sure, at the thing, yet he told them calmly he would consider of
the matter, but that he could do nothing in it till he had spoken
to me about it: he used some arguments with them, to show
them the unreasonableness and injustice of the thing, but it was
all in vain; they swore, and shook hands round, before his face,
that they would go all on shore unless he would engage to them
not to suffer me to come on board the ship.
This was a hard article upon him, who knew his obligation to
me, and did not know how I might take it; so he began to talk
cavalierly to them; told them that I was a very considerable
owner of the ship, and that in justice he could not put me out
of my own house; that this was next door to serving me as the
famous pirate Kid had done, who made the mutiny in a ship,
set the captain on shore in an uninhabited island, and ran away
with the ship; that let them go into what ship they would, if
ever they came to England again it would cost them dear; that
the ship was mine, and that he could not put me out of it; and
that he would rather lose the ship, and the voyage too, than
disoblige me so much; so they might do as they pleased. How-
ever, he would go on shore, and talk with me there, and invited
the boatswain to go with him, and perhaps they might accom-
modate the matter with me.
66
But they all rejected the proposal; and said, they would have
nothing to do with me any more, neither on board nor on shore;
and if I came on board, they would go on shore. 'Well," said
the captain, "if you are all of this mind, let me go on shore, and
talk with him:" so away he came to me with this account, a
little after the message had been brought to me from the cox-
swain.
I was very glad to see my nephew I must confess, for I was
not without apprehensions that they would confine him by
violence, set sail, and run away with the ship; and then I had
been stripped naked, in a remote country, and nothing to help
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
myself: in short, I had been in a worse case than when I was
all alone in the island.
But they had not come to that length, it seems, to my great
satisfaction; and when my nephew told me what they had said
to him, and how they had sworn, and shook hands, that they
would one and all leave the ship, if I was suffered to come on
board, I told him he should not be concerned at it at all, for I
would stay on shore; I only desired he would take care and
send me all my necessary things on shore, and leave me a suffi-
cient sum of money, and I would find my way to England as
well as I could.
This was a heavy piece of news to my nephew; but there
was no way to help it, but to comply with it. So, in short, he
went on board the ship again, and satisfied the men that his
uncle had yielded to their importunity, and had sent for hist
goods from on board the ship. 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.
I was now alone in the remotest part of the world, as I think
I may call it, 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 desert of Arabia, to Aleppo and Scanderoon,
and from thence by sea again to Italy, and so overland into
France; and this, put together, might be, at least, a full diame-
ter of the globe; but, if it were to be measured, I suppose it
would appear to be a great deal more.
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 Eng-
land: but as I came hither without any concern with the Eng-
lish East India Company, so it would be difficult to go from
hence without their licence, unless with great favour of the
captains of the ships, or of the Company's factors; and to both
I was an utter stranger.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
471
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 circumstances scarce ever met with, except from pirates
running 'away with a ship, and setting those that would not
agree with their villany on shore: indeed this was the next door
to it both ways. 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 Englishwoman, where several merchants lodged,
some French, two Italians, or rather Jews, and one Englishman.
Here I was handsomely enough entertained; and that I might
not be said to run rashly upon anything, I stayed here above
nine months, considering what course to take, and how to man- .
age myself. I had some English goods with me of value, and a
considerable sum of money; my nephew furnishing me with a
thousand pieces of eight, and a letter of credit for more, if I had
occasion, that I might not be straitened, whatever might happen.
I quickly disposed of my goods, and to advantage too; and,
as I originally intended, I bought here some very good diamonds,
which, of all other things, was the most proper for me, in my
present circumstances, because I might always carry my whole
estate about me.
After a long stay here, and many proposals made for my
return to England, but none falling to my mind, the English
merchant, who lodged with me, and with whom I had con-
tracted an intimate acquaintance, came to me one 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.
"Here we are posted," says he, "you by accident, and I by
my own choice, in a part of the world very remote from our
own country; but it is in a country where, by us who under-
stand trade and business, a great deal of money is to be got 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
472
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
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, rolling round and round; all the creatures of God,
heavenly bodies and earthly, are busy and diligent: why should
we be idle? There are no drones in the world but men: why
should we be of that number?"
I liked his proposal very well; and the more because it seemed
to be expressed with so much good will, and in so friendly a
manner. I will not say, but that I might, by my loose and un-
hinged circumstances, be the fitter to embrace a proposal for
trade, or indeed for anything else; whereas otherwise, trade was
none of my element; however, I might, perhaps, say with some
truth, that if trade was not my element, rambling was; and no
proposal for seeing any part of the world, which I had never
seen before, could possibly come amiss to me.
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;
that is to say, so many as were necessary to govern the
voyage, and manage the sailors which we should pick up there.
After some time we got a mate, a boatswain, and a gunner,
English; a Dutch carpenter, and three Portuguese foremast-
men: with these we found we could do well enough, having
Indian seamen, such as they are, to make up.
There are so many travellers who have written the history of
their voyages and travels this way, that it would be but very
little diversion to anybody, to give a long account of the places
we went to, and the people who inhabit there: those things I
leave to others, and refer the reader to those journals and travels
of Englishmen, many of which I find are published, and more
promised every day. It is enough for me to tell you that we
made this 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 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: and I was very well satisfied with my adventure.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
473
I observe, that our people in England often admire how the
officers, which the Company send into India, and the merchants
which generally stay there, get such very great estates as they
do, and sometimes come home worth sixty to seventy, and a
hundred thousand pounds at a time. But it is no wonder, or
at least, we shall see so much farther into it, when we consider
the innumerable ports and places where they have a free com-
merce; that it will then be no wonder; and much less will it
be so, when we consider, that at all those places and ports where
the English ships come, there is so much, and such constant
demand for the growth of all other countries, that there is a
certain vent for the returns, as well as a market abroad for the
goods carried out.
In short, we made a very good voyage, and 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 in it? And indeed I
think it is with great justice that I now call it a restless desire,
for it was so when I was at home, I was restless to go abroad;
and now I was abroad, I was restless to be at home. I say,
what was this gain to me? I was rich enough, nor had I any
uneasy desires about getting more money; and therefore the
profits of the voyage to me were things of no great force for the
prompting me forward to farther undertakings: hence I thought,
that by this voyage I had made no progress at all; because I
was come back, as I might call it, to the place from whence I
came, as to a home; whereas my eye, which, like that which
Solomon speaks of, was never satisfied with seeing, was still
more desirous of wandering and seeing. 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; and then I thought I might say I
had seen all the world that was worth seeing.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
But my fellow-traveller and I had different notions; I do not
name this to insist upon my own, for I acknowledge his were
the most just, and the most suited to the end of a merchant's
life; who, when he is abroad upon adventures, it is his wisdom
to stick to that, as the best thing for him, which he is like to
get the most money by. 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 unsettled resolution imagin-
able, which way to go. In the interval of these consultations,
my friend, who was always upon the search for business, pro-
posed another voyage to me, viz., among the Spice Islands;
and to bring home a loading of cloves from the Manillas, or
thereabouts; places where, indeed, the Dutch do trade, but the
islands belong partly to the Spaniards; though we went not so
far, but to some other, where they have not the whole power
as they have at Batavia, Ceylon, &c. We were not long in
preparing for this voyage; the chief difficulty was in bringing
me to come into it; however, at last, nothing else offering, and
finding that really stirring about and trading, the profit being
so great, and, as I may say, certain, had more pleasure in it,
and more satisfaction to the mind, than sitting still; which, to
me especially, was the unhappiest part of life, I resolved on this
voyage too 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.
My friend, when we made up this account, smiled at me:
"Well now," said he, with a sort of an agreeable insulting my
indolent temper, "is not this better than walking about here,
like a man of nothing to do, and spending our time in staring
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
475
at the nonsense and ignorance of the Pagans?"-"Why truly,"
said I, “my friend, I think it is; and I begin to be a convert
to the principles of merchandising. But I must tell you," said
I, "by the way, you do not know what I am doing; for if once
I conquer my backwardness, and embark heartily, as old as I
am, I shall harass you up and down the world till I tire you;
for I shall pursue it so eagerly, I shall never let you lie still."
But to be short with my speculations: a little while after this
there came in a Dutch ship from Batavia; she was a coaster,
not an European trader, 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 with, he lay by at
Bengal; and, as if having got money enough or being willing,
for other reasons, to go for Europe, he gave public notice, that he
would sell his ship; this came to my ears before my new part-
ner 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 awhile, 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, agreeing with the master,
we paid for her, 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 having received not their wages, but their share of the
money, as we afterwards learnt, not one of them was to be
found. We inquired much about them, and at length were
told, that they were all gone together, by land, to Agra, the
great city of the Mogul's residence; and from thence were to
travel to Surat, and so by sea to the Gulf of Persia.
Nothing had so heartily troubled me a good while, as that I
missed the opportunity of going with them; for such a ramble
I thought, and in such company as would both have guarded
me and diverted me, would have suited mightily with my great
design; and I should both have seen the world, and gone home-
wards too; but I was much better satisfied a few days after,
when I came to know what sort of fellows they were; for, in
short, their history was, that this man they called captain was the
476
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
gunner only, not the commander; that they had been a trading
voyage, in which they were attacked on shore by some of the
Malayans, who had killed the captain and three of his men ;
and that after the captain was killed, these men, eleven in
number, had resolved to run away with the ship, which they did;
and had brought her in at the Bay of Bengal, leaving the mate
and five men more on shore; of whom we shall hear farther.
Well, let them come by the ship how they would, we came
honestly by her, as we thought; though we did not, I confess,
examine into things so exactly as we ought; for we never in-
quired anything of the seamen, who, if we had examined, would
certainly have faltered in their accounts, contradicted one an-
other, and perhaps have contradicted themselves; or, one how
or other, we should have seen reason to have suspected them;
but the man showed us a bill of sale for the ship, to one
Emanuel Clostershoven, or some such name, for I suppose it
was all a forgery, and called himself by that name; and we
could not contradict him; and being withal a little too unwary,
or at least having no suspicion of the thing, we went through
with our bargain.
We picked up some English seamen here after this, and some
Dutch; and now we resolved for a second voyage to the south-
east, for cloves, &c., that is to say, among the Philippine and
Molucca isles; and, in short, not to fill this part of my story
with trifles, when, what is yet to come is so remarkable, 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
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 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,
by all our industry, 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
477
Cambodia; for I had made the English mate, one Mr. Thomp-
son, captain, not being willing to take the charge of the ship
upon myself. This river lies on the north side of the great
bay or gulf which goes up to Siam.
While we were here, and going often on shore for refresh-
ment, there comes to me one day an Englishman, and he was,
it seems, a gunner's mate on board an English East India ship,
which rode in the same river, up at or near the city of Cam-
bodia: what brought him hither we knew not; but he comes
up to me, and, speaking English, "Sir," says he, “you are a
stranger to me, and I to you; but I have something to tell you,
that very nearly concerns you.”
I looked steadily at him a good while, and thought at first
that I had known him, but I did not. "If it very nearly con-
cerns me," said I, " and not yourself, what moves you to tell it
me?"-"I am moved," says he, "by the imminent danger
you are in; and, for aught I see, you have no knowledge of it."
CC
"I know no danger I am in," said I, "but that my ship is
leaky, and I cannot find it out; but I purpose 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. Do you know, sir," said he, "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,
Well," said I," and what is that to me?”
Why, sir," says he, "is it for a man that is upon such adven-
tures as you are upon, to come into a port, and not examine first
what ships there are there, and whether he is able to deal with
them? I suppose you don't think you are a match for them?
I was amused very much at his discourse, but not amazed at it;
for I could not conceive what he meant; and I turned short
upon him, and said, “Sir, I wish you would explain yourself;
I cannot imagine what reason I have to be afraid of any of the
Company's ships, or Dutch ships; I am no interloper; what
can they have to say to me?"
He looked like a man half angry, half pleased; and pausing
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
awhile, but smiling, "Well, sir," says he, "if you think yourself
secure, you must take your chance; I am sorry your fate should
blind you against good advice; but assure yourself if you do not
put to sea immediately, you will the very next tide be attacked
by five long-boats full of men; and perhaps, if you are taken,
you will be hanged for a pirate, and the particulars be examined
into afterwards. I thought, sir," added he, “I should have met
with a better reception than this, for doing you a piece of service
of such importance."-"I can never be ungrateful,” said I, “ for
any service, or to any man that offers me any kindness; but it
is past my comprehension," said I, "what they should have
such a design upon me for; however, since you say there is no
time to be lost, and that there is some villainous design in hand
against me, I will go on board this minute, and put to sea im-
mediately, if my men can stop the leak, or if we can swim with-
out stopping it: but, sir," said I, "shall I go away ignorant of the
reason of all this?
Can you give me no farther light into it?"
"I can tell you but part of the story, sir," says he; "but I have
a Dutch seaman here with me, and, I believe, I could persuade
him to tell you the rest; but there is scarce time for it: but the
short of the story is this, the first part of which, I suppose you
know well enough, viz., that you were with this ship at Sumatra ;
that there your captain was murdered by the Malayans, 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, I can assure you, and executed with very little cere-
mony; for you know merchant-ships show but little law to
pirates, if they get them into their power."
"Now you speak plain English," said I, "and I thank you;
and though I know nothing that we have done, like what you
talk of, but am sure we came honestly and fairly by the ship;
yet seeing such work is a-doing, as you say, and that you seem
to mean honestly, I will be upon my guard.' "Nay, sir," says
he, "do not talk of being upon your guard; the best defence is
to be out of danger: it you have any regard to your life, and the
lives of all your men, put out to sea without fail at high-water ;
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
479
and as you have a whole tide before you, you will be gone too
far out before they can come down; for they will come away
at high-water; and as they have twenty miles to come, you get
near two hours of them by the difference of the tide, not reckon-
ing the length of the way: besides, as they are only boats, and.
not ships, they will not venture to follow you far out to sea,
especially if it blows."
Well," said I, "you have been very kind in this: what shall
I do for you to make you amends?"—"Sir," says he, “you may
not be so willing to make me amends, because you may not be
convinced of the truth of it: I will make an offer to you; 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 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."
66
I consented to this readily; and 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, “O ho! O ho! we have
stopped the leak! we have stopped the leak!"-" Say you so,'
said I; “thank God; but weigh the anchor then immediately."
Weigh!" says he; "what do you mean by that? What is
the matter?" says he.-" Ask no questions," said I, “but all
hands to work, and weigh without losing a minute."
He was
surprised: but however, he called the captain, and he imme-
diately ordered the anchor to be got up; and though the tide
was not quite done, yet a little land-breeze blowing, we stood
out to sea; then I called him into the cabin, and told him the
story at large; and we called in the men, and they told us the
rest of it: but as it took us up a great deal of time, so before we
had done, 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.”- "Very well,” said I; "then it
480
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
us.
is apparent there is something in it." In the next place, I ordered
all our men to be called up; and told them, that there was a de-
sign to seize the ship, and to take us for pirates; and asked them,
if they would stand by us, and by one another? The men an-
swered cheerfully, one and all, that they would live and die with
Then I asked the captain, what way he thought best for us
to manage a fight with them; for resist them I was resolved we
would, and that to the last drop. He said, readily, that the way
was to keep them off with our great shot as long as we could, and
then to fire at them with our small arms, to keep them from
boarding us; but when neither of these would do any longer,
we should retire to our close quarters; perhaps they had not
materials to break open our bulk-heads, or get in upon us.
The gunner had, in the meantime, orders to bring two guns
to bear fore and aft, out of the steerage, to clear the deck, and
load them with musket-bullets and small pieces of old iron, and
what next came to hand; and thus we made ready for fight;
but all this while we kept out to sea, with wind enough, and
could see the boats at a distance, being five large long-boats
following us, with all the sail they could make.
Two of these boats, which, by our glasses, we could see were
English, had outsailed the rest, were near two leagues ahead of
them, and gained upon us considerably; so that we found they
would come up with us: upon which we fired a gun without
ball, to intimate that they should bring to; 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 this we took in our
white flag, they having made no answer to it; hung out the red
flag, and fired at them with shot: notwithstanding this, they
came on till they were near enough to call to them with a
speaking-trumpet, which we had on board; so we called to
them, and bade them keep off at their peril.
It was all one, they crowded after us, and endeavoured to
come under our stern, so to board us on our quarter: upon
which, seeing they were resolute for mischief, and depended
upon the strength that followed them, I ordered to bring the
ship to, so they lay upon our broadside, when immediately we
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
481
fired five guns at them; one of which had been levelled so true,
as to carry away the stern of the hindermost boat, and bring
them to the necessity of taking down their sail, and running all
to the head of the boat to keep her from sinking; so she lay by
and had enough of it; but seeing the foremost boat still crowd
on after us, we made ready to fire at her in particular.
While this was doing, one of the three boats that was behind,
being forwarder than the other two, 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, and
offered a truce to parley again, and to know what was her busi-
ness with us; but had no answer: only she crowded close under
our stern.
Upon this our gunner, who was a very dexterous

fellow, run out his two chase-guns, and fired at her; but the
shot missing, the men in the boat shouted, waved their caps,
and came on; but the gunner, getting quickly ready again, fired
among them the second time; one shot of which, though it
missed the boat itself, yet fell in among the men, and we could
easily see had done a great deal of mischief among them; but
we, taking no notice of that, weared the ship again, and brought
our quarter to bear upon them; and, firing three guns more, we
found the boat was almost split to pieces; in particular, her
rudder, and a piece of her stern, were shot quite away; so they
handed their sail immediately, and were in great disorder: but,
to complete their misfortune, our gunner let fly two guns at
them again; where he hit them we could not tell, but we found
2 H
482
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the boat was sinking, and some of the men already in the
water. Upon this I immediately manned out our pinnace,
which we had kept close by our side, with orders to pick up
some of the men, if they could, and save them from drowning,
and immediately to come on board with them; because we saw
the rest of the boats began to come up. Our men in the
pinnace followed their orders, and took up three men; one
of which was just drowning, and it was a good while before
we could recover him. As soon' as they were on board, we
crowded all the sail we could make, and stood farther out to
sea; and we found, that when the other three boats came up to
the first two, they gave over their chase.
Being thus delivered from a danger, which, though I knew
not the reason of it, yet seemed to be much greater than I ap-
prehended, I took care that we would 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, whether they were bound to China, or any where else
within the cominerce of the European nations.
