Robinson Crusoe
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Daniel Defoe >> Robinson Crusoe
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I lay here, however, two days, because the wind blowing pretty
fresh at ESE., and that being just contrary to the 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 overnight,
the sea was calm, and I ventured: but I am a warning to all rash
and ignorant pilots; for no sooner was I come to the point, when I
was not even 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 of the
island, I knew in a few leagues distance they must join again, and
then I was irrecoverably gone; nor did I see any possibility of
avoiding it; so that I had no prospect before me but of perishing,
not by the sea, for that was calm enough, but of starving from
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
even the most miserable condition of mankind 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 out my hands to it, with eager
wishes - "O happy desert!" said I, "I shall never see thee more. O
miserable creature! whither am going?" Then I reproached myself
with my unthankful temper, and that 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 scarcely 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 SSE.
This cheered my heart a little, and especially when, in about half-
an-hour more, it blew a pretty gentle gale. By this time I had got
at a frightful distance from the island, and had the least cloudy
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.
They who know what it is to have a reprieve brought to them upon
the ladder, or to be rescued from thieves just going to murder
them, or who have been in such 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 underfoot.
This eddy carried me about a league on 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
further. However, I found that being between 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 a league of
the island, I found the point of the rocks which occasioned 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, God I fell on my knees and gave God thanks
for my deliverance, resolving to lay aside all thoughts of my
deliverance by my boat; and refreshing myself with such things as
I had, I brought my boat close to the shore, in a little cove that
I had spied under some trees, and laid me down to sleep, being
quite spent with the labour and fatigue of the voyage.
I was now at a great loss which way to get home with my boat! I
had run so much hazard, and knew too much 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 resolved on the next 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 to a very good inlet or bay, about a mile over, which
narrowed till it came to a very little rivulet or brook, where I
found a very 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 umbrella, for it was
exceedingly hot, I began my march. The way was comfortable enough
after such a voyage as I had been upon, and I reached my old bower
in the evening, where I found 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
awaked out of my sleep by a voice calling me by my name several
times, "Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe: poor Robin Crusoe! Where are
you, Robin Crusoe? Where are you? Where have you been?"
I was so dead asleep at first, being fatigued with rowing, or part
of the day, and with walking the latter part, that I did not wake
thoroughly; but dozing 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
frightened, and started up in the utmost consternation; but no
sooner were my eyes open, but I saw my Poll sitting on the top of
the hedge; and immediately knew that 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 came you
here?" and such things as I had taught him.
However, even though I knew it was the parrot, and that indeed it
could be nobody else, it was a good while before I could compose
myself. First, I was amazed how the creature got thither; and
then, how 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 over it; 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; and lived a
very sedate, retired life, as you may well suppose; and my thoughts
being very much composed as to my condition, and fully comforted in
resigning myself to the dispositions of Providence, I thought I
lived really very happily in all things except that of society.
I improved myself in this time in all the mechanic exercises which
my necessities put me upon applying myself to; and I believe I
should, upon occasion, have made a very good carpenter, especially
considering how few tools I had.
Besides this, I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my
earthenware, and contrived well enough to make them with a wheel,
which I found infinitely easier and better; because I made things
round and shaped, 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 burned 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
thinking there was tobacco in the island; and afterwards, when I
searched the ship again, I could not come at any pipes.
In my wicker-ware 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 laying things up in, or fetching things home. 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 the receivers of 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; this was a
want which it was impossible for me to supply, and I began
seriously to consider what I must do when I should have no more
powder; that is to say, how I should 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 as I could never find in my heart to kill her, 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.
For 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 those pits I placed hurdles of my own making
too, with a great weight upon them; and several times I put ears of
barley and dry rice without setting the trap; and I could easily
perceive that the goats had gone in and eaten up the corn, for I
could see the marks of their feet. At length I set three traps in
one night, and going the next morning I found them, all standing,
and yet the bait eaten and gone; this was very discouraging.
However, I altered my traps; and not to trouble you with
particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of
them a large old he-goat; and in one of the 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 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 even let
him out, and he ran away as if he had been frightened out of his
wits. But I did not then know what I afterwards learned, that
hunger will tame a lion. If I had let him stay three or four days
without food, and then have carried him some water to drink and
then a little corn, he would have been as tame as one of the kids;
for they are mighty sagacious, tractable creatures, where they are
well used.
However, for the present I let him go, knowing no better at that
time: then I went to the three kids, and taking them one by one, I
tied them with strings together, and with some difficