Robinson Crusoe

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One would have thought I could not have had the least reflection
upon my mind of my circumstances while I was making this boat, but
I should have immediately thought how I should get it into the sea;
but my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it,
that I never once considered how I should get it off the land: and
it was really, in its own nature, more easy for me to guide it over
forty-five miles of sea than about forty-five fathoms of land,
where it lay, to set it afloat in the water.

I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man
did who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the
design, without determining whether I was ever able to undertake
it; not but that the difficulty of launching my boat came often
into my head; but I put a stop to my inquiries into it by this
foolish answer which I gave myself - "Let me first make it; I
warrant I will 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 of Jerusalem; it was five feet ten inches diameter at
the lower part next the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter
at the end of twenty-two feet; after which it lessened for a while,
and then parted into branches. It was not without infinite labour
that I felled this tree; I was twenty days hacking and hewing at it
at the bottom; I was fourteen more getting the branches and limbs
and the vast spreading head 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, without fire, by mere mallet and chisel, and by the
dint of hard labour, till I had brought it to be a very handsome
periagua, and big enough to have carried six-and-twenty men, and
consequently big enough to have carried me and all my cargo.

When I had gone through this work I was extremely delighted with
it. The boat was really much bigger than ever I 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 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 up
hill towards the creek. Well, to take away this discouragement, I
resolved to dig into the surface of the earth, and so make a
declivity: this I began, and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains
(but who grudge pains who have their deliverance in view?); but
when this was worked through, and this difficulty managed, it was
still much the same, 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 was to be
thrown out, I found that, by the number of hands I had, being none
but my own, it must have been ten or twelve years before I could
have gone through with it; for the shore lay so high, that at the
upper end it must have been at least twenty feet deep; so at
length, though with great reluctancy, 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
expectations from, and, indeed, no desires about: in a word, I had
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, "Between 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 lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the
eye, nor the pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all
that I was now capable of enjoying; I was lord of the whole manor;
or, if I pleased, I might call myself king or emperor over the
whole country which I had 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, but I had no use for it;
so I let as little grow as I thought enough for my occasion. I had
tortoise or turtle 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 it 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 but 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 to give others, we enjoy just as much as we can use,
and no more. The most covetous, griping miser in the world would
have been cured of the vice of covetousness if he had been in my
case; for I possessed infinitely 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 sorry, useless
stuff lay; I had no more manner of business for it; and 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 a 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 body.
I frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the
hand of God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the
wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my
condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I
enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such
secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take
notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who
cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see
and covet something that He has not given them. All our
discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the
want of thankfulness for what we have.

Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be
so to any one that should fall into such distress as mine was; and
this was, to compare my present condition with what I at first
expected it would 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, and 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 cannot but
recommend to the reflection of those who are apt, in their misery,
to say, "Is any affliction like mine?" Let them consider how much
worse the cases of some people are, and their case might have been,
if Providence had thought fit.

I had another reflection, which assisted me also to comfort my mind
with hopes; and this was comparing my present 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, falling early into the
seafaring life, and into seafaring company, all that little sense
of religion which I had entertained was laughed out of me by my
messmates; by a hardened despising of dangers, and the views of
death, which grew habitual to me by my long absence from all manner
of opportunities to converse with anything 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 the least sense of
what I was, or was to be, that, in the greatest deliverances I
enjoyed - such as my escape from Sallee; my being taken up by the
Portuguese master of 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.

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 condition;
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 expected in that place; that
I ought never more to repine at my condition, but to rejoice, and
to give daily thanks for that daily bread, which nothing but a
crowd of wonders could have brought; that I ought to consider I had
been fed even by a miracle, 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 poisons, 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 on these things, I went away, and was no more sad.
I had now been here so long that many things which I had 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 remembered 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 might have had reason to have looked upon
with a great deal of curiosity.

First, I had observed that the same day that I broke away from my
father and 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 a 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 getting it being, as has been
already observed, next to miraculous.

My clothes, too, began to decay; 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, indeed,
several thick watch-coats of the seamen's which were left, but they
were too hot to wear; and though it is true that the weather was so
violently hot that there was no need of clothes, yet I could not go
quite naked - no, though I had been inclined to it, which I was not
- nor could I abide the thought of it, though I was alone. The
reason why I could not go naked was, I could not bear the heat of
the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on; nay, the
very heat frequently blistered my skin: whereas, with a shirt on,
the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, was
twofold cooler than without it. No more could I ever bring myself
to go out in the heat of the sun without a cap or a hat; the heat
of the sun, beating with such violence as it does in that place,
would give me the headache presently, by darting so directly on my
head, without a cap or hat on, so that I could not bear it;
whereas, if I put on my hat it would presently go away.

Upon these views I began to consider about putting the few rags I
had, which I called clothes, into some order; I had worn out all
the 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, tailoring, or
rather, indeed, 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 afterwards.

I have mentioned that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I
killed, I mean four-footed ones, and I had them hung 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 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 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 out, 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 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 there, and I felt the heats every
jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the equinox;
besides, as I was obliged to be much abroad, it was a most useful
thing to me, as well for the rains as the heats. I took a world of
pains with it, and was a great while before I could make anything
likely to hold: nay, after I had thought I had hit the way, I
spoiled two or three before I made one to my mind: but at last I
made one that answered indifferently well: the main difficulty I
found was to make it let down. I could make it 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 myself 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?

CHAPTER X - TAMES GOATS

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, 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 pursuit of going out with
my gun, I had one labour, to make 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, for I made it without
considering beforehand, as I ought to have done, how I should be
able to launch it, so, never being able to bring it into 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 the next time: indeed, the
next time, though I could not get a tree proper for it, and was in
a place where I could not get the water to it at any less distance
than, as I have said, near half a mile, yet, as I saw it was
practicable at last, I never gave it over; and though I was near
two years about it, yet I never grudged my labour, in hopes of
having a boat to go off to sea at last.

However, though my little periagua was finished, yet the size of it
was not at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I
made the first; I mean of venturing over to the TERRA FIRMA, where
it was above forty miles broad; accordingly, the smallness of my
boat assisted to put an end to that design, and now I thought no
more of it. As I had a boat, my next design was to make a cruise
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 in my boat, and made a
sail too 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 each 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 the 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. At
last, being eager to view the circumference of my little kingdom, I
resolved upon my cruise; and accordingly I victualled my ship for
the voyage, putting in two dozen of loaves (cakes I should call
them) of barley-bread, an earthen pot full of parched rice (a food
I ate a good deal of), a little bottle of rum, half a goat, and
powder and shot for killing more, and two large watch-coats, of
those which, as I mentioned before, I had saved out of the seamen's
chests; these I took, one to lie upon, and the other to cover me in
the night.

It was the 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 about 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 I first discovered them, I was going to give over my
enterprise, and come back again, not knowing how far it might
oblige me to go out to sea; and above all, doubting how I should
get back again: so I came to an anchor; for I had made 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 a hill, which seemed to overlook that point where I saw the full
extent of it, and resolved to venture.

In my viewing the sea from that hill where I stood, I perceived a
strong, and indeed a most furious current, which ran to the east,
and even came close to the point; and I took the more notice of it
because I saw there might be some danger that when I came into it I
might be carried out to sea by the strength of it, and not be able
to make the island again; and indeed, had I not got first upon this
hill, I believe it would have been so; for there was the same
current on the other side the island, only that it set off at a
further distance, and I saw there was a strong eddy under the
shore; so I had nothing to do but to get out of the first current,
and I should presently be in an eddy.

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