When we were now at sea, we began to consult with the two
seamen, and inquire first, what the meaning of all this should
be? The Dutchman let us into the secret of it at once; telling
us, that the fellow that sold us the ship, as we said, was no
more than a thief that had run away with her. Then he told
us how the captain, whose name too he mentioned, though I do
not remember it now, 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 a great while; till at length he, in particular,
in a miraculous manner, made his escape, and swam off to a
Dutch ship, which sailing near the shore, in its way from China,
had sent their boat on shore for fresh water; that he durst not
come to that part of the shore where the boat was, but made
shift in the night to take the water farther off, and swimming a
great while, at last the ship's boat took him
up.
He then told us that he went to Batavia, where two of the
seamen belonging to the ship had arrived, having deserted the
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
483
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, and that they had already
taken an English ship, and two Dutch ships, very richly laden.
This latter part we found to concern us directly; and though
we knew it to be false, yet, as my partner said very well, if we
had fallen into their hands, and they had had such a preposses-
sion against us beforehand, it had been in vain for us to have de-
fended ourselves, or to hope for any good quarter at their hands;
especially considering that our accusers had been our judges, and
that we could have expected nothing from them but what rage
would have dictated, and an ungoverned passion have executed;
and therefore it was his opinion, we should go directly back to
Bengal, from whence we came, without putting in at any port
whatever, because there we could give a good account of our-
selves, and could prove where we were when the ship put in,
whom we bought her of, and the like; and, which was more
than all the rest, if we were put to the necessity of bringing it
before the proper judges, we should be sure to have some jus-
tice; and not be hanged first, and judged afterwards.
I was some time of my partner's 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 that we were
on the wrong side of the Straits of Malacca; and that if the
alarm was given, we should be sure to be waylaid on every side,
as well by the Dutch of Batavia, as the English elsewhere; that
if we should be taken, as it were running away, we should even
condemn ourselves, and there would want no more evidence to
destroy us. I also asked the English sailor's opinion, who said,
he was of my mind, and that we should certainly be taken.
This danger a little startled my partner, and all the ship's
company; and we immediately resolved to go away to the
coast of Tonquin, and so on to China; and from thence pursuing
the first design, as to trade, find some way or other to dispose of
the ship, and come back in some of the vessels of the country,
such as we could get. This was approved of as the best method
for our security; and accordingly we steered away N.N.E. keep-
484
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
ing above fifty leagues off from the usual course to the east-
ward.
This, however, put us to some inconveniences; for first the
winds when we came to that distance from the shore, seemed
to be more steadily against us, blowing almost trade as we call
it, from the E. and E.N.E.; so that we were a long while upon
our voyage, and we were but ill provided with victuals for so
long a run; and, which was still worse, there was some danger
that those English and Dutch ships, whose boats pursued us,
whereof some were bound that way, might be got in before us;
and if not, some other ship bound to China might have infor-
mation of us from them, and pursue us with the same vigour.
I must confess I was now very uneasy, and thought myself,
including the late escape from the long-boats, to have been in
the most dangerous condition that ever I was in through all my
past life; for whatever ill circumstances I had been in, I was
never pursued for a thief before; nor had I ever done anything
that merited the name of dishonest or fraudulent, much less
thievish. I had chiefly been mine own enemy; or, as I may
rightly say, I had been nobody's enemy but my own.
now I was embarrassed in the worst condition imaginable; for
though I was perfectly innocent, I was in no condition to make
that innocence appear: and if I had been taken, it had been
under a supposed guilt of the worst kind; at least a crime
esteemed so among the people I had to do with.
But
This made me very anxious to make an escape, though which
way to do it I knew not; or what port or place we should go
to. My partner, seeing me thus dejected, though he was the
most concerned at first, began to encourage me; and describing
to me the several ports of that coast, told me, he would put in
on the coast of Cochinchina, or the bay of Tonquin; intending
to go
afterwards to Macao, a town once in the possession of the
Portuguese, and where still a great many European families
resided, and particularly the missionary priests usually went
thither, in order to their going forward to China.
Hither then we resolved to go; and accordingly, though
after a tedious and irregular course, and very much straitened for
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
485
provisions, we came within sight of the coast very early in the
morning; and upon reflection upon the past circumstances we
were in, and the danger, if we had not escaped, we resolved to
put into a small river, which, however, had depth enough of
water for us, and to see if we could, either overland or by the
ship's pinnace, come to know what ships were in any ports
thereabouts. This happy step was, indeed, our deliverance; for
though we did not immediately see any European ships in the
bay of Tonquin, yet the next morning there came into the bay
two Dutch ships; and a third without any colours spread out,
but which we believed to be a Dutchman, passed by at about
two leagues distance, steering for the coast of China; and in the
afternoon went by two English ships, steering the same course;
and thus we thought we saw ourselves beset with enemies, both
one way and the other. The place we were in was wild and
barbarous, the people thieves, even by occupation or profession ;
and though, it is true, we had not much to seek of them, and
except getting a few provisions, cared not how little we had to
do with them; yet it was with much difficulty that we kept
ourselves from being insulted by them several ways.
We were in a small river of this country, within a few leagues
of its utmost limits northward, and by our boat we coasted north-
east to the point of land which opens to the great bay of Ton-
quin; and it was in this beating up along the shore that we
discovered as above, that in a word we were surrounded with
enemies. The people we were among were the most barbarous
of all the inhabitants of the coast; having no correspondence
with any other nation, and dealing only in fish and oil, and such
gross commodities; and it may be particularly seen that they
are, as I said, the most barbarous of any of the inhabitants, viz.,
that among other customs they have this one, that if any vessel
have the misfortune to be shipwrecked upon their coast, they
presently make the men all prisoners; that is to say slaves;
and it was not long before we found a spice of their kindness
this way, on the occasion following.
I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and
that we could not find it out; and however it happened, that,
486
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
as I have said, it was stopped unexpectedly, in the happy minute
of our being to be seized by the Dutch and English ships, in
the bay of Siam; 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, take out what heavy things we
had on board, which were not many, and to wash and clean
her bottom, and if possible to find out where the leaks were.
Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and brought all our
guns, and other moveable things, to one side, we tried to bring
her down, that we might come at her bottom; for, on second
thoughts, we did not care to lay her dry aground, neither could
we find out a proper place for it.
The inhabitants, who had never been acquainted with such
a sight, came wondering down to the shore to look at us; and
seeing the ship lie down on one side in such a manner, and
heeling towards the shore, and not seeing our men, who were
at work on her bottom with stages, and with their boats, on
the off side, they presently concluded that the ship was cast
away, and lay so fast on the ground.
On this supposition they came all about us in two or three
hours time, with ten or twelve large boats, having some of them
eight, some ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have
come on board and plunder the ship; and if they had found us
there, to have carried us away for slaves to their king, or what-
ever they call him, for we knew nothing who was their governor.
When they came up to the ship, and began to row round
her, they discovered us all hard at work, on the outside of the
ship's bottom and side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as
every seafaring man knows how.
They stood for awhile gazing at us, and we, who were a little
surprised, could not imagine what their design was; but being
willing to be sure, we took this opportunity to get some of us
into the ship, and others to hand down arms and ammunition
to those that were at work to defend themselves with, if there
should be occasion; and it was no more than need; for in less
than a quarter of an hour's consultation, they agreed, it seems,
that the ship was really a wreck; that we were all at work
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
487
endeavouring to save her, or to save our lives by the help of our
boats; and when we handed our arms into the boats, they con-
cluded by that motion that we were endeavouring to save some
of our goods. Upon this they took it for granted we all belonged
to them, and away they came down upon our men, as if it had
been in a line of battle.
Our men seeing so many of them began to be frighted, for
we lay but in an ill posture to fight, and cried out to us to know
what they should do? I immediately called to the men who
worked upon the stages, to slip them down and get up the side
into the ship, and bade those in the boat to row round and come
on board; and those few of us who were on board worked with
all the strength and hands we had to bring the ship to rights;
but, however, neither the men upon the stages, nor those in the
boats, could do as they were ordered, before the Cochinchineses
were upon them, and two of their boats boarded our long-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
of them who attempted to enter the boat. But this was doing
little towards resisting thirty or forty men, who fearless, because
ignorant of their danger, began to throw themselves into the
long-boat, where we had but five men to defend it. But one
accident gave our men a complete victory, which deserved our
laughter rather than anything else, and that was this:-
Our carpenter being preparing to grave the outside of the
ship, as well as to pay the seams where he had 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,
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
and oil, and such stuff as the shipwrights use for that work;
and the man that tended the carpenter had a great iron ladle in
his hand, with which he supplied the men that were at work
with that hot stuff: two of the enemy's men entered the boat
just where this fellow stood, being in the fore-sheets; he im-
mediately 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 cried out, "Well
done, Jack, give them some more of it;" when stepping for-
ward himself, he takes one of their mops, and dipping it in the
pitch pot, he and his man threw it among them so plentifully,
that, in short, of all the men in three boats, there was not one
that was not scalded and burnt with it in a most frightful,
pitiful manner, and made such a howling and crying, that I
never heard a worse noise, and, indeed, nothing like it; for it
was worth observing, that though pain naturally makes all
people cry out, yet every nation have a particular way of ex-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
489
clamation, and make noises as different from one another as
their speech. I cannot give the noise these creatures made a
better name than howling, nor a name more proper to the tone
of it; for I never heard anything more like the noise of the
wolves, which, as I have said, I heard howl in the forest on the
frontiers of Languedoc.
I was never pleased with a victory better in my life; not only
as it was a perfect surprise to me, and that our danger was im-
minent before; but as we got this victory without any blood-
shed, except of that man the fellow killed with his naked hands,
and which I was very much concerned at; for I was sick of kill-
ing such poor savage wretches, even though it was in my own
defence, knowing they came on errands which they thought just,
and knew no better; and that though it may be a just thing, be-
cause necessary, for there is no necessary wickedness in nature;
yet I thought it was a sad life, when we must be always obliged
to be killing our fellow-creatures to preserve ourselves; and,
indeed, I think so still; and I would, even now, suffer a great
deal, rather than I would take away the life even of the worst
person injuring me. I believe also, all considering people, who
know the value of life, would be of my opinion, if they entered
seriously into the consideration of it.
But to return to my story. 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 gotten 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 called back again to him, and bid 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. Thus we got clear of this merry fight;
and having gotten some rice, and some roots and bread, with
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
about sixteen good big hogs on board two days before, we
resolved to stay here no longer, but go forward, whatever came
of it; for we made no doubt but we should be surrounded the
next day with rogues enough, perhaps more than our pitch-
kettle would dispose of for us.
We therefore got all our things on board the same evening,
and the next morning were ready to sail. In the meantime,
lying at an anchor at some distance from the shore, we were
not so much concerned, being now in a fighting posture, as well
as in a sailing posture, if any enemy had presented. The next
day, having finished our work within board, and finding our
ship was perfectly healed of all her leaks, we set sail. We
would have gone into the bay of Tonquin, for we wanted to
inform ourselves of what was to be known concerning the Dutch
ships that had been there; but we durst not stand in there, be-
cause we had seen several ships go in, as we supposed, but a
little before; so we kept on N.E. towards the isle of Formosa,
as much afraid of being seen by a Dutch or English merchant-
ship, as a Dutch or English merchant-ship in the Mediterranean
is of an Algerine man-of-war.
When we were thus got to sea, we kept on N.E. as if we
would go to the Manillas or the Philippine islands, and this we
did, that we might not fall into the way of any of our European
ships and then we steered north again, till we came to the
latitude of 22 degrees 20 minutes, by which means we made
the island Formosa directly, where we came to an anchor, in
order to get water and fresh provisions, which the people there,
who are very courteous and civil in their manners, supplied us
with willingly, and dealt very fairly and punctually with us in
all their agreements and bargains, which is what we did not find
among other people, and may be owing to the remains of Chris
tianity, which was once planted here by a Dutch mission of Pro-
testants, and is a testimony of what I have often observed, viz.,
that the Christian religion always civilises the people and reforms
their manners, where it is received, whether it works saving
effects upon them or no.
From hence we sailed still north, keeping the coast of China
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
491
at an equal distance, till we knew we were beyond all the ports
of China where our European ships usually come; being re-
solved, if possible, not to fall into any of their hands, especially
in this country, where as our circumstances were, we could not
fail of being entirely ruined; nay, so great was my fear in par-
ticular, as to my being taken by them, that I believe firmly I
would much rather have chosen to fall into the hands of the
Spanish Inquisition.
Being now come to the latitude of 30 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, knowing us to be an European
ship, came to offer his service, which indeed we were very glad
of, and took him on board; upon which, without asking us
whither we would go, he dismisse the boat he came in, and
sent it back.
I thought it was now so much in our choice to make the old
man carry us whither we would, that I began to talk with him
about carrying us to the gulf of Nanquin, which is the most
northern part of the coast of China. The old man said he knew
the gulf of Nanquin very well; but smiling, asked us what we
would do there?
I told him we would sell our cargo, and purchase China
wares, calicoes, raw silks, tea, wrought silks, &c., and so would
return by the same course we came. He told us our best port
had been to have put in at Macao, where we could not fail of
a market for our opium to our satisfaction, and, might, for our
money, have purchased all sorts of China goods as cheap as we
could at Nanquin.
Not being able to put the old man out of his talk, of which
he was very opinionated, or conceited, I told him we were
gentlemen as well as merchants, and that we had a mind to go
and see the great city of Pekin, and the famous court of the
monarch of China. "Why then," says the old man, “you
should go to Ningpo, where, by the river which runs into the
sea there, you may go up within five leagues of the great canal.
This canal is a navigable made stream, which goes through the
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
heart of all that vast empire of China, crosses all the rivers,
passes some considerable hills by the help of sluices and gates,
and goes up to the city of Pekin, being in length near two
hundred and seventy leagues.”
"Well," said I, "seignior Portuguese, but that is not our
business now; the great question is if you can carry us up to
the city of Nanquin, from whence we can travel to Pekin after-
wards?" Yes, he said, he could do so very well, and there
was a great Dutch ship gone up that way just before. This
gave me a little shock; a Dutch ship was now our terror, and we
had much rather have met the devil, at least if he had not come
in too frightful a figure; we depended upon it that a Dutch ship
would be our destruction, for we were in no condition to fight
them; all the ships they trade with into those parts being of
great burden, and of much greater force than we were.
The old man found me a little confused, and under some
concern, when he named a Dutch ship; and said to me, "Sir,
you need be under no apprehensions of the Dutch; I suppose
they are not now at war with your nation.”—“No,” said I,
"that's true; but I know not what liberties men may take
when they are out of the reach of the law."
you are no pirates, what need you fear?
meddle with peaceable merchants, sure."
'Why," said he
They will not
If I had any blood in my body that did not fly up into my
face at that word, it was hindered by some stop in the vessels
appointed by nature to prevent it; for it put me into the greatest
disorder and confusion imaginable; nor was it possible for me
to conceal it so, but that the old man easily perceived it.
Sir," said he, "I find you are in some disorder in your
thoughts at my talk; pray be pleased to go which way you
think fit, and depend upon it I'll do you all the service I can."
Why, seignior," said I, "it is true, I am a little unsettled
in my resolution at this time, whither to go in particular; and
I am something more so for what you said about pirates. I
hope there are no pirates in these seas; we are but in an ill
condition to meet with them; for you see we have but a small
force, and but very weakly manned."
"Oh, sir," said he, " do not be concerned; I do not know that
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
493
there have been any pirates in these seas these fifteen years,
except one, which was seen, as I hear, in the bay of Siam, about
a month since; but you may be assured she is gone to the south-
ward; nor was she a ship of any great force, or fit for the
work; she was not built for a privateer, but was run away with
by a reprobate crew that were on board, after the captain and
some of his men had been murdered by the Malayans, at or
near the island of Sumatra.”
"What!" said I, seeming to know nothing of the matter,
"did they murder the captain?"-"No," said he, "I do not
understand that they murdered him; but as they afterwards
ran away with the ship, it is generally believed they betrayed
him into the hands of the Malayans, who did murder him; and,
perhaps, they procured them to do it."-" Why then," said I,
they deserve death, as much as if they had done it themselves.”
Nay," said the old man, " they do deserve it, and they will
certainly have it if they light upon any English or Dutch ship;
for they have all agreed together that if they meet that rogue
they will give him no quarter.”
(
<<
"But," said I to him, "you say the pirate is gone out of these
seas; how can they meet with him then?
Why, that is
true,” said he, “they do say so ; but he was, as I tell you, in
the bay of Siam, in the river Cambodia, and was discovered
there by some Dutchmen who belonged to the ship, and who
were left on shore when they ran away with her; and some
English and Dutch traders being in the river, they were within
a little of taking him. Nay," said he, "if the foremost boats
had been well seconded by the rest, they had certainly taken
him; but he finding only two boats within reach of him, tacked
about, and fired at these two, and disabled them before the
others came up; and then standing off to sea, the others were
not able to follow him, and so he got away. But they have all
so exact a description of the ship, that they will be sure to know
him; and wherever they find him, they have vowed to give no
quarter to either the captain or the seamen, but to hang them
all up at the yard-arm."
"What!" said I, "will they execute them, right or wrong;
hang them first, and judge them afterwards? Oh, sir," said
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the old pilot, "there is no need to make a formal business of it
with such rogues as those; let them tie them back to back, and
set them a-diving; it is no more than they richly deserve.
I knew I had my old man fast aboard, and that he could do
me no harm; so that I turned short upon him. "Well, seignior,"
said I, “and this is the very reason why I would have you carry
us to Nanquin, and not to put back to Macao, or to any other
part of the country where the English or Dutch ships come;
for be it known to you, seignior, those captains of the English
and Dutch ships are a parcel of rash, proud, insolent fellows, that
neither know what belongs to justice, or how to behave them-
selves as the laws of God and nature direct; but being proud of
their offices, and not understanding their power, they would act
the murderers to punish robbers; would take upon them to in-
sult men falsely accused, and determine them guilty without due
inquiry, and perhaps I may live to call some of them to an account
for it, where they may be taught how justice is to be executed;
that no man ought to be treated as a criminal till some evidence
may be had of the crime, and that he is the man.”
With this I told him that this was the very ship they had
attacked; and gave him a full account of the skirmish we had
with their boats, and how foolishly and coward-like they behaved.
I told him all the story of our buying the ship, and how the
Dutchmen served us. I told him the reasons I had to believe
that this story of killing the master by the Malayans was true, as
also the running away with the ship; but that it was all a fiction
of their own, to suggest that the men were turned pirates; and
they ought to have been sure it was so before they had ventured
to attack us by surprise, and oblige us to resist them; adding,
that they would have the blood of those men who were killed
there in our just defence to answer for.
The old man was amazed at this relation; and told us, we
were very much in the right to go away to the north; and that
if he might advise us, it should be to sell the ship in China,
which we might very well do, and buy or build another in the
country; "and," said he, "though you will not get so good a
ship, yet you may get one able enough to carry you and all your
goods back again to Bengal, or anywhere else.'
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
495
I told him I would take his advice when I came to any port
where I could find a ship for my turn, or get any customer to
buy this. He replied, I should meet with customers enough for
the ship at Nanquin, and that a Chinese junk would serve me
very well to go back again; and that he would procure me
people both to buy one and sell the other.
Well, but, seignior," says I, "as you say they know the
ship so well, I may, perhaps, if I follow your measures, be in-
strumental to bring some honest, innocent men into a terrible
broil, and, perhaps, to be murdered in cold blood; for wherever
they find the ship they will prove the guilt upon the men by
proving this was the ship, and so innocent men may probably be
"" I'll
overpowered and murdered."—"Why," said the old man,
find out a way to prevent that also; for as I know all those com-
manders you speak of very well, and shall see them all as they
pass by, I will be sure to set them to rights in the thing, and let
them know that they had been so much in the wrong; that
though the people who were on board at first might run away
with the ship, yet it was not true that they had turned pirates;
and that in particular these were not the men that first went
off with the ship, but innocently bought her for their trade, and
I am persuaded they will so far believe me, as, at least, to act
more cautiously for the time to come."-" Well," said I, "and
will you deliver one message to them from me?"-"Yes, I
will," says he, "if you will give it under your hand in writing,
that I may be able to prove that it came from you, and not out
of my own head." I answered, that I would readily give it him
under my hand. So I took a pen and ink, and paper, and wrote
at large the story of assaulting me with the long-boats, &c., the
pretended reason of it, and the unjust, cruel design of it; and
concluded to the commanders that they had done what they not
only should have been ashamed of, but also, that if ever they
came to England, and I lived to see them there, they should all
pay dearly for it, if the laws of my country were not grown out
of use before I arrived there.
My old pilot read this over and over again, and asked me several
times if I would stand to it. I answered, I would stand to it as
long as I had anything left in the world; being sensible that I
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
should, one time or other find an opportunity to put it home
to them. But we had no occasion ever to let the pilot carry
this letter, for he never went back again. While those things
were passing between us, by way of discourse, we went forward
directly for Nanquin, and, in about thirteen days' sail, came to
anchor at the south-west point of the great gulf of Nanquin;
where, by the way, I came by accident to understand, that two
Dutch ships were gone that length before me, and that I should
certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partner again in
this exigency, and he was as much at a loss as I was, and would
very gladly have been safe on shore almost anywhere. However,
I was not in such perplexity neither, but 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 south-
ward 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 religion to the
Chinese, and where no European ships ever put in: and, if I
thought to put in there, I might consider what further course to
take when I was on shore. He confessed, he said, it was not
a place for merchants, except that at some certain times they had
a kind of fair there, when the merchants from Japan came over
thither to buy the Chinese merchandises.
We all agreed to go back to this place: the name of the port,
as he called it, I may, perhaps, spell wrong, for I do not par-
ticularly remember it, having lost this, together with the names
of many other places set down in a little pocket-book, which
was spoiled by the water, on an accident which I shall relate in
its order; but this I remember, that the Chinese and Japanese
merchants we corresponded with called it by a different name
from that which our Portuguese pilot gave it, and pronounced
it as above, Quinchang.
As we were unanimous in our resolutions to go to this place,
we weighed the next day, having only gone twice on shore,
where we were to get fresh water; on both which occasions the
people of the country were very civil to us, and brought us
abundance of things to sell to us; I mean of provisions,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
497
plants, roots, tea, rice, and some fowls; but nothing without
money.
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 one foot on board
that unhappy vessel more: and indeed I must acknowledge,
that of all the circumstances of life that ever I had any experi-
ence of, nothing makes mankind so completely miserable as that
of being in constant fear. Well does the Scripture say,
"The
fear of man brings a snare; " it is a life of death, and the mind is
so entirely suppressed by it, that it is capable of no relief; the
animal spirits sink, and all the vigour of nature, which usually
supports men under other afflictions, and is present to them in
the greatest exigencies, fails them here.
Nor did it fail of its usual operations upon the fancy, by
heightening every danger; representing the English and Dutch
captains to be men incapable of hearing reason, or distinguish-
ing between honest men and rogues; or between a story calcu-
lated for our own turn, made out of nothing, on purpose to
deceive, and a true genuine account of our whole voyage, pro-
gress, and design; for we might many ways have convinced
any reasonable creature that we were not pirates; the goods
we had on board, the course we steered, our frankly showing
ourselves, and entering into such and such ports; even our
very manner, the force we had, the number of men, the few
arms, little ammunition, and short provisions; all these would
have served to convince any men that we were no pirates. The
opium, and other goods we had on board, would make it appear
the ship had been at Bengal; the Dutchmen, who, it was said,
had the names of all the men that were in the ship, might easily
see that we were a mixture of English, Portuguese, and Indians,
and but two Dutchmen on board. These, and many other par-
ticular circumstances, might have made it evident to the under-
standing of any commander, whose hands we might fall into,
that we were no pirates.
2 I
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
But fear, that blind useless passion, worked another way, and
threw us into the vapours; it bewildered our understandings,
and set the imagination at work, to form a thousand terrible
things, that, perhaps, might never happen. We first supposed,
as indeed everybody had related to us, that the seamen on board
the English and Dutch ships, but especially the Dutch, were so
enraged at the name of a pirate, and especially at our beating
off their boats, and escaping, that they would not give them-
selves leave to inquire whether we were pirates or no; but
would execute us off-hand, as we call it, without giving us any
room for a defence. We reflected that there was really so
much apparent evidence before them, that they would scarce
inquire after any more: as, first, that the ship was certainly the
same, and that some of the seamen among them knew her, and
had been on board her; and, secondly, that when we had in-
telligence at the river of Cambodia, that they were coming
down to examine us, we fought their boats and fled: so that
we made no doubt but they were as fully satisfied of our being
pirates as we were satisfied of the contrary; and I often said, I
knew not but I should have been apt to have taken those cir-
cumstances for evidence, if the tables were turned, and my case
was theirs; and have made no scruple of cutting all the crew
to pieces, without believing, or perhaps considering, what they
might have to offer in their defence.
But let that be how it will, those were our apprehensions ;
and both my partner and I too scarce slept a night without
dreaming of halters and yard-arms; that is to say, gibbets; of
fighting, and being taken; of killing, and being killed; and one
night I was in such a fury in my dream, fancying the Dutch-
men had boarded us, and I was knocking one of their seamen
down, that I struck my double fist against the side of the cabin
I lay in, with such a force as wounded my hand most grievously,
broke my knuckles, and cut and bruised the flesh, so that it not
only waked me out of my sleep, but I was once afraid I should
have lost two of my fingers.
Another apprehension I had, was, of the cruel usage we
should meet with from them, if we fell into their hands: then
the story of Amboyna came into my head, and how the Dutch
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
499
might, perhaps, torture us, as they did our countrymen there;
and make some of our men, by extremity of torture, confess
those crimes they never were guilty of; own themselves, and
all of us, to be pirates; and so they would put us to death, with
a formal appearance of justice; and that they might be tempted
to do this for the gain of our ship and cargo, which was worth
four or five thousand pounds, put all together.
These things tormented me, and my partner too, night and
day; nor did we consider that the captains of ships have no
authority to act thus; and if we had surrendered prisoners to
them, they could not answer the destroying us, or torturing us,
but would be accountable for it when they came into their own
country. This, I say, gave me no satisfaction; for, if they will
act thus with us, what advantage would it be to us that they
would be called to an account for it; or, if we were first to be
murdered, what satisfaction would it be to us to have them
punished when they came home?
I cannot refrain taking notice here what reflections I now
had upon the past variety of my particular circumstances; how
hard I thought it was, that I, who had spent forty years in a
life of continued difficulties, and was at last come, as it were, to
the port or haven which all men drive at, viz., to have rest and
plenty, should be a volunteer in new sorrows, by my own un-
happy choice; and that I, who had escaped so many dangers in
my youth, should now come to be hanged in my old age, and
in so remote a place, for a crime I was not in the least inclined
to, much less guilty of; and in a place and circumstance, where
innocence was not like to be any protection at all to me.
After these thoughts, something of religion would come in;
and I would be considering that this seemed to me to be a dis-
position of immediate Providence; and I ought to look upon it,
and submit to it as such: that although I was innocent as to
men, I was far from being innocent as to my Maker; and I
ought to look in, and examine what other crimes in my life
were most obvious to me, and for which Providence might
justly inflict this punishment as a retribution; and that I ought
to submit to this, just as I would to a shipwreck, if it had
pleased God to have brought such a disaster upon me.
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
:
In its turn, natural courage would sometimes take its place;
and then I would be talking myself up to vigorous resolutions,
that I would not be taken to be barbarously used by a parcel
of merciless wretches in cold blood; that it was much better to
have fallen into the hands of the savages, who were men-eaters,
and who, I was sure, would feast upon me, when they had
taken me, than by those who would perhaps glut their rage
upon me by inhuman tortures and barbarities: that, in the case
of the savages I always resolved to die fighting to the last gasp;
and why should I not do so now, seeing it was much more
dreadful, to me at least, to think of falling into these men's
hands, than ever it was to think of being eaten by men? for
the savages, give them their due, would not eat a man till he
was dead; and killed him first, as we do a bullock; but that
these men had many arts beyond the cruelty of death. When-
ever these thoughts prevailed I was sure to put myself into a
kind of fever, with the agitations of a supposed fight; my blood
would boil, and my eyes sparkle, as if I was engaged; and I
always resolved that I would take no quarter at their hands; but
even at last, if I could resist no longer, I would blow up the ship,
and all that was in her, and leave them but little booty to boast of.
But by how much the greater weight the anxieties and per-
plexities of those things were to our thoughts while we were
at sea, by so much the greater was our satisfaction when we
saw ourselves on shore; and my partner told me he dreamed
that he had a very heavy load upon his back, which he was to
carry up a hill, and found that he was not able to stand long
under it; but that the Portuguese pilot came, and took it off
his back, and the hill disappeared, the ground before him show-
ing all smooth and plain: and truly it was so; we were all like
men who had a load taken off their backs.
For my part, I had a weight taken off from my heart, that
it was not able any longer to bear; and, as I said above, we
resolved to go no more to sea in that ship. When we came on
shore, the old pilot, who was now our friend, got us a lodging,
and a warehouse for our goods, which, by the way, was much
the same: it was a little house, or hut, with a large house join-
ing to it, all built with canes, and palisadoed round with large
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
501
canes, to keep out pilfering thieves, of which it seems there were
not a few in the country. However, the magistrates allowed us
also a little guard, and we had a soldier with a kind of halbert, or
half pike, who stood sentinel at our door, to whom we allowed a
pint of rice, and a little piece of money, about the value of three-
pence, per day: so that our goods were kept very safe.
The fair or mart usually kept in this place had been over
some time; however, we found that there were three or four
junks in the river, and two Japanners, I mean ships from Japan,
with goods which they had bought in China, and were not gone
away, having some Japanese merchants on shore.
The first thing our old Portuguese pilot did for us was to
bring us acquainted with three missionary Romish priests, who
were in the town, and who had been there some time, convert-
ing the people to Christianity; but we thought they made but
poor work of it, and made them but sorry Christians when they
had done. However, that was none of our business. 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 did, one of
whom was a Portuguese, and the other a Genoese: but Father
Simon was courteous, easy in his manner, and very agreeable
company; the other two were more reserved, seemed rigid and
austere, and applied seriously to the work they came about, viz.,
to talk with, and insinuate themselves among, the inhabitants
wherever they had opportunity. We often ate and drank with
those men
and though I must confess, the conversion, as they
call it, of the Chinese to Christianity, is so far from the true
conversion required to bring heathen people to the faith of
Christ, that it seems to amount to little more than letting them
know the name of Christ, say some prayers to the Virgin Mary
and her Son, in a tongue which they understand not, and to
cross themselves and the like; yet it must be confessed that
these religious, whom we call missionaries, have a firm belief
that these people shall be saved, and that they are the instru-
ments of it; and, on this account, they undergo not only the
fatigue of the voyage, and hazards of living in such places, but
oftentimes death itself, with the most violent tortures, for the
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
sake of this work: and it would be a great want of charity in
us, whatever opinion we have of the work itself, and the manner
of their doing it, if we should not have a good opinion of their
zeal, who undertake it with so many hazards, and who have no
prospect of the least temporal advantage to themselves.
But to return to my story: this French priest, Father Simon,
was appointed, it seems, by order of the chief of the mission, 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 among the rest the greatest city in the world;
A city," said he, "that your London and our Paris put
together cannot be equal to." This was the city of Pekin,
which, I confess, is very great, and infinitely full of people; but
as I looked on those things with different eyes from other men,
so I shall give my opinion of them in few words when I come in
the course of my travels to speak more particularly of them.
But first I come to my friar or missionary: dining with him
one day, and being very merry together, I showed some little
incl.nation to go with him; and he pressed me and my partner
very hard, and with a great many persuasions, to consent.
Why, Father Simon," says my partner, "why should you
desire our company so much? You know we are heretics, and
you do not love us, nor can keep us company with any pleasure.”
—“Oh!” says he, “you may, perhaps, be good Catholics in time;
my business here is to convert heathens, and who knows but I
may convert you too?" Very well, father,” said I," so you
will preach to us all the way."-" I won't be troublesome to
you," said he; "our religion does not divest us of good man-
ners; besides," said he, we are here like countrymen; and so
we are, compared to the place we are in; and if you are Hu-
guenots, and I a Catholic, we may be all Christians at last; at
least," said he, we are all gentlemen, and we may converse
so without being uneasy to one another." I liked that part of
his discourse very well, and it began to put me in mind of my
priest that I had left in the Brazils; but this Father Simon did
CC
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
503
not come up to his character by a great deal; for though Father
Simon had no appearance of a criminal levity in him neither,
yet he had not that fund of Christian zeal, strict piety, and
sincere affection to religion, that my other good ecclesiastic had
of whom I have said so much.
But to leave him a little, though he never left us, nor solicit-
ing us to go with him, but we had something else before us at
that time; for we had all this while our ship and our merchan-
dise to dispose of; and we began to be very doubtful what we
should do, for we were now in a place of very little business;
and once I was about to venture to sail for the river of Kilam,
and the city of Nanquin: but Providence seemed now more
visibly, as I thought, than ever, to concern itself in our affairs;
and I was encouraged from this very time to think I should, one
way or other, get out of this tangled circumstance, and be
brought home to my own country again, though I had not the
least view of the manner; and when I began sometimes to think
of it, could not imagine by what method it was to be done.
Providence, I say, began here to clear up our way a little; and the
first thing that offered was, that our old Portuguese pilot brought
a Japan merchant to us, who began to inquire what goods we
had; and, in the first place, he bought all our opium, and gave
us a very good price for it, paying us in gold by weight, some in
small pieces of their own coin, and some in small wedges, of
about ten or eleven ounces each. While we were dealing with
him for our opium, it came into my head that he might, per-
haps, deal with us for the ship too; and I ordered the inter-
preter to propose it to him. He shrunk up his shoulders at it,
when it was first proposed to him; but in a few days after he
came to me, with one of the missionary priests for his interpreter,
and told me he had a proposal to make to me, and that was
this: he had bought a great quantity of goods of us when he
had no thoughts, or proposals made to him, of buying the ship,
and that, therefore, he had not money enough to pay for the
ship; but if I would let the same men who were in the ship
navigate her, he would hire the ship to go to Japan, and would
send them from thence to the Philippine islands with another load-
ing, which he would pay the freight of before they went from
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
Japan; and that, at their return, he would buy the ship. I
began to listen to this proposal; and so eager did my head still
run upon rambling, that I could not but begin to entertain a
notion of going myself with him, and so to sail from the Philip-
pine islands away to the South Seas; and accordingly I asked
the Japanese merchant if he would not hire us to the Philippine
islands, and discharge us there. He said, No, he could not do
that, for then he could not have the return of his cargo; but
he would discharge us in Japan, he said, at the ship's return.
Well, still I was for taking him at that proposal, and going my-
self; but my partner, wiser than myself, persuaded me from it,
representing the dangers as well of the seas, as of the Japanese,
who are a false, cruel, treacherous people; and then of the
Spaniards at the Philippines, more false, more cruel, and more
treacherous than they.
But, to bring this long turn of our affairs to a conclusion, the
first thing we had to do was to consult with the captain of the
ship, and with the men, and know if they were willing to go to
Japan; and, while I was doing this, the young man whom, as
I said, my nephew had left with me as my companion for my
travels, came to me and told me that he thought that voyage pro-
mised very fair, and that there was a great prospect of advantage,
and he would be very glad if I undertook it; but that if I would
not, and would give him leave, he would go as a merchant, or
how I pleased to order him; and if ever he came to England, and
I was there, and alive, he would render me a faithful account of
his success, and it should be as much mine as I pleased.
I was really loath to part with him; but considering the pro-
spect of advantage, which was really considerable, and that he
was a young fellow likely to do well in it as any I knew, I in-
clined to let him go; but first I told him, I would consult my
partner, and give him an answer the next day. My partner and
I discoursed about it, and my partner made a most generous
offer he told me, "You know it has been an unlucky ship, and
we both resolve not to go to sea in it again; if your steward (so
he called my man) will venture the voyage, I'll leave my share
of the vessel to him, and let him make the best of it; and if we
live to meet in England, and he meets with success abroad, he
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
505
shalı account for one half of the profits of the ship's freight to
us, the other shall be his own."
If my partner, who was no way concerned with my young
man, made him such an offer, I could do no less than offer him
the same; and all the ship's company being willing to go with
him, we made over half the ship to him in property, and took
a writing from him, obliging him to account for the other; and
away he went to Japan. The Japan merchant proved a very
punctual honest man to him, protected him at Japan, and got
him a licence to come on shore, which the Europeans in general
have not lately obtained, paid him his freight very punctually,
sent him to the Philippines, loaded with Japan and China wares,
and a supercargo of their own, who trafficking with the Spaniards,
brought back European goods again, and a great quantity of
cloves and other spice; and there he was not only paid his
freight very well, and at a very good price, but being not willing
to sell the ship then, the merchant furnished him with goods on
his own account; that for some money and some spices of his
own, which he brought with him, he went back to the Manillas,
to the Spaniards, where he sold his cargo very well. Here,
having got a good acquaintance at Manilla, he got his ship made
a free ship; and the governor of Manilla hired him to go to
Acapulco in America, on the coast of Mexico; and gave him a
licence to land there, and travel to Mexico; and to pass in any
Spanish ship to Europe, with all his men.
He made the voyage to Acapulco very happily, and there he
sold his ship; and having there also obtained allowance to travel
by land to Porto Bello, he found means, somehow or other, to
get to Jamaica with all his treasure; and about eight years after
came to England, exceeding rich; of which I shall take notice
in its place; in the meantime, I return to our particular affairs.
Being now to part with the ship and ship's company, it came
before us, of course, to consider what recompense we should
give to the two men that gave us such timely notice of the design
against us in the river of Cambodia. The truth was, they had
done us a considerable service, and deserved well at our hands;
though, by the way, they were a couple of rogues too: for, as
they believed the story of our being pirates, and that we had
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
really run away with the ship, they came down to us, not only
to betray the design that was formed against us, but to go to
sea with us as pirates; and one of them confessed afterwards,
that nothing else but the hopes of going a-roguing brought him
to do it. However, the service they did us was not the less;
and therefore, as I had promised to be grateful to them, I first
ordered the money to be paid them, which they said was due to
them on board their respective ships; that is to say, the Eng-
lishman nineteen months' pay, and to the Dutchman seven; and,
over and above that, I gave each of them a small sum of money
in gold, which contented them very well: then I made the
Englishman gunner in the ship, the gunner being now made
second mate and purser; the Dutchman I made boatswain: so
they were both very well pleased, and proved very serviceable,
being both able seamen, and very stout fellows.
We were now on shore in China. If I thought myself banished,
and remote from my own country at Bengal, where I had many
ways to get home for my money, what could I think of myself now,
when I was gotten about a thousand leagues farther off from home,
and perfectly destitute of all manner of prospect of return.
All we had for it was this, that in about four months' time
there was to be another fair at the place where we were, and
then we might be able to purchase all sorts of the manufactures
of the country, and withal 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. This I liked
very well, and resolved to wait; besides, as our particular per-
sons were not obnoxious, so if any English or Dutch ships came
thither, perhaps we might have an opportunity to load our goods,
and get passage to some other place in India nearer home.
Upon these hopes we resolved to continue here; but, to
divert ourselves, we took two or three journeys into the country;
first, we went ten days' journey to see the city of Nanquin, a
city well worth seeing indeed: they say it has a million of
people in it; which, however, I do not believe: it is regularly
built, the streets all exactly straight, and cross one another in
direct lines, which gives the figure of it great advantage.
But when I came to compare the miserable people of these
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
507
countries with ours; their fabrics, their manner of living, their
government, their religion, their wealth, and their glory, as some
call it, I must confess, I do not so much as think it worth naming,
or worth my while to write of, or any that shall come after me
to read.
It is very observable, that we wonder at the grandeur, the
riches, the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manu-
factures, the commerce, and the conduct of these people; not
that it is to be wondered at, or, indeed, in the least to be re-
garded; but because, having first a notion of the barbarity of
those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance that prevail
there, we do not expect to find any such things so far off.
Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royal
buildings of Europe? What their trade to the universal com-
merce of England, Holland, France, and Spain? What their
cities to ours, for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furni-
ture, and an infinite variety? What are their ports, supplied
with a few junks and barks, to our navigation, our merchants'
fleets, our large and powerful navies? Our city of London has
more trade than all their mighty empire. One English, or
Dutch, or French man of war of eighty guns, would fight with
and destroy all the shipping of China. But the greatness of
their wealth, their trade, the power of their government, and
strength of their armies is surprising to us, because, as I have
said, considering them as a barbarous nation of pagans, little
better than savages, we did not expect such things among
them; and this, indeed, is the advantage with which all their
greatness and power is represented to us: otherwise, it is in
itself nothing at all; for, as I have said of their ships, so may
be said of their armies and troops; all the forces of their em-
pire, though they were to bring two millions of men into the
field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country
and starve themselves. If they were to besiege a strong town in
Flanders, or to fight a disciplined army, one line of German
cuirassiers, or of French cavalry, would overthrow all the horse
of China; a million of their foot could not stand before one
embattled body of our infantry, posted so as not to be sur-
rounded, though they were to be not one to twenty in number:
६
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
nay, I do not boast if I say, that 30,000 German or English
foot, and 10,000 French horse, would fairly beat all the forces
of China. And so of our fortified towns, and of the art of our
engineers, in assaulting and defending towns; there is not a
fortified town in China could hold out one month against the
batteries and attacks of an European army; and at the same
time, all the armies of China could never take such a town as
Dunkirk, provided it was not starved; no, not in a ten years'
siege. They have fire-arms, it is true, but they are awkward,
clumsy, and uncertain in going off; they have powder, but it is
of no strength; they have neither discipline in the field, exercise
to their arms, skill to attack, nor temper to retreat. And there-
fore I must confess it seemed strange to me when I came home,
and heard our people say such fine things of the power, riches,
glory, magnificence, and trade of the Chinese, because I saw
and knew that they were a contemptible herd or crowd of
ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualified only
to rule such a people; and, in a word, for I am now launched
quite beside my design, I say, in a word, were not its distance
inconceivably great from Muscovy, and was not the Muscovite
empire almost as rude, impotent, and ill-governed a crowd of
slaves as they, the czar of Muscovy might, with much ease,
drive them all out of their country, and conquer them in one
campaign; and had the czar, who I since hear is a growing
prince, and begins to appear formidable in the world, fallen this
way, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, in which attempt
none of the powers of Europe would have ended or interrupted
him; he might, by this time, have been emperor of China,
instead of being beaten by the King of Sweden at Narva, when
the latter was not one to six in number. As their strength and
their grandeur, so their navigation, commerce, and husbandry,
are imperfect and impotent, compared to the same things in
Europe. Also, in their knowledge, their learning, their skill
in the sciences; they have globes and spheres, and a smatch of
the knowledge of the mathematics; but when you come to
inquire into their knowledge, how short-sighted are the wisest
of their students! They know nothing of the motion of the
heavenly bodies; and so grossly, absurdly ignorant, that when
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
509
the sun is eclipsed, they think it is a great dragon has assaulted
and run away with it; and they fall a-clattering with all the
drums and kettles in the country, to fright the monster away
just as we do to hive a swarm of bees.
As this is the only excursion of this kind which I have made
in all the account I have given of my travels, so I shall make
no more descriptions of countries and people: it is none of my
business, or any part of my design; but giving an account of my
own adventures, through a life of inimitable wanderings, and
a long variety of changes, which, perhaps, few have heard the
like of, I shall say nothing of the mighty places, desert countries,
and numerous people, I have yet to pass through, more than
relates to my own story, and which my concern among them
will make necessary. I was now, as near as I can compute, in
the heart of China, about the latitude of thirty degrees north of
the line, for we were returned from Nanquin; I had indeed a
mind to see the city of Pekin which I had heard so much of,
and Father Simon importuned me daily to do it. At length his
time of going away being set, and the other missionary, who
was to go with him, being arrived from Macao, 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, in the pro-
vince where they reside, and who take great state upon them,
travelling with great attendance, and with great homage from
the people, who are sometimes greatly impoverished by them,
because all the countries they pass through are obliged to fur-
nish provisions for them, and all their attendants. That which
I particularly observed, as to our travelling with his baggage,
was this; that though we received sufficient provisions, both
for ourselves and our horses, from the country, as belonging to
the mandarin, yet we were obliged to pay for everything we
had after the market-price of the country, and the mandarin's
steward, or commissary of the provisions, collected it duly from
us; so that our travelling in the retinue of the mandarin, though
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
it was a very great kindness to us, was not such a mighty favour
in him, but was, indeed, a great advantage to him, considering
there were above thirty other people travelling in the same
manner, besides us, under the protection of his retinue, or, as we
may call it, under his convoy. This, I say, was a great advan-
tage to him; for the country furnished all the provisions for
nothing, and he took all our money for them.
We were five-and-twenty days travelling to Pekin, through a
country infinitely populous, but miserably cultivated; the hus-
bandry, the economy, and the way of living, all very miserable,
though they boast so much of the industry of the people: I
say miserable; and so it is; if we, who understand how to live,
were to endure it, or to compare it with our own; but not so to
these poor wretches, who know no other. The pride of these
people is infinitely great, and exceeded by nothing but their
poverty, which adds to that which I call their misery. I must
needs think the naked savages of America live much more happy,
because, as they have nothing, so they desire nothing; whereas
these are proud and insolent, and, in the main, are mere beggars
and drudges; their ostentation is inexpressible, and is chiefly
showed in their clothes and buildings, and in the keeping multi-
tudes of servants or slaves, and which is to the last degree ridi-
culous, their contempt of all the world but themselves.
I must confess, I travelled more pleasantly afterwards, in the
deserts and vast wildernesses of Grand Tartary, than here; and
yet the roads here are well paved and well kept, and very con-
venient for travellers: but nothing was more awkward to me,
than to see such a haughty, imperious, insolent people, in the
midst of the grossest simplicity and ignorance; for all their
famed ingenuity is no more. 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 mix-
ture of pomp and poverty.
The habit of this greasy Don was very proper for a scaramouch,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
511
or merry-andrew; being a dirty calico, with all the tawdry trap-
pings 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.
His horse was a poor, lean, starved, hobbling creature, such as
in England 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

WILLJAVI
he rode by us with about ten or twelve servants; 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 a 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
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
him by two women-slaves: he had two more, whose office, I
think, few gentlemen in Europe would accept of their service
in, viz., one fed the 'squire with a spoon, and the other held the
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

JACKSON
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 only Father Simon had the curiosity to stay to in-
form himself what dainties the country justice had to feed on,
in all his state; which he said he had the honour to taste of,
and which was, I think, a dose that an English hound would
scarce have eaten, if it had been offered him, viz., a mess of
boiled rice, with a great piece of garlic in it, and a little bag
filled with green pepper, and another plant which they have
there, something like our ginger, but smelling like musk and tast-
ing like mustard: all this was put together, and a small lump or
piece of lean mutton boiled in it; and this was his worship's re-
Y
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
513
past, four or five servants more standing attending at a distance.
If he fed them meaner than he was fed himself, the spice ex-
cepted, they must fare very coarsely indeed.
As for our mandarin with whom we travelled, he was respected
like a king; surrounded always with his gentlemen, and attended
in all his appearances with such pomp, that I saw little of him but
at a distance; but this I observed, that there was not a horse in
his retinue, but that our carriers' pack-horses in England seem to
me to look much better; but they were so covered with equi-
page, mantles, trappings, and such like trumpery, that you can-
not see whether they are fat or lean. In a word, we could scarce
see anything but their feet and their heads.
I was now light-hearted, and all my trouble and perplexity that
I had given an account of being over, I had no anxious thoughts
about me; which made this journey much the pleasanter to me;
nor had I any ill accident attended me, only in the passing or ford-
ing a small river, my horse fell, and made me free of the country,
as they call it; that is to say, threw me in: the place was not
deep, but it wetted me all over: I mention it, because it spoiled
my pocket-book, wherein I had set down the names of several
people and places which I had occasion to remember, and which
not taking due care of, the leaves rotted, and the words were
never after to be read, to my great loss, as to the names of some
places which I touched at in this voyage.
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 kins-
man. 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 everywhere; for we had not been above a week at Pekin,
when he came laughing: "Ah, seignior Inglese," said he, "I
have something to tell you, will make your heart glad."—" My
heart glad," said I; "what can that be? I don't know anything
2 K
514
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
in this country can either give me joy or grief, to any great degree."
"Yes, yes," said the old man, in broken English, "make you
glad, me sorrow;" sorry, he would have said. This made me more
inquisitive. "Why," said I, "will it make you sorry?"—" Be-
cause," said he, "you have brought me here twenty-five days'
journey, and will leave me to go back alone; and which way
shall I get to my port afterwards, without a ship, without a
horse, without pecune?" so he called money; being his broken
Latin, of which he had abundance to make us merry with.
In short, he told us there was a great caravan of Muscovite 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, and he was sure we would take the opportunity to go
with them, and leave him behind to go back alone. I confess I was
surprised with his news: a secret joy spread itself over my whole
soul, which I cannot describe, and never felt before or since; and
I had no power, for a good while, to speak a word to the old man ;
but at last I turned to him; "How do you know this?" said I;
are you sure it is true?"—"Yes," said he, "I met this morning
in the street an old acquaintance of mine, an Armenian, or one
you call a Grecian, who is among them; he came last from
Astracan, and was designing to go to Tonquin, where I formerly
knew him, but has altered his mind, and is now resolved to go
back with the caravan to Moscow, and so down the river Wolga
to Astracan.”—“Well, seignior," said I, " do not be uneasy about
being left to go back alone; if this be a method for my return
to England, it shall be your fault if you go back to Macao at all.”
We then went to consulting together what was to be done, and
I asked my partner what he thought of the pilot's news, and
whether it would suit with his affairs; he told me he would do
just as I would; for he had settled all his affairs so well at Ben-
gal, and left his effects in such good hands, that as we had made
a good voyage here, if he could vest it in China silks, wrought
and raw, such as might be worth the carriage, he would be
content to go to England, and then make his voyage back to
Bengal by the Company's ships.
Having resolved upon this, we agreed, that, if our Portuguese
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
515
pilot would go with us, we would bear his charges to Moscow,
or to England, if he pleased; nor, indeed, were we to be
esteemed over-generous in that part neither, if we had not
rewarded him farther; for the service he had done us was really
worth all that, and more; for he had not only been a pilot to
us at sea, but he had been also like a broker for us on shore;
and his procuring for us the Japan merchant was some hundreds
of pounds in our pockets. So we consulted together about it;
and, being willing to gratify him, which was indeed but doing
him justice, and very willing also to have him with us besides,
for he was a most necessary man on all occasions, we agreed to
give him a quantity of coined gold, which, as I compute it,
came to about one hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling
between us, and to bear all his charges, both for himself and
horse, except only a horse to carry his goods.
Having settled this among ourselves, we called him to let
him know what we had resolved; I told him, he had com-
plained of our being like to let him go back alone, and I was
now to tell him we were resolved he should not go back at all;
that as we had resolved to go to Europe with the caravan, we
resolved also he should go with us, and that we called him to
know his mind. He shook his head, and said it was a long
journey, and he had no pecune to carry him thither, nor to
subsist himself when he came thither. We told him, we be-
lieved it was so, and therefore we had resolved to do something
for him, that should let him see how sensible we were of the
service he had done us; and also how agreeable he was to us;
and then I told him what we had resolved to give him here,
which he might lay out as we would do our own; and that as
for his charges, if he would go with us, we would set him safe
ashore, life and casualties excepted, either in Muscovy or Eng-
land, which he would, at our own charge, except only the
carriage of his goods.
He received the proposal like a man transported, and told us,
he would go with us over the whole world; and so, in short, we
all prepared ourselves for the journey. However, as it was with
us, so it was with the other merchants, they had many things
516
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
to do; and instead of being ready in five weeks, it was four
months and some odd days before all things were got together.
It was the beginning of February, our style, when we set out
from Pekin. My partner and the old pilot had gone express
back to the port where we had first put in, to dispose of some
goods which he had left there; and I, with a Chinese merchant,
whom I had some knowledge of at Nanquin, and who came to
Pekin on his own affairs, went to Nanquin, where I bought
ninety pieces of fine damasks, with about two hundred pieces
of other very fine silks, of several sorts, some mixed with gold,
and had all these brought to Pekin against my partner's return :
besides this, we bought a very large quantity of raw silk, and
some other goods; our cargo amounting, in these goods only,'
to about three thousand five hundred pounds sterling, which,
together with tea, and some fine calicoes, and three camel-loads
of nutmegs and cloves, loaded in all eighteen camels for our
share, besides those we rode upon; which, with two or three
spare horses, and two horses loaded with provisions, made us,
in short, twenty-six camels and horses in our retinue.
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. For, as the eastern caravans are subject
to be attacked by the Arabs, so are these by the Tartars; but they
are not altogether so dangerous as the Arabs, nor so barbarous
when they prevail.
The company consisted of people of several nations, such as
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 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
517
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, viz., 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. Nor was this
forming us into order any more than what we found needful
upon the way, as shall be observed in its place.
The road all on this side of the country is very populous, and
is full of potters and earth makers; that is to say, people that
tempered the earth for the China ware; and, as I was going
along, our Portugal pilot, who had always something or other
to say to make us merry, came sneering to me, and told me, he
would show me the greatest rarity in all the country; and that
I should have this to say of China, after all the ill-humoured
things I had said of it, that I had seen one thing which was not
to be seen in all the world beside. I was very importunate to
know what it was; at last he told me, it was a gentleman's
house, built all with China ware. Well," said I," are not
the materials of their building the product of their own country;
and so it is all China ware, is it not?"- No, no," says he, “I
mean, it is a house all made of China ware, such as you call so
in England; or, as it is called in our country, porcelain."--
Well," said I, "such a thing may be: how big is it? can we
carry it in a box upon a camel? If we can, we will buy it.".
"Upon a camel!" said the old pilot, holding up both his hands;
why, there is a family of thirty people lives in it.”
66
66
(C
((
I was then curious, indeed, to see it; and when I came to it,
it was nothing but this: it was a timber house, or a house built,
as we call it in England, with lath and plaster, but all the plas-
tering was really China ware, that is to say, it was plastered
with the earth that makes China ware.
The outside, which the sun shone hot upon, was glazed, and
looked very well, perfectly white, and painted with blue figures,
as the large China ware in England is painted, and hard, as if
it had been burnt. As to the inside, all the walls, instead of
wainscot, were lined up with hardened and painted tiles, like
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the little square tiles we call galley tiles in England, all made
of the finest china, and the figures exceeding fine indeed, with
extraordinary variety of colours, mixed with gold, many tiles
making but one figure, but joined so artificially, the mortar
being made of the same earth, that it was very hard to see
where the tiles met. The floors of the rooms were of the same
composition, and as hard as the earthen floors we have in use
in several parts of England, especially Lincolnshire, Notting-
hamshire, Leicestershire, &c., as hard as stone, and smooth, but
not burnt and painted, except some smaller rooms, like closets,
which were all, as it were, paved with the same tile: the ceil-
ings, and in a word, all the plastering work in the whole house,
were of the same earth; and, after all, the roof was covered
with tiles of the same, but of a deep shining black.
This was a China warehouse indeed, truly and literally to be
called so ; and had I not been upon the journey, I could have
stayed some days to see and examine the particulars of it. They
told me there were fountains and fish-ponds in the garden, all
paved at the bottom and sides with the same, and fine statues
set up in rows on the walks, entirely formed of the porcelain
earth, and burnt whole.
As this is one of the singularities of China, so they may be
allowed to excel in it; but I am very sure they excel in their
accounts of it; for they told me such incredible things of their
performance in crockery-ware, for such it is, that I care not to
relate, as knowing it could not be true.
One told me, in parti-
cular, of a workman that made a ship, with all its tackle, and
masts, and sails, in earthenware, big enough to carry fifty men. If
he had told me he launched it, and made a voyage to Japan in
it, I might have said something to it indeed; but as it was, I
knew the whole story, which was, in short, asking pardon for
the word, that the fellow lied; so I smiled, and said nothing
to it.
This odd sight kept me two hours behind the caravan, for
which the leader of it for the day fined me about the value of
three shillings; and told me, if it had been three days' journey
without the wall, as it was three days within, he must have
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
519
fined me four times as much, and made me ask pardon the
next council-day: so I promised to be more orderly; for, in-
deed, I found afterwards the orders made for keeping all to-
gether were absolutely necessary for our common safety.
In two days more we passed the great China wall, made for
a fortification against the Tartars; and a very great work it is,
going over hills and mountains in a needless track, where the
rocks are impassable, and the precipices such as no enemy could
possibly enter, or, indeed, climb up, or where, if they did, no
wall could hinder them. They tell us, its length is near a
thousand English miles, but that the country is five hundred,
in a straight measured line, which the wall bounds, without
measuring the windings and turnings it takes; 'tis about four
fathom high, and as many thick in some places.
I stood still an hour, or thereabouts, without trespassing on
our orders, for so long the caravan was in passing the gate; I
say,
I stood still an hour to look at it, on every side, near and
far off; I mean, what was within my view; and the guide of
our caravan, who had been extolling it for the wonder of the
world, was mighty eager to hear my opinion of it. I told him
it was a most excellent thing to keep off the Tartars, which he
happened not to understand as I meant it, and so took it for a
compliment; but the old pilot laughed: “O seignior Inglese,"
said he, “you speak in colours." "In colours!" said I; "what
do you mean by that?"-" Why, you speak what looks white
this way, and black that way; gay one way, and dull another
way: you tell him it is a good wall to keep out Tartars; you
tell me, by that, it is good for nothing but to keep out Tar-
tars ; or, it will keep out none but Tartars. I understand you,
seignior Inglese, I understand you," said he, "but seignior
Chinese understand you his own way."
“Well,” said I, "seignior, do you think it would stand out
an army of our country-people, with a good train of artillery;
or our engineers, with two companies of miners? Would they
not batter it down in ten days, that an army might enter
in battalia, or blow it up in the air, foundation and all, that
there should be no sign of it left?"—" Ay, ay,” said he, “I
cr
520
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
know that." The Chinese wanted mightily to know what I
said, and I gave him leave to tell him a few days after, for we
were then almost out of their country, and he was to leave us
in a little time afterwards; but when he knew what I had said,
he was dumb all the rest of the way, and we heard no more of
his fine story of the Chinese power and greatness while he stayed.
After we had passed this mighty nothing, called a wall, some-
thing like the Picts' wall, so famous in Northumberland, and
built by the Romans, we began to find the country thinly in-
habited, and the people rather confined to live in fortified towns
and cities, as being subject to the inroads and depredations of
the Tartars, who rob in great armies, and therefore are not to
be resisted by the naked inhabitants of an open country.
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; but when I came to see them distinctly,
I wondered more that the Chinese empire could be conquered
by such contemptible fellows; for they are a mere herd or
crowd of wild fellows, keeping no order, and understanding no
discipline, or manner of fight.
Their horses are poor, lean, starved creatures, taught nothing,
and fit for nothing; and this we found the first day we saw
them, which was after we entered the wilder part of the country.
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 crea-
tures 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 to-
gether when they fly.
In pursuit of this odd sort of game, it was our hap to meet
with about forty Tartars: whether they were hunting mutton
as we were, or whether they looked for another kind of prey, I
know not; but 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
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
521
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 imme-
diately, 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 gaz-
ing at us, like a mere crowd, drawn up in no order; nor show-
ing the face of any order at all; 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, fol-
lowing our shot full gallop, resolving to fall in among them
sword in hand; for so our bold Scot that led us, directed. He
was, indeed, but a merchant, but he behaved with that vigour
and bravery on this occasion, and yet with such a cool courage
too, that I never saw any man in action fitter for command.
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; the only stand any of them made was on our right,
where three of them stood, and, by signs, called the rest to come
back to them, having a kind of scimitar in their hands, and their
bows hanging at their backs. Our brave commander, without
asking anybody to follow him, galloped up close to them, and
with his fusil knocked one of them off his horse, killed the
second with his pistol, and the third ran away; and thus ended
our fight; but we had this misfortune attending it, viz., that all
our mutton that we had in chase got away. We had not a man
killed or hurt; but, as for the Tartars, there were about five of
them killed; how many were wounded, we knew not; but this
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
we knew, that the other party was so frighted with the noise of
our guns, that they fled, and never made any attempt upon us.
We were all this while in the Chinese dominions, and there-
fore 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; and we were obliged to carry our
water with us in great leather bottles, and to encamp all night,
just as I have heard they do in the deserts of Arabia.
I asked our guides, whose dominion this was in, and they told
me this was a kind of border that might be called No Man's
Land; being a part of the Great Karakathay, 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,
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.
·
Once, however, a party of them came so near as to stand
and gaze at us; whether it was to consider what they should
do, whether attack us or not attack us, that we knew not; but
when we were passed at some distance by them, we made a
rear-guard of forty men, and stood ready for them, letting the
caravan pass half a mile, or thereabouts, before us.
After a
while they marched off, only we found they assaulted us with
five arrows at their parting; one of which wounded a horse, so
that it disabled him; and we left him the next day, poor crea-
ture, in great need of a good farrier. We suppose they might
shoot more arrows, which might fall short of us; but we saw
no more arrows, or Tartars, at that time.
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. When
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
523
we came to one of these towns (it was about two days and a half's
journey before we were to come to the city of Naum), I wanted
to buy a camel, of which there are plenty to be sold all the way
upon that road, and of horses also, such as they are, because so
many caravans coming that way, they are often wanted. The
person that I spoke to, to get me a camel, would have gone and
fetched it for me; but I, like a fool, must be officious, and go
myself along with him. The place was about two miles out of
the village, where, it seems, they kept the camels and horses
feeding under a guard.
I walked it on foot, with my old pilot in company, and a
Chinese, being very desirous, forsooth, of a little variety. When
we came to this place, it was a low marshy ground, walled round
with a stone wall, piled up dry, without mortar or earth among
it, like a park, with a little guard of Chinese soldiers at the doors.
Having bought a camel, and agreed for the price, I came away;
and the Chinese man, that went with me, led the camel, when
on a sudden came up five Tartars on horseback: two of them
seized the fellow, and took the camel from him, while the other
three stepped up to me and my old pilot; seeing us, as it were,
unarmed, for I had no weapon about me but my sword, which
could but ill defend me against three horsemen. The first that
came up stopped short upon my drawing my sword (for they
are arrant cowards), but a second coming upon my left, gave me
a blow on the head, which I never felt till afterwards, and won-
dered, when I came to myself, what was the matter with me,
and where I was, for he laid me flat on the ground; but my never-
failing old pilot, the Portuguese (so Providence, unlooked for,
directs deliverances from dangers, which to us are unforeseen),
had a pistol in his pocket, which I knew nothing of, nor the
Tartars neither; if they had, I suppose they would not have
attacked us; but cowards are always boldest when there is no
danger.
The old man, seeing me down, with a bold heart stepped up
to the fellow that had struck me, and laying hold of his arm
with one hand, and pulling him down by main force a little
towards him with the other, shot him into the head, and laid
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
him dead upon the spot; he then immediately stepped up to him
who had stopped us, as I said, and before he could come forward
again, for it was all done as it were in a moment, made a blow
at him with a scimitar, which he always wore, but, missing the
man, cut his horse into the side of his head, cut one of his ears off
by the root, and a great slice down the side of his face. The poor
beast, enraged with the wounds, was no more to be governed by
his rider, though the fellow sat well enough too; but away he
flew, and carried him quite out of the pilot's reach; and, at some
distance, rising upon his hind legs, threw down the Tartar, and
fell upon him.
In this interval the poor Chinese came in, who had lost the
camel, but he had no weapon; however, seeing the Tartar down,
and his horse fallen upon him, he runs to him, and seizing upon
an ugly ill-favoured weapon he had by his side, something like a
pole-axe, but not a pole-axe neither, he wrenched it from him, and
made shift to knock his Tartarian brains out with it. But my
old man had the third Tartar to deal with still; and, seeing he did
not fly as he expected, nor come on to fight him, as he appre-
hended, but stood stock still, the old man stood still too, and falls
to work with his tackle to charge his pistol again: but as soon as
the Tartar saw the pistol, whether he supposed it to be the same
or another, I know not; but away he scoured, and left my pilot,
my champion I called him afterwards, a complete victory.
By this time I was a little awake; for I thought, when I first
began to awake, that I had been in a sweet sleep; but as I said
above, I wondered where I was, how I came upon the ground,
and what was the matter: in a word, a few moments after, as
senses returned, I felt pain, though I did not know where; I
clapped my hand to my head, and took it away bloody; then I
felt my
head ache, and then, in another moment, memory re-
turned, and everything was present to me again.
I jumped up upon my feet instantly, and got hold of my sword,
but no enemies in view. I found a Tartar lie dead, and his horse
standing very quietly by him; and looking farther, I saw my
champion and deliverer, who had been to see what the Chinese
had done, coming back with his hanger in his hand. The old
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
525
man, seeing me on my feet, came running to me, and embraced
me with a great deal of joy, being afraid before that I had been
killed; and seeing me bloody, would see how I was hurt; but it
was not much, only what we call a broken head; neither did I
afterwards find any great inconvenience from the blow, other
than the place which was hurt, and which was well again in
two or three days.
We made no great gain, however, by this victory; for we lost
a camel, and gained a horse: but that which was remarkable,
when we came back to the village, the man demanded to be paid
for the camel; I disputed it, and it was brought to a hearing be-
fore the Chinese judge of the place; that is to say in English, we

""
↑ WILLIAMS
went before a justice of the peace. Give him his due, he acted
with a great deal of prudence and impartiality; and having heard
both sides, he gravely asked the Chinese man that went with me
to buy the camel," whose servant he was?' "I am no servant,
said he, “but went with the stranger."-
"At whose request?
said the justice. "At the stranger's request," said he.
then," said the justice, "you were the stranger's servant for the
time; and the camel being delivered to his servant, it was de-
livered to him, and he must pay for it."
""
"Why
I confess the thing was so clear, that I had not a word to say ;
526
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
but admiring to see such just reasoning upon the consequence,
and so accurate stating the case, I paid willingly for the camel,
and sent for another; but you may observe, I sent for it; I did
not go to fetch it myself any more; I had had enough of that.
The city of Naum is a frontier of the Chinese empire: they
call it fortified, and so it is, as fortifications go there; for this I
will venture to affirm, that all the Tartars in Karakathay, which,
I believe, are some millions, could not batter down the walls
with their bows and arrows; but to call it strong, if it were
attacked with cannon, would be to make those who understand
it laugh at you.
We wanted, as I have said, about two days' journey of this city,
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 thou-
sand in all, had appeared in the way, about thirty miles beyond
the city.
This was very bad news to travellers; however, it was carefully
done of the governor, and we were very glad to hear we should
have a guard. 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: the three hundred soldiers from Naum marched
in our front, the two hundred in our rear, and our men on each
side of our camels with our baggage, and the whole caravan in
the centre. In this order, and well prepared for battle, we
thought ourselves a match for the whole ten thousand Mogul
Tartars, if they had appeared; but the next day, when they did
appear, it was quite another thing.
It was early in the morning, when marching from a little
well-situated town, called Changu, we had a river to pass, where
we were obliged to ferry; and had the Tartars had any intelli-
gence, then had been the time to have attacked us, when, the
caravan being over, the rear-guard was behind: but they did
not appear there.
About three hours after, when we entered upon a desert of
about fifteen or sixteen miles over, behold, by a cloud of dust
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
5.27
they raised, we saw an enemy was at hand; and they were at
hand indeed, for they came on upon the spur.
The Chineses, our guard on the front, who had talked so big
the day before, began to stagger, and the soldiers frequently
looked behind them; which is a certain sign in a soldier, that
he is just ready to run away. My old pilot was of my mind;
and being near me, he called out: Seignior Inglese,” said he,
"those fellows must be encouraged, or they will ruin us all; for
if the Tartars come on, they will never stand it.'
"I am of your
(6
mind," said I: "but what course must be done?"-" Done?"
said he, "let fifty of our men advance, and flank them on each
wing, and encourage them, and they will fight like brave fellows
in brave company; but without it, they will every man turn his
back." Immediately I rode up to our leader, and told him, who
was exactly of our mind; and accordingly fifty of us marched
to the right wing, and fifty to the left, and the rest made a line
of reserve; for so we marched, leaving the last two hundred
men to make another body by themselves, and to guard the
camels; only that, if need were, they should send a hundred
men to assist the last fifty.
In a word, the Tartars came on, and an innumerable company
they were; how many, we could not tell, but ten thousand
we thought was the least. A party of them came on first, and
viewed our posture, traversing the ground in the front of our
line; and as we found them within gunshot, our leader ordered
the two wings to advance swiftly, and gave them a salvo on each
wing with their shot, which was done; but they went off, and
I suppose back to give an account of the reception they were
like to meet with; and indeed that salute clogged their stomachs;
for they immediately halted, stood a while to consider of it, and,
wheeling off to the left, they gave over the design, and said no
more to us for that time; which was very agreeable to our cir-
cumstances, which were but very indifferent for a battle with
such a number.
Two days after this we came to the city of Naum, or Naunm.
We thanked the governor for his care for us, and collected to
the value of one hundred crowns, or thereabouts, which we gave
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
to the soldiers sent to guard us; and here we rested one day.
This is a garrison indeed, and there were nine hundred soldiers
kept here; but the reason of it was, that formerly the Muscovite
frontiers lay nearer to them than they do now, the Muscovites
having abandoned that part of the country, which lies from this
city west, for about two hundred miles, as desolate and unfit for
use; and more especially, being so very remote, and so difficult
to send troops hither for its defence; for we had yet above two
thousand miles to Muscovy, properly so called.
After this we passed several great rivers, and two dreadful
deserts, one of which we were sixteen days passing over, and
which, as I said, was to be called No Man's Land; and on the
13th of April we came to the frontiers of the Muscovite domi-
nions. I think the first city, or town, or fortress, whatever it
might be called, that belonged to the czar of Muscovy, was
called Argun, being on the west side of the river Argun.
I could not but discover an infinite satisfaction, that I was
now arrived in, as I called it, a Christian country; or, at least,
in a country governed by Christians: for though the Muscovites
do, in my opinion, but just deserve the name of Christians, yet
such they pretend to be, and are very devout in their way: it
would certainly occur to any man who travels the world as I
have done, and who had any power of reflection-l say, it would
occur to him to reflect, what a blessing it is to be brought into
the world where the name of God, and of a Redeemer, is known,
worshipped, and adored; and not where the people, given up
by Heaven to strong delusions, worship the devil, and prostrate
themselves to stocks and stones; worship monsters, elements,
horrible shaped animals, and statues, or images of monsters.
Not a town or city we passed through but had their pagods,
their idols, and their temples; and ignorant people worshipping
even the works of their own hands!
Now we came where, at least, a face of the Christian worship
appeared, where the knee was bowed to Jesus; and whether
ignorantly or not, yet the Christian religion was owned, and the
name of the true God was called upon and adored; and it made
the very recesses of my soul rejoice to see it. I saluted the brave
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
529
Scotch merchant I mentioned above, with my first acknowledg-
ment of this; and, taking him by the hand, I said to him,
"Blessed be God, we are once again come among Christians!"
He smiled, and answered, "Do not rejoice too soon, country-
man; these Muscovites are but an odd sort of Christians; and
but for the name of it, you may see very little of the substance
for some months farther of our journey."
“Well,” said I, "but still it is better than paganism, and
worshipping of devils.”—“ Why, I'll tell you," said he; “except
the Russian soldiers in garrisons, and a few of the inhabitants
of the cities upon the road, all the rest of this country, for above
a thousand miles farther, is inhabited by the worst and most
ignorant of pagans." And so indeed we found it.
We were now launched into the greatest piece of solid earth,
if I understand anything of the surface of the globe, that is to be
found in any part of the world; we had at least twelve hundred
miles to the sea, eastward; we had at least two thousand to the
bottom of the Baltic sea, westward; and almost three thousand
miles, if we left that sea, and went on west to the British and
French channels; we had full five thousand miles to the Indian
or Persian sea, south; and about eight hundred miles to the
Frozen sea, north; nay, if some people may be believed, there
might be no sea north-east till we came round the pole, and con-
sequently into the north-west, and so had a continent of land
into America, no mortal knows where; though I could give
some reasons why I believe that to be a mistake too.
As we entered into the Muscovite dominions, a good while
before we came to any considerable towns, we had nothing to
observe there but this; first, that all the rivers ran to the east. As
I understood by the charts which some of our caravan had with
them, it was plain that all those rivers ran into the great river
Yamour, or Gammour. This river, by the natural course of it,
must run into the east sea, or Chinese ocean. The story they tell
us, that the mouth of the river is choked up with bulrushes of a
monstrous growth, viz., three feet about, and twenty or thirty
feet high, I must be allowed to say I believe nothing of; but as
its navigation is of no use, because there is no trade that way, the
2 L
530
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
Tartars to whom it belongs, dealing in nothing but cattle; so
nobody, that ever I heard of, has been curious enough either to
go down to the mouth of it in boats, or to come up from the
mouth of it in ships; but this is certain, that this river running
due east, in the latitude of sixty degrees, carries a vast concourse
of rivers along with it, and finds an ocean to empty itself in that
latitude; so we are sure of sea there.
Some leagues to the north of this river there are several con-
siderable rivers, whose streams run as due north as the Yamour
runs east; and these are all found to join their waters with the
great river Tartarus, named so from the northernmost nations of
the Mogul Tartars, who, the Chinese say, were the first Tartars
in the world; and who, as our geographers allege, are the Gog
and Magog mentioned in sacred story.
These rivers running all northward, as well as all the other
rivers I am yet to speak of, make it evident that the northern
ocean bounds the land also on that side; so that it does not seem
rational in the least to think that the land can extend itself to join
with America on that side, or that there is not a communication
between the northern and the eastern ocean; but of this I shall
say no more; it was my observation at that time, and therefore 1
take notice of it in this place. We now advanced from the river
Arguna by easy and moderate journeys, and 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, some of which I had read were particularly placed in
Britain for the security of commerce, and for the lodging of tra-
vellers; and thus it was here; for wherever we came, though at
these towns, and stations, the garrisons and governor were Rus-
sians and professed Christians, yet the inhabitants of the country
were mere pagans, sacrificing to idols, and worshipping the sun,
moon, and stars, or all the host of heaven; and not only so, but
were, of all the heathens and pagans that ever I met with, the
most barbarous, except only that they did not eat man's flesh,
as our savages of America did.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
531
Some instances of this we met with in the country between
Arguna, where we enter the Muscovite dominions, and a city
of Tartars and Russians together, called Nortzinskoy; in which
space is a continued desert or forest, which cost us twenty days
to travel over it. In a village near the last of those places, I
had the curiosity to go and see their way of living; which is
most brutish and unsufferable: they had, I suppose, a great
sacrifice that day; for there stood out upon an old stump of a
tree, an idol made of wood, frightful as the devil; at least as
anything 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 goat's horns,
and as high; eyes as big as a crown-piece; 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. It
was dressed up in the filthiest manner that you can suppose; its
upper garment was of sheepskins, 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,
whether men or women I could not tell, for they make no dis-
tinction by their habits, either of body or head; these all lay flat
on the ground, round this formidable block of shapeless wood.
I saw no motion among them any more than if they had been
all logs of wood, like their idol; and at first I really thought
they had been so; but when I came a little nearer, they started
up upon their feet, and raised a howling cry, as if it had been
so many deep-mouthed hounds, and walked away as if they
were displeased at our disturbing them. A little way off from
this monster, and at the door of a tent or hut, made all of sheep-
skins and cow-skins, dried, 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. These, it
seems, were sacrifices to that senseless log of an idol; and these
532
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
three men priests belonging to it; and the seventeen prostrated
wretches were the people who brought the offering, and were
making their prayers to that stock.
I confess I was more moved at their stupidity, and this brutish
worship of a hobgoblin, than ever I was at anything in my life;
to see God's most glorious and best creature, to whom He had
granted so many advantages, even by creation, above the rest of
the works of His hands, vested with a reasonable soul, and that
soul adorned with faculties and capacities adapted both to honour
his Maker, and be honoured by Him, sunk and degenerated to
a degree so more than stupid, as to prostrate itself to a frightful
nothing, a mere imaginary object dressed up by themselves, and
made terrible to themselves by their own contrivance, adorned
only with clouts and rags; and that this should be the effect of
mere ignorance, wrought up into hellish devotion by the devil
himself; who, envying his Maker the homage and adoration of
His creatures, had deluded them into such gross, surfeiting,
sordid, and brutish things, as one would think should shock
nature itself.
But what signified all the astonishment and reflection of
thoughts? Thus it was, and I saw it before my eyes; and there
was no room to wonder at it, or think it impossible. All my
admiration turned to rage; and I rode up to the image or mon-
ster, 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
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 hundred 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 which was about
four miles off, in order to provide some horses, which they wanted,
several of the horses having been lamed and jaded with the bad-
ness of the way, and our long march over the last desert; so we
I com-
had some leisure here to put my design in execution.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
533
municated my project to the Scots merchant of Moscow, of
whose courage I had had a sufficient testimony, as above. I
told him what I had seen, and with what indignation I had
since thought that human nature could be so degenerate. I
told him, I was resolved, if I could get but four or five men
well armed to go with me, to go and destroy that vile, abomin-
able idol; to let them see, that it had no power to help itself,
and consequently could not be an object of worship, or to be
prayed to, much less help them that offered sacrifices to it.
He laughed at me: said he, "Your zeal
"Your zeal may be good; but
what do you propose to yourself by it?"-" Propose!" said I;
"to vindicate the honour of God, which is insulted by this devil-
worship."-" But how will it vindicate the honour of God," said
he, "while the people will not be able to know what you mean
by it unless you could speak to them too, and tell them so? and
then they will fight you, and beat you too, I will assure you, for
they are desperate fellows, and that especially in defence of their
idolatry." "Can we not," said I, "do it in the night, and
then leave them the reasons and causes in writing, in their own
language? -"Writing!" said he; "why there is not a man in
five nations of them that knows anything of a letter, or how to
read a word in any language, or in their own."- "Wretched
ignorance!" said I to him; however, I have a great mind to
do it; perhaps nature may draw inferences from it to them, to let
them see how brutish they are to worship such horrid things.''
“Look you, sir," said he; "if your zeal prompts you to it so
warmly, you must do it; but in the next place, I would have
you consider these wild nations of people are subjected by force
to the czar of Muscovy's dominions; and if you do this it is ten
to one but they will come by thousands to the governor of Nort-
zinskoy, and complain, and demand satisfaction; and if he cannot
give them satisfaction, it is ten to one but they revolt; and it will
occasion a new war with all the Tartars in the country.
This, I confess, put new thoughts into my head for a while; but
I harped upon the same string still; and all that day I was uneasy
to put my project in execution. Towards the evening the Scots
merchant met me by accident in our walk about the town, and
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
desired to speak with me: "I believe," said he, "I have put
you off your good design; I have been a little concerned about
it since; for I abhor the idol and idolatry as much as you can
do."- rr
Truly," said I, "you have put it off a little, as to the
execution of it, but you have not put it at all out of my thoughts;
and, I believe, I shall do it still before I quit this place, though
I were to be delivered up to them for satisfaction.'
"No, no,"
said he, "God forbid they should deliver you up to such a crew
of monsters! they shall not do that neither; that would be mur-
dering you indeed."—"Why," said I, "how would they use me?"
"Use you!" said he: "I'll tell you how they served a poor
Russian, who affronted them in their worship just as you did, and
whom they took prisoner after they had lamed him with an arrow,
that he could not run away: they took him and stripped him
stark naked, and set him upon the top of the idol monster, and
stood all round him, and shot as many arrows into him as would
stick over his whole body; and then they burnt him, and all the
arrows sticking in him, as a sacrifice to the idol."-" And was
this the same idol?" said I.-"Yes," said he, "the very same."
'Well," said I, "I will tell you a story." So I related the
story of our men at Madagascar, and how they burnt and sacked
the village there, and killed man, woman, and child, for their
murdering one of our men, just as it is related before; and when I
had done, I added, that I thought we ought to do so to this village.
(6
He listened very attentively to the story; but when I talked
of doing so to that village, said he, “You mistake very much ;
it was not this village, it was almost a hundred miles from this
place; but it was the same idol, for they carry him about in
procession all over the country.' Well," said I, "then that
idol ought to be punished for it; and so it shall," said I, “if I
live this night out."
In a word, finding me resolute, he liked the design, and told
me, I should not go alone, but he would go with me; but he
would go first, and bring a stout fellow, one of his countrymen,
to go also with us; "and one," said he, "as famous for his zeal
as you can desire any one to be against such devilish things as
these." In a word, he brought me his comrade, a Scotsman,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
535
whom he called Captain Richardson; and I gave him a full
account of what I had seen, and also what I intended; and he
told me readily, he would go with me, if it cost him his life.
So we agreed to go, only we three. I had, indeed, proposed it
to my partner, but he declined it. He said, he was ready to
assist me to the utmost, and upon all occasions, for my defence;
but that this was an adventure quite out of his way: so, I say
we resolved upon our work, only we three, and my man-servant,
and to put it in execution that night about midnight, with all
the secrecy imaginable.
However, upon second thoughts, we were willing to delay it
till the next night, because the caravan being to set forward in
the morning, we supposed the governor could not pretend to give
them any satisfaction upon us when we were out of his power.
The Scots merchant, as steady in his resolution for the enterprise
as bold in executing, brought me a Tartar's robe or gown of
sheep-skins, and a bonnet, with a bow and arrows, and had pro-
vided the same for himself and his countryman, 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 aqua-vitæ, 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 had not the least jealousy of danger attending
their idol. The night was cloudy; yet the moon gave us light
enough to see that the idol stood just in the same posture and
place that it did before. The people seemed to be all 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 concluded, therefore,
that if we set wildfire to the idol, these men would come out im-
mediately, and run up to the place to rescue it from the destruc-
tion that we intended for it; and what to do with them we knew
not. Once we thought of carrying it away, and setting fire to it.
at a distance, but when we came to handle it we found it too
536
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
bulkly for our carriage; so we were at a loss again. The second
Scotsman was for setting fire to the tent or hut, and knocking the
creatures that were there on the head, when they came out; but
I could not join with that; I was against killing them, if it was
possible to be avoided. "Well then,” said the Scots merchant,
"I will tell you what we will do; we will try to take them
prisoners, tie their hands, and make them stand and see their
idol destroyed."
As it happened, we had twine or packthread enough about us,
which we used to tie our fireworks together with; so we resolved
to attack these people first, and with as little noise as we could.
The first thing we did, we knocked at the door, when one of the
priests coming to it, we immediately seized upon him, stopped
his mouth, and tied his hands behind him, and led him to the
idol, where we gagged him that he might not make a noise,
tied his feet also together, and left him on the ground.
Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another
would come out to see what the matter was; but we waited so
long till the third man came back to us; and then nobody com-
ing out, we knocked again gently, and immediately out came two
more, and we served them just in the same manner, but were
obliged to go all with them, and lay them down by the idol some
distance from one another; when going back we found two more
were come out to the door, and a third stood behind them within
the door. We seized the two, and immediately tied them, when
the third stepping back, and crying out, my Scots merchant went
in after him, and taking out a composition we had made, that
would only smoke and stink, he set fire to it, and threw it in
among them; by that time the other Scotsman and my man
taking charge of the two men already bound, and tied together
also by the arm, led them away to the idol, and left them there,
to see if their idol would relieve them, making haste back to us.
When the furze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so
much smoke that they were almost suffocated, we then threw
in a small leather bag of another kind, which flamed like a candle,
and following it in, we found there were but four people left,
who, it seems, were two men and two women, and, as we sup-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
537
posed, had been about some of their diabolic sacrifices. They
appeared, in short, frighted to death, at least so as to sit trem-
bling and stupid, and not able to speak neither, for the smoke.
In a word, we took them, bound them as we had the others,
and all without any noise. I should have said, we brought them
out of the house, or hut, first; for, indeed, we were not able to
bear the smoke any more than they were. When we had done
this, we carried them all together to the idol: when we came
there we fell to work with him; and first we daubed him all

over, and his robes also, with tar, and such other stuff as we
had, which was tallow mixed with brimstone, then we stopped
his eyes, and ears, and mouth full of gunpowder; then we
wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet; and then
sticking all the combustibles we had brought with us upon him,
we looked about to see if we could find anything else to help
to burn him; when my man remembered that by the tent or
hut, where the men were, there lay a heap of dry forage, whether
straw or rushes I do not remember: away he and one of the
538
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
Scotsmen ran, and fetched their arms full of that. When we had
done this, we took all our prisoners, and brought them, having
untied their feet and ungagged their mouths, and made them
stand up, and set them just before their monstrous idol, and
then set fire to the whole.
We stayed by it a quarter of an hour, or thereabouts, till the
powder in the eyes, and mouth, and ears of the idol blew up,
and, as we could perceive, had split and deformed the shape of
it; and, in a word, till we saw it burnt into a mere block or log
of wood; and then setting the dry forage to it, we found it
would be soon quite consumed; so we began to think of going
away; but the Scotsman said, "No, we must not go, for these
poor deluded wretches will all throw themselves into the fire,
and burn themselves with the idol." So we resolved to stay
till the forage was burnt down too, and then we came away
and left them.
In the morning we appeared among our fellow-travellers, ex-
ceeding busy in getting ready for our journey; nor could any
man suggest that we had been anywhere but in our beds, as
travellers might be supposed to be, to fit themselves for the
fatigues of that day's journey.
But it did not end so; for the next day came a great multi-
tude of the country people, not only of this village, but of a
hundred more, for aught I know, to the town-gates; and in a
most outrageous manner demanded satisfaction of the Russian
governor, for the insulting their priests, and burning their great
Cham-Chi-Thaungu; such a hard name they gave the mon-
strous creature they worshipped. The people of Nortzinskoy
were at first in great consternation; for they said the Tartars
were no less than thirty thousand, and that in a few days more
would be one hundred thousand strong.
The Russian governor sent out messengers to appease them,
and gave them all the good words imaginable. He assured
them he knew nothing of it, and that there had not a soul of
his garrison been abroad; that it could not be from anybody
there; and if they would let him know who it was, they should
be exemplarily punished. They returned haughtily, that all the
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
539
country reverenced the great Cham-Chi-Thaungu, who dwelt
in the sun, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to
his image, but some Christian miscreant; so they called them,
it seems; and they therefore denounced war against him, and all
the Russians, who, they said, were miscreants and Christians.
The governor, still patient, and unwilling to make a breach,
or to have any cause of war alleged to be given by him, the czar
having straitly charged them to treat the conquered country
with gentleness and civility, gave them still all the good words
he could; at last he told them, there was a caravan gone to-
wards Russia that morning, and perhaps it was some of them
who had done them this injury; and that, if they would be
satisfied with that, he would send after them, to inquire into it.
This seemed to appease them a little; and accordingly the gover-
nor sent after us, and gave us a particular account how the thing
was, intimating withal, that if any in our caravan had done it,
they should make their escape; but that whether they had done
it or no, we should make all the haste forward that was possible;
and that in the meantime he would keep them in play as long
as he could.
This was very friendly in the governor. However, when it
came to the caravan, there was nobody knew anything of the
matter; and, as for us that were guilty, we were the least of
all suspected; none so much as asked us the question; however,
the captain of the caravan, for the time, took the hint that the
governor gave us, and we marched or travelled two days and two
nights without any considerable stop, and then we lay at a village
called Plothus; nor did we make any long stop here, but has-
tened on towards Jarawena, another of the czar of Muscovy's
colonies, and where we expected we should be safe; but it is to
be observed, that here we began for two or three days' march, to
enter upon a vast nameless desert, of which I shall say more in
its place; and which if we had now been upon it, it is more than
probable we had been all destroyed. It was the second day's
march from Plothus that by the clouds of dust behind us at a
great distance, some of our people began to be sensible we were
pursued; we had entered the desert, and had passed by a great
1
540
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
lake, called Schanks Oser, when we perceived a very great body
of horse appear on the other side of the lake to the north, we
travelling west. We observed they went away west, as we did;
but had supposed we should have taken that side of the lake,
whereas we very happily took the south side: and in two days
more we saw them not, for they, believing we were still before
them, pushed on, till they came to the river Udda: this is a very
great river when it passes farther north, but where we came to
it, we found it narrow and fordable.
The third day they either found their mistake, or had intelli-
gence of us, and came pouring in upon us towards the dusk of
the evening. We had, to our great satisfaction, just pitched upon
a place for our camp, which was very convenient for the night;
for as we were upon a desert, though but at the beginning of it,
that was above five hundred miles over, we had no towns to
lodge at, and, indeed, expected none but the city of Jarawena,
which we had yet two days' march to; the desert, however, had
some few woods in it on this side, and little rivers, which ran
all into the great river Udda. It was in a narrow strait, between
two small but very thick woods, that we pitched our little camp
for that night, expecting to be attacked in the night.
Nobody knew but ourselves what we were pursued for; but
as it was usual for the Mogul Tartars to go about in troops in
that desert, so the caravans always fortify themselves every night
against them as against armies of robbers; and it was therefore
no new thing to be pursued.
But we had this night, of all the nights of our travels, a most
advantageous camp; for we lay between two woods, with a little
rivulet running just before our front; so that we could not be
surrounded, or attacked any way, but in our front or rear: we
took care also to make our front as strong as we could, by plac-
ing our packs, with our camels and horses, all in a line on the
side of the river, and we felled some trees in our rear.
In this posture we encamped for the night; but the enemy
was upon us before we had finished our situation: they did not
come on us like thieves, as we expected, but sent three messen-
gers to us, to demand the men to be delivered to them, that had
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
541
abused their priests, and burnt their god Cham-Chi-Thaungu,
that they might burn them with fire. Our men looked very blank
at this message, and began to stare at one another, to see who
looked with most guilt in their faces, but nobody was the word,
nobody did it. The leader of the caravan sent word, he was
well assured it was not done by any of our camp; that we were
peaceable merchants, travelling on our business; that we had
done no harm to them, or to any one else; and that therefore
they must look farther for their enemies, who had injured them,
for we were not the people; so desired them not to disturb us;
for, if they did, we should defend ourselves.
They were far from being satisfied with this for an answer, and
a great crowd of them came down in the morning, by break of
day, to our camp; but, seeing us in such an advantageous situa-
tion, they durst come no farther than the brook in our front,
where they stood and showed us such a number, as indeed, ter-
rified us very much; for those that spoke least of them, spoke of
ten thousand. Here they stood, and looked at us awhile, and then
setting up a great howl, they let fly a cloud of arrows among us;
but we were well enough fortified for that, for we sheltered under
our baggage; and I do not remember that one man of us was hurt.
Some time after this we saw them move a little to our right,
and expected them on the rear, when a cunning fellow, a Cos-
sack, as they call them, of Jarawena, in the pay of the Musco-
vites, calling to the leader of the caravan, said to him, "I'll go
send all these people away to Sibeilka." This was a city four or
five days' journey at least to the south, and rather behind us. So
he takes his bow and arrows, and, getting on horseback, he rides
away from our rear directly, as it were back to Nortzinskoy; after
this, he takes a great circuit about, and comes to the army of the
Tartars, as if he had been sent express to tell them a long story,
that the people who had burnt their Cham-Chi-Thaungu were
gone to Sibeilka, with a caravan of miscreants as he called them;
that is to say Christians; and that they were resolved to burn
the god Schal Isar belonging to the Tonguses.
As this fellow was a mere Tartar, and perfectly spoke their
language, he counterfeited so well, that they all took it from
542
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
him, and away they drove in a most violent hurry, to Sabeilka,
which it seems, was five days' journey to the south: and in less
than three hours they were entirely out of our sight, and we never
heard any more of them, nor ever knew whether they went to
that other place called Sibeilka or no.
So we passed safely on to the city of Jarawena, where there
was a garrison of Muscovites; and there we rested five days, the
caravan being exceedingly fatigued with the last day's march,
and with want of rest in the night.
From this city we had a frightful desert, which held us three-
and-twenty days' march. We furnished ourselves with some
tents here, for the better accommodating ourselves in the night;
and the leader of the caravan procured sixteen carriages, or
waggons, of the country, for carrying our water and provisions;
and these carriages were our defence every night round our little
camp; so that had the Tartars appeared, unless they had been
very numerous indeed, they would not have been able to hurt us.
We may well be supposed to want rest again after this long
journey; for in this desert we saw neither house or tree, or
scarce a bush: we saw, indeed, abundance of the sable-hunters,
as they called them. These are all Tartars of the Mogul Tar-
tary, of which this country is a part; and they frequently attack
small caravans; but we saw no numbers of them together. I
was curious to see the sable skins they catched; but could never
speak with any of them; for they durst not come near us;
neither durst we straggle from our company to go near them.
After we had passed this desert, we came into a country pretty
well inhabited; that is to say, we found towns and castles settled
by the czar of Muscovy, with garrisons of stationary soldiers to
protect the caravans, and defend the country against the Tartars,
who would otherwise make it very dangerous travelling; and
his czarish majesty has given such strict orders for the well guard-
ing the caravans and merchants, that if there are any Tartars
heard of in the country, detachments of the garrison are always
sent to see travellers safe from station to station.
And thus the governor of Adinskoy, whom I had an oppor-
tunity to make a visit to, by means of the Scots merchant, who
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
543
was acquainted with him, offered us a guard of fifty men, if we
thought there was any danger, to the next station.
I thought long before this, that as we came nearer to Europe
we should find the country better peopled, and the people more
civilised; but I found myself mistaken in both, for we had yet
the nation of the Tonguses to pass through; where we saw the
same tokens of paganism and barbarity, or worse, than before;
only as they were conquered by the Muscovites, and entirely
reduced, they were not so dangerous; but for rudeness of man-
ners, idolatry, and polytheism, no people in the world ever went.
beyond them. They are clothed all in skins of beasts, and their
houses are built of the same. You know not a man from a
woman, neither by the ruggedness of their countenances, or
their clothes; and in the winter, when the ground is covered
with snow, they live under ground, in houses like vaults, which
have cavities going from one to another.
If the Tartars had their Cham-Chi-Thaungu for a whole
village, or country, these had idols in every hut and every cave;
besides they worship the stars, the sun, the water, the snow
and in a word, everything that they do not understand, and they
understand but very little; so that almost every element, every
uncommon thing, sets them a sacrificing.
But I am no more to describe people than countries, any
farther than my own story comes to be concerned in them. I
met with nothing peculiar to myself in all this country, which I
reckon was, from the desert which I spoke of last, at least four
hundred miles, half of it being another desert, which took us
up twelve days' severe travelling, without house, tree or bush;
but we were obliged again to carry our own provisions, as well
water as bread. After we were out of this desert, and had
travelled two days, we came to Janezay, a Muscovite city or
station, on the great river Janezay. This river, they told us,
parted Europe from Asia, though our inap-makers, as I am told,
do not agree to it; however, it is certainly the eastern boundary
of the ancient Siberia, which now makes a province only of the
vast Muscovite empire, but is itself equal in bigness to the whole
empire of Germany.
544
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
And yet here I observed ignorance and paganism still pre-
vailed except in the Muscovite garrisons. All the country be-
tween the river Oby and the river Janezay is as entirely pagan,
and the people as barbarous, as the remotest of the Tartars;
nay, as any nation, for aught I know, in Asia or America. I
also found, which I observed to the Muscovite governors, whom
I had opportunity to converse with, that the pagans are not much
the wiser, or the nearer Christianity, for being under the Mus-
covite government; which they acknowledged was true enough,
but as they said, was none of their business; that if the czar ex-
pected to convert his Siberian, or Tonguese, or Tartar subjects,
it should be done by sending clergymen among them, not sol-
diers; and they added, with more sincerity than I expected,
that they found it was not so much the concern of their mon-
arch to make the people Christians, as it was to make them
subjects.
From this river to the great river Oby, we crossed a wild
uncultivated country; I cannot say 'tis a barbarous soil; 'tis only
barren of people, and wants good management; otherwise it is
in itself a most pleasant, fruitful, and agreeable country. What
inhabitants we found in it are all pagans, except such as are sent
among them from Russia; for this is the country, I mean on
both sides the river Oby, whither the Muscovite criminals, that
are not put to death, are banished, and from whence it is next
to impossible they should ever come away.
I have nothing material to say of my particular affairs, till I
came to Tobolski, the capital city of Siberia, where I con-
tinued some time on the following occasion.
We had been now almost seven months on our journey, and
winter began to come on apace; whereupon my partner and I
called a council about our particular affairs, in which we found
it proper, considering that we were bound for England, and not
for Moscow to consider how to dispose of ourselves. They told
us of sledges and reindeer to carry us over the snow in the winter-
time; and, indeed, they have such things, that it would be in-
credible to relate the particulars of, by which means the Russians
travel more in the winter than they can in the suminer; be-
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
545
cause in these sledges they are able to run night and day: the
snow being frozen, is one universal covering to nature, by which
the hills, the vales, the rivers, the lakes, are all smooth, and as
hard as a stone; and they run upon the surface, without any
regard to what is underneath.
But I had no occasion to push at a winter's journey of this
kind; I was bound to England, not to Moscow, and my route.
lay two ways: either I must go on as the caravan went, till I
came to Jaroslaw, and then go off west for Narva, and the gulf
of Finland, and so either by sea or land to Dantzic, where I
might possibly sell my China cargo to good advantage; or I
must leave the caravan at a little town on the Dwina, from
whence I had but six days by water to Archangel, and from
thence might be sure of shipping, either to England, Holland,
or Hamburgh.
Now to go any of these journeys in the winter would have
been preposterous; for as to Dantzic, the Baltic would be frozen
up, and I could not get passage; and to go by land in those
countries, was far less safe than among the Mogul Tartars; likę-
wise to go to Archangel, in October all the ships would be gone
from thence, and even the merchants, who dwell there in sum-
mer, retire south to Moscow in the winter, when the ships are
gone; so that I should have nothing but extremity of cold to
encounter, with a scarcity of provisions, and must lie there in an
empty town all the winter: so that, upon the whole, I thought
it much my better way to let the caravan go, and to make pro-
vision to winter where I was, viz., at Tobolski, in Siberia, in the
latitude of sixty degrees, where I was sure of three things to
wear out a cold winter with, viz., plenty of provisions, such as
the country afforded, a warm house, with fuel enough, and
excellent company; of all which I shall give a full account in
its place.
I was now in a quite different climate from my beloved island,
where I never felt cold, except when I had my ague; on the
contrary, I had much to do to bear any clothes on my back, and
never made any fire but without doors, for my necessity, in
dressing my food, &c. Now I made me three good vests, with
2 M
546
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to the feet, and
button close to the wrists, and all these lined with furs, to make
them sufficiently warm.
As to a warm house, I must confess, I greatly dislike our way
in England, of making fires in every room in the house, in open
chimneys, which, when the fire was out, always kept the air in
the room cold as the climate. But taking an apartment in a
good house in the town, I ordered a chimney to be built like a
furnace, in the centre of six several rooms, like a stove; the
funnel to carry the smoke went up one way, the door to come
at the fire went in another, and all the rooms were kept equally
warm, but no fire seen; like as they heat the bagnios in England.
By this means we had always the same climate in all the
rooms, and an equal heat was preserved; and how cold soever
it was without, it was always warm within; and yet we saw po
fire, nor were ever incommoded with any smoke.
1
The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be
possible to meet with good company here, in a country so
barbarous as that of the most northerly parts of Europe, near
the Frozen ocean, and within but a very few degrees of Nova
Zembla.
But this being the country where the state criminals of Mus-
covy, as I observed before, are all banished, this city was full of
noblemen, princes, gentlemen, colonels, and in short, all degrees
of the nobility, gentry, soldiery, and courtiers of Muscovy.
Here were the famous prince Galiffken, or Galoffken, and his
the old general Robostisky, and several other persons of
note, and some ladies.
son;
By means of my Scots merchant, whom, nevertheless, I parted
with here, I made an acquaintance with several of these gentle-
men, and some of them of the first rank; and from these, in
the long winter nights, in which I staid here, I received several
very agreeable visits. It was talking one night with a certain
prince, one of the banished ministers of state belonging to the
czar of Muscovy, that my talk of my particular case began. He
had been telling me abundance of fine things, of the greatness,
the magnificence, and dominions, and the absolute power of the
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
547
emperor of the Russians. I interrupted him, and told him, I
was a greater and more powerful prince than ever the czar of
Muscovy was, though my dominions were not so large, or my
people so many. The Russian grandee looked a little surprised,
and fixing his eyes steadily upon me, began to wonder what I
meant.
I told him his wonder would cease when I had explained my-
self. First, I told him, I had the absolute disposal of the lives
and fortunes of all my subjects: that notwithstanding my absolute
power, I had not one person disaffected to my government or to
my person in all my dominions. He shook his head at that, and
said, there, indeed I outdid the czar of Muscovy. I told him,
that all the lands in my kingdom were my own, and all my sub-
jects were not only my tenants, but tenants at will; that they
would all fight for me to the last drop; and that never tyrant,
for such I acknowledged myself to be, was ever so universally
beloved, and yet so horribly feared, by his subjects.
After amusing them with these riddles in government for a
while, I opened the case, and told them the story at large of
my living in the island, and how I managed both myself and
the people there that were under me, just as I have since
minuted it down. They were exceedingly taken with the story,
and especially the prince, who told me with a sigh, that the true
greatness of life was to be master of ourselves; that he would
not have exchanged such a state of life as mine, to have been
czar of Muscovy; and that he found more felicity in the retire-
ment he seemed to be banished to there, than ever he found in
the highest authority he enjoyed in the court of his master the
czar: that the height of human wisdom was to bring our tem-
pers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within,
under the weight of the greatest storm without. When he came
first hither, he said, he used to tear the hair from his head, and
the clothes from his back, as others had done before him; but
a little time and consideration had made him look into himself,
as well as round himself, to things without: that he found the
mind of man, if it was but once brought to reflect upon the
state of universal life, and how little this world was concerned
548
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
in its true felicity, was perfectly capable of making a felicity for
itself, fully satisfying to itself, and suitable to its own best ends
and desires, with but very little assistance from the world; that
air to breathe in, food to sustain life, clothes for warmth, and
liberty for exercise, in order to health, completed in his opinion,
all that the world could do for us: and though the greatness, the
authority, the riches, and the pleasures which some enjoyed in the
world and which he had enjoyed his share of, had much in them
that was agreeable to us, yet he observed, that all those things
chiefly gratified the coarsest of our affections; such as our ambi-
tion, our particular pride, our avarice, our vanity, and our sen-
suality; all which were, indeed, the mere product of the worst
part of man, were in themselves crimes, and had in them the
seeds of all manner of crime: but neither were related to, or con-
cerned with, any of those virtues that constituted us wise men,
or of those graces which distinguished us as Christians; that being
now being deprived of all the fancied felicity which he enjoyed
in the full exercise of all those vices, he said, he was at leisure to
look upon the dark side of them, where he found all manner of
deformity; and was now convinced, that virtue only makes a
man truly wise, rich, and great, and preserves him in the way
to a superior happiness in a future state; and in this, he said,
they were more happy in their banishment, than all their enemies
were, who had the full possession of all the wealth and power
that they, the banished, had left behind them.
“Nor, sir,” said he, " do I bring my mind to this politically,
by the necessity of my circumstances, which some call miserable;
but if I know anything of myself, I would not go back, though
the czar my master, should call me, and offer to reinstate me in
all my former grandeur; I say, I would no more go back to it,
than I believe my soul, when it shall be delivered from this
prison of the body, and has had a taste of the glorious state be-
yond life, would come back to the gaol of flesh and blood it is
now enclosed in, and leave heaven to deal in the dirt and grime
of human affairs."
He spake this with so much warmth in his temper, so much
earnestness and motion of his spirits, which were apparent in his
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
549
countenance, that it was evident it was the true sense of his soul;
and indeed there was no room to doubt his sincerity.
I told him, I once thought myself a kind of a monarch in my
old station, of which I had given him an account, but that I
thought he was not a monarch only, but a great conqueror; for
that he that has got a victory over his own exorbitant desires,
and has the absolute dominion over himself, whose reason en-
tirely governs his will, is certainly greater than he that conquers
a city. But, my lord," said I, " shall I take the liberty to ask
you a question?" "With all my heart," said he. "If the
door of your liberty was opened," said I, "would not you take
hold of it to deliver yourself from this exile?"
"C
Hold," said he, your question is subtle, and requires some
serious just distinctions to give it a sincere answer ; and I'll give
it you from the bottom of my heart. Nothing that I know of
in this world would move me to deliver myself from this state
of banishment, except these two: first, the enjoyment of my
relations; and, secondly, a little warmer climate. But I pro-
test to you, that to go back to the pomp of the court, the glory,
the power, the hurry of a minister of state; the wealth, the
gaiety, and the pleasures, that is to say, follies of a courtier ; if
my master should send me word this moment, that he restores
me to all he banished me from, I protest, if I know myself at
all, I would not leave this wilderness, these deserts, and these
frozen lakes, for the palace of Moscow."
"But, my lord," said I, " perhaps you not only are banished
from the pleasures of the court, and from the power, and au-
thority, and wealth, you enjoyed before, but you may be absent
too from some of the conveniences of life; your estate, perhaps,
confiscated, and your effects plundered; and the supplies left
you here may not be suitable to the ordinary demands of
life."
"Ay," said he, "that is, as you suppose me to be a lord, or a
prince, &c. So indeed I am; but you are now to consider me
only as a man, a human creature, not at all distinguished from
another; and so I can suffer no want, unless I should be visited
with sickness and distempers. However, to put the question
550
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
out of dispute; you see our manner; we are in this place five
persons of rank; we live perfectly retired, as suited to a state of
banishment; we have something rescued from the shipwreck
of our fortunes, which keeps us from the mere necessity of hun-
ting for our food; but the poor soldiers who are here, without
that help, live in as much plenty as we. They go into the
woods, and catch sables and foxes; the labour of a month will
maintain them a year; and as the way of living is not expensive,
so it is not hard to get sufficient to ourselves: so that objection
is out of doors."
I have no room to give a full account of the most agreeable
conversation I had with this truly great man; in all which he
showed, that his mind was so inspired with a superior knowledge
of things, so supported by religion, as well as by a vast share of
wisdom, that his contempt of the world was really as much as
he had expressed, and that he was always the same to the last,
as will appear in the story I am going to tell.
I had been here eight months, and a dark dreadful winter I
thought it to be. The cold was so intense, that I could not so
much as look abroad without being wrapt in furs, a mask of fur
before my face, or rather a hood, with only a hole for breath,
and two for sight. The little daylight we had, was as we reck-
oned, for three months, not above five hours a day, or six at
most; only that the snow lying on the ground continually, and
the weather clear, it was never quite dark. Our horses were
kept, or rather starved, underground; and as for our servants,
for we hired servants here to look after our horses and ourselves,
we had every now and then their fingers and toes to thaw, and
take care of, lest they should mortify and fall off.
It is true, within doors we were warm, the houses being close,
the walls thick, the lights small, and the glass all double. Our
food was chiefly the flesh of deer, dried and cured in the season;
good bread enough, but baked as biscuits; dried fish of several
sorts, and some flesh of mutton, and of buffaloes, which is pretty
good beef. All the stores of provision for the winter are laid up
in the summer, and well cured. Our drink was water mixed
with aquavitæ instead of brandy; and for a treat, mead instead
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
551
of wine; which, however, they have excellent good. The hun-
ters, who ventured abroad all weathers, frequently brought us in
fresh venison, very fat and good; and sometimes bear's flesh, but
we did not much care for the last. We had a good stock of tea,
with which we treated our friends as above; and, in a word, we
lived very cheerfully and well all things considered.
It was now March and the days grown considerably longer,
and the weather at least tolerable; so the other travellers began
to prepare sledges to carry them over the snow, and to get things
ready to be going; but my measures being fixed, as I have said,
for Archangel, and not for Muscovy or the Baltic, I made no
motion, knowing very well, that the ships from the south do
not set out for that part of the world till May or June; and that
if I was there by the beginning of August, it would be as soon
as any ships would be ready to go away; and therefore, I say, I
made no haste to be gone, as others did; in a word, I saw a
great many people, nay all the travellers, go away before me.
It seems, every year, they go from thence to Moscow for trade;
viz., to carry furs, and buy necessaries with them, which they
bring back to furnish their shops; also others went on the
same errand to Archangel; but then they also, being to come
back again above eight hundred miles, went all out before
me.
In short, about the latter end of May I began to make all
ready to pack up; and as I was doing this, it occurred to me,
that seeing all these people were banished by the czar of Mus-
covy to Siberia, and yet when they came there, were left at
liberty to go whither they would; why did they not then go
away to any part of the world wherever they thought fit? and I
began to examine what should hinder them from making such
an attempt.
But my wonder was over, when I entered upon that subject
with the person I have mentioned, who answered me thus:
Consider, first, sir," said he, "the place where we are; and,
secondly, the condition we are in; especially," said he, "the
generality of the people who are banished hither. We are sur-
rounded," said he, "with stronger things than bars and bolts :
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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
on the north side is an unnavigable ocean, where ship never
sailed, and boat never swam; neither, if we had both, could we
know whither to go with them. Every other way," said he,
we have above a thousand miles to pass through the czar's
own dominions, and by ways utterly impassable, except by the
roads made by the government, and through the towns garrisoned
by its troops; so that we could neither pass undiscovered by the
road, or subsist any other way: so that it is in vain to attempt
it."
I was silenced indeed, at once, and found that they were in
a prison, every jot as secure as if they had been locked up in the
castle at Moscow; however, it came into my thoughts, that I
might certainly be made an instrument to procure the escape of
this excellent person, and that whatever hazard I run, I would
certainly try if I could carry him off. Upon this I took an
occasion one evening to tell him my thoughts: I represented to
him, that it was very easy for me to carry him away, there being
no guard over him in the country; and as I was not going to
Moscow, but to Archangel, and that I went in the nature of a
caravan, by which I was not obliged to lie in the stationary towns
in the desert, but could encamp every night where I would, we
might easily pass uninterrupted to Archangel, where I could
immediately secure him on board an English or Dutch ship, and
carry him off safe along with me; and as to his subsistence, and
other particulars, that should be my care, till he could better
supply himself.
He heard me very attentively, and looked earnestly on me all
the while I spoke; nay, I could see in his very face, that what
I said put his spirits into an exceeding ferment; his colour fre-
quently changed, his eyes looked red, and his heart fluttered,
that it might be even perceived in his countenance; nor could
he immediately answer me when I had done, and, as it were,
expected what he would say to it: but after he had paused a
little, he embraced me, and said, "How unhappy are we! un-
guided creatures as we are, that even our greatest acts of friend-
ship are made snares to us, and we are made tempters of one
another; my dear friend," said he, "your offer is so sincere,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
553
has such kindness in it, is so disinterested in itself, and is so cal-
culated for my advantage, that I must have very little knowledge
of the world, if I did not both wonder at it, and acknowledge the
obligation I have upon me to you for it; but did you believe I
was sincere in what I have so often said to you of my contempt
of the world? Did you believe I spoke my very soul to you,
and that I had really obtained that degree of felicity here, that
had placed me above all that the world could give me, or do for
me? Did you believe I was sincere, when I told you I would
not go back, if I were recalled even to be all I once was in the
court, and with the favour of the czar my master? Did you
believe me, my friend, to be an honest man, or did you think
me to be a boasting hypocrite?" Here he stopped, as if he
would hear what I would say; but, indeed, I soon after per-
ceived, that he stopped because his spirits were in motion: his
great heart was full of struggles, and he could not go on. I was,
I confess, astonished at the thing, as well as at the man, and I
used some arguments with him to urge him to set himself free;
that he ought to look upon this as a door opened by Heaven for
his deliverance, and a summons by providence, who has the care
and disposition of all events, to do himself good and to render
himself useful in the world.
"How do you
He had by this time recovered himself.
know, sir,” said he, warmly, “that, instead of a summons from
Heaven, it may not be a feint of another instrument, represent-
ing in all the alluring colours to me, the show of felicity as a de-
liverance, which may in itself be my snare, and tend directly to
my ruin? Here I am free from the temptation of returning to
my former miserable greatness; there I am not sure, but that all
the seeds of pride, ambition, avarice, and luxury, which I know
remain in my nature, may revive and take root, and, in a word,
again overwhelm me; and then the happy prisoner, whom you
see now master of his soul's liberty, shall be the miserable slave
of his own senses, in the full possession of all personal liberty.
Dear sir, let me remain in this blessed confinement, banished
from the crimes of life, rather than purchase a show of freedom
at the expense of the liberty of my reason, and at the expense of
V
$54
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
the future happiness which now I have in my view, but shall then,
I fear,quickly lose sight of; for I am but flesh, a man, a mere maií,
have passions and affections as likely to possess and overthrow me
as any man: Oh, be not my friend and tempter both together!
1
If I was surprised before, I was quite dumb now, and stood
silent, looking at him; and, indeed, admired what I saw. The
struggle in his soul was so great, that though the weather was
extremely cold, it put him into a most violent sweat, and I
found he wanted to give vent to his mind; so I said a word or
two, that I would leave him to consider of it, and wait on him
again; and then I withdrew to my own apartment.
About two hours after, I heard somebody at or near the door
of my room, and I was going to open the door; but he had
opened it, and come in: "My dear friend," said he, "you had
almost overset me, but I am recovered: do not take it ill that I
do not close with your offer; I assure you, it is not for want of
a sense of the kindness of it in you; and I come to make the
most sincere acknowledgment of it to you; but, I hope, I have
got the victory over myself."
ii
'My lord," said I, "I hope you are fully satisfied, that you
did not resist the call of Heaven.". Sir," said he, if it had
been from Heaven, the same power would have influenced me
to accept it; but I hope, and am fully satisfied, that it is from
Heaven that I decline it; and I have an infinite satisfaction in
the parting, that you shall leave me an honest man still, though
not a free man.”
I had nothing to do but to acquiesce, and make professions
to him of my having no end in it, but a sincere desire to serve
him. He embraced me very passionately, and assured me, he
was sensible of that, and should always acknowledge it; and
with that he offered me a very fine present of sables, too much
indeed for me to accept from a man in his circumstances; and
I would have avoided them, but he would not be refused.
The next morning I sent my servant to his lordship, with a
small present of tea, two pieces of China damask, and four little
wedges of Japan gold which did not all weigh above six ounces,
or thereabouts; but were far short of the value of his sables,
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
555
which, indeed, when I came to England, I found wörth near
two hundred pounds. He accepted the tea, and one piece of
the damask, and one of the pieces of gold, which had a fine
stamp upon it, of the Japan coinage, which I found he took for
the rarity of it, but would not take any more; and sent word
by my servant, that he desired to speak with me.
When I came to him, he told me, I knew what had passed
between us, and hoped I would not move him any more in that
affair; but that, since I made such a generous offer to him, he
asked me, if I had kindness enough to offer the same to another
person that he would name to me, in whom he had a great share
of concern. I told him, that I could not say I inclined to do so
much for any one but himself, for whom I had a particular
value, and should have been glad to have been the instrument
of his deliverance: however, if he would please to name the
person to me, I would give him my answer, and hoped he would
not be displeased with me, if he was with my answer. He told
me, it was only his son, who though I had not seen, yet was in
the same condition with himself, and above two hundred miles
from him, on the other side the Oby; but that, if I consented,
he would send for him.
I made no hesitation, but told him I would do it. I made
some ceremony in letting him understand that it was wholly
on his account; and that seeing I could not prevail on him,
I would show my respect to him by my concern for his son:
but these things are too tedious to repeat here.
He sent away
the next day for his son, and in about twenty days he came back
with the messenger, bringing six or seven horses loaded with
very rich furs, and which, in the whole, amounted to a very
great value.
His servants brought the horses into the town, but left the
young lord at a distance till night, when he came incognito into
our apartment, and his father presented him to me; and, in
short, we concerted there the manner of our travelling, and
everything proper for the journey.
I had bought a considerable quantity of sablés, black fox-skins,
fine ermines, and such other fürs as are very rich; I say, I had
556
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
bought them in that city in exchange for some of the goods I
brought from China; in particular for the cloves and nutmegs,
of which I sold the greatest part here; and the rest afterwards
at Archangel, for a much better price than I could have done at
London; and my partner, who was sensible of the profit, and
whose business, more particularly than mine, was merchandise,
was mightily pleased with our stay, on account of the traffic we
made here.
It was in the beginning of June when I left this remote place,
a city, I believe, little heard of in the world; and, indeed, it is
so far out of the road of commerce, that I know not how it
should be much talked of. We were now come to a very small
caravan, being only thirty-two horses and camels in all, and all
of them passed for mine, though my new guest was proprietor
of eleven of them. It was most natural also, that I should take
more servants with me than I had before, and the young lord
passed for my steward; what great man I passed for myself I
know not, neither did it concern me to inquire. We had here
the worst and the largest desert to pass over that we met with in
all the journey; indeed I call it the worst, because the way was
very deep in some places, and very uneven in others; the best
we had to say for it was, that we thought we had no troops of
Tartars and robbers to fear, and that they never came on this
side the river Oby, or at least but very seldom; but we found
it otherwise.
My young lord had with him a faithful Muscovite servant, or
rather a Siberian servant, who was perfectly acquainted with the
country; and who led us by private roads, that we avoided com-
ing into the principal towns and cities upon the great road, such
as Tumen, Soloy-Kamoskoy, and several others; because the
Muscovite garrisons, which are kept there, are very curious and
strict in their observation upon travellers, and searching lest any
of the banished persons of note should make their escape that
way into Muscovy; but by this means, as we were kept out of
the cities, so our whole journey was a desert, and we were
obliged to encamp and lie in our tents, when we might have
had good accommodation in the cities on the way; this the
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
557
young lord was so sensible of, that he would not allow us to lie
abroad, when we came to several cities on the way; but lay
abroad himself, with his servant, in the woods, and met us
always at the appointed places.
We were just entered Europe, having passed the river Kama,
which, in these parts, is the boundary between Europe and Asia;
and the first city on the European side was called Soloy-Kamos-
koy, which is as much as to say, the great city on the river Kama;
and here we thought to have seen some evident alteration in the
people, their manners, their habits, their religion, and their busi-
ness; but we were mistaken: for as we had a vast desert to pass,
which, by relation, is near seven hundred miles long in some
places, but not above two hundred miles over where we passed
it; so, till we came past that horrible place, we found very little
difference between that country and the Mogul Tartary; the
people mostly Pagans, and little better than the savages of
America; their houses and towns full of idols, and their way
of living wholly barbarous, except in the cities as above, and
the villages near them; where they are Christians, as they
call themselves, of the Greek church; but have their religion
mingled with so many relics of superstition, that it is scarce to
be known in some places from mere sorcery and witchcraft.
In passing this forest, I thought indeed we must, after all our
dangers were, in our imagination, escaped, as before, have been
plundered and robbed, and perhaps murdered, by a troop of
thieves; of what country they were, whether the roving bands of
the Ostiachi, a kind of Tartars, or wild people on the banks of
the Oby, had ranged thus far; or whether they were the sable-
hunters of Siberia, I am yet at a loss to know; but they were all
on horseback, carried bows and arrows, and were at first above
five-and-forty in number. They came so near to us as within
about two musket shot; and, asking no questions, they surrounded
us with their horses, and looked very earnestly upon us twice.
At length they placed themselves just in our way; upon which
we drew up in a little line before our camels, being not above
sixteen men in all; and being drawn up thus, we halted, and
sent out the Siberian servant who attended his lord, to see who
558
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
they were: his master was the more willing to let him go, be-
cause he was not a little apprehensive that they were a Siberian
troop sent out after him. The man came up near them with a
flag of truce, and called to them; but though he spoke several
of their languages, or dialects of languages rather, he could not
understand a word they said; however, after some signs to him
not to come nearer to them at his peril, so he said he understood
them to mean, offering to shoot at him if he advanced, the fellow
came back no wiser than he went, only that by their dress, he
said, he believed them to be some Taṛtars of Kalmuck, or of
the Circassian hordes; and that there must be more of them
upon the great desert, though he never heard that any of them
were seen so far north before.
This was small comfort to us; however, we had no remedy :
there was on our left hand, at about a quarter of a mile's dis-
tance, a little grove or clump of trees, which stood close to-
gether, and very near the road; I immediately resolved we
should advance to those trees, and fortify ourselves as well as we
could there; for, first, I considered that the trees would in a
great measure cover us from their arrows; and in the next place,
they could not come to charge us in a body: it was, indeed, my
old Portuguese pilot who proposed it; and who had this excel-
lency attending him, namely, that he was always readiest and
most apt to direct and encourage us in cases of the most danger.
We advanced immediately with what speed we could, and
gained that little wood, the Tartars, or thieves, for we knew
not what to call them, keeping their stand, and not attempting
to hinder us. When we came thither, we found to our great
satisfaction that it was a swampy, springy piece of ground, and,
on the other side, a great spring of water, which, running out
in a little rill or brook, was a little farther joined by another of
the like bigness; and was, in short, the head or source of a
considerable river, called afterwards the Wirtska. The trees
which grew about this spring were not in all above two hundred,
but were very large, and stood pretty thick; so that as soon as
we got in, we saw ourselves perfectly safe from the enemy,
unless they aughted and attacked us on foot.
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
559
But to make this more difficult, our Portuguese, with inde-
fatigable application, cut down great arms of the trees, and laid
them hanging, not cut quite off, from one tree to another; so
that he made a continued fence almost round us.
1
We stayed here, waiting the motion of the enemy some hours,
without perceiving they made any offer to stir; when about two
hours before night, they came down directly upon us; and, though
we had not perceived it, we found they had been joined by
some more of the same, so that they were near fourscore horse,
whereof, however, we fancied some were women. They came
in till they were within half a shot of our little wood, when we
fired one musket without ball, and called to them in the Russian
tongue, to know what they wanted, and bid them keep off; but,
as if they knew nothing of what we said, they came on with
a double fury directly up to the wood-side, not imagining we
were so barricaded, that they could not break in. Our old pilot
was our captain, as well as he had been our engineer; and de-
sired of us, not to fire upon them till they came within pistol-
shot, that we might be sure to kill; and that, when we did fire,
we should be sure to take good aim. We bade him give the
word of command; which he delayed so long, that they were,
ome of them, within two pikes' length of us when we fired.
We aimed so true, or Providence directed our shot so sure,
that we killed fourteen of them, and wounded several others,
as also several of their horses; for we had all of us loaded our
pieces with two or three bullets apiece at least.
They were terribly surprised with our fire, and retreated im-
mediately about one hundred rods from us; in which time we
loaded our pieces again, and seeing them keep that distance, we
sallied out, and caught four or five of their horses, whose riders,
we supposed, were killed; and coming up to the dead we could
easily perceive they were Tartars, but knew not from what
country, or how they came to make an excursion such an
unusual length.
About an hour after, they made a motion to attack us again,
and rode round our little wood, to see where else they might
break in; but finding us always ready to face them, they went
560
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
off again, and we resolved not to stir from the place for that
night.
We slept little, you may be sure; but spent the most part of
the night in strengthening our situation, and barricading the
entrances into the wood; and, keeping a strict watch, we waited
for daylight, and, when it came, it gave us a very unwelcome
discovery indeed: for the enemy, who we thought were dis-
couraged with the reception they had met with, were now in-
creased to no less than three hundred, and had set up eleven or
twelve huts and tents, as if they were resolved to besiege us;
and this little camp they had pitched, was upon the open plain,
at about three quarters of a mile from us. We were indeed sur-
prised at this discovery; and now, I confess, I gave myself over
for lost, and all that I had. The loss of my effects did not lie
so near me, though they were very considerable, as the thoughts
of falling into the hands of such barbarians, at the latter end of
my journey, after so many difficulties and hazards as I had gone
through; and even in sight of our port where we expected safety
and deliverance. As for my partner, he was raging: he declared,
that to lose his goods would be his ruin; and he would rather
die than be starved; and he was for fighting to the last
drop.
The young lord, as gallant as ever flesh showed itself, was for
fighting to the last also; and my old pilot was of the opinion we
were able to resist them all, in the situation we then were in;
and thus we spent the day in debates of what we should do;
but towards evening, we found that the number of our enemies
still increased: perhaps, as they were abroad in several parties
for prey, the first had sent out scouts to call for help, and to
acquaint them of the booty; and we did not know but by the
morning they might still be a greater number; so I began to
inquire of those people we had brought from Tobolski, if there
were no other, or more private ways, by which we might avoid
them in the night, and perhaps either retreat to some town, or
get help to guard us over the desert.
The Siberian, who was servant to the young lord, told us if
we designed to avoid them, and not fight, he would engage to
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
561
carry us off in the night to a way that went north towards the
river Petraz, by which he made no question but we might get
away, and the Tartars never the wiser; but he said, his lord had
told him he would not retreat, but would rather choose to fight.
I told him, he mistook his lord; for that he was too wise a man
to love fighting for the sake of it; that I knew his lord was
brave enough by what he had showed already; but that his
lord knew better than to desire to have seventeen or eighteen
men fight five hundred, unless an unavoidable necessity forced
them to it; and that if he thought it possible for us to escape
in the night, we had nothing else to do but to attempt it. He
answered, if his lord gave him such order, he would lose his life
if he did not perform it. We soon brought his lord to give that
order, though privately, and we immediately prepared for the
putting it in practice.
And first, as soon as it began to be dark, we kindled a fire in
our little camp, which we kept burning, and prepared so as to
make it burn all night, that the Tartars might conclude we were
still there; but, as soon as it was dark, that is to say, so as we
could see the stars, for our guide would not stir before, having
all our horses and camels ready loaded, we followed our new
guide, who, I soon found, steered himself by the pole or north
star, all the country being level for a long way.
After we had travelled two hours very hard, it began to be
lighter still; not that it was quite dark all night, but the moon
began to rise; so that, in short, it was rather lighter than we
wished it to be; but by six o'clock the next morning we were
gotten nearly forty miles, though the truth is, we almost spoiled
our horses. Here we found a Russian village, named Kirma-
zinskoy, where we rested, and heard nothing of the Kalmuck
Tartars that day. About two hours before night we set out
again, and travelled till eight the next morning, though not
quite so hastily as before; and about seven o'clock we passed a
little river, called Kirtza, and came to a good large town in-
habited by Russians, and very populous, called Ozomys. There
we heard, that several troops or hordes of Kalmucks had been
abroad upon the desert, but that we were now completely out
2 N
562
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
be sure.
of danger of them, which was to our great satisfaction you may
Here we were obliged to get some fresh horses, and
having need enough of rest, we staid five days; and my partner
and I agreed to give the honest Siberian, who brought us hither,
the value of ten pistoles for his conducting us.
In five days more we came to Veussima, upon the river Wit-
zogda, which running into the river Dwina, we were there very
happily near the end of our travels by land, that river being
navigable in seven days' passage to Archangel. From hence we
came to Lawrenskoy, where the river joins, the third of July;
and provided ourselves with two luggage-boats and a barge, for
our own convenience. We embarked the seventh, and arrived
all safe at Archangel the eighteenth, having been a year, five
months, and three days on the journey, including our stay of
eight months and odd days at Tobolski.
We were obliged to stay at this place six weeks for the arrival
of the ships, and must have tarried longer, had not a Ham-
burgher come in above a month sooner than any of the English
ships; when after some consideration, that the city of Hamburgh
might happen to be as good a market for our goods as London,
we all took freight with him; and having put our goods on
board, it was most natural for me to put my steward on board
to take care of them; by which means my young lord had a
sufficient opportunity to conceal himself, never coming on shore
in all the time we staid there; and this he did, that he might
not be seen in the city, where some of the Moscow merchants
would certainly have seen and discovered him.
We sailed from Archangel the twentieth of August the same
year; and, after no extraordinary bad voyage, arrived in the
Elbe the thirteenth of September. Here my partner and I
found a very good sale for our goods, as well those of China, as
the sables, &c., of Siberia; and dividing the produce of our
effects, my share amounted to £3475, 17s. 3d. notwithstanding
so many losses we had sustained, and charges we had been at;
only remembering that I included, in this, about £600 worth
of diamonds, which I had purchased at Bengal.
Here the young lord took his leave of us, and went up the
OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.
563
Elbe in order to go to the court of Vienna, where he resolved to
seek protection, and where he could correspond with those of
his father's friends who were left alive. He did not part with-
out all the testimonies he could give me of gratitude for the ser-
vice I had done him, and his sense of my kindness to the Prince
his father.
To conclude having staid near four months in Hamburgh, I
came from thence overland to the Hague, where I embarked in
the packet, and arrived in London the tenth of January 1705,
having been gone from England 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.

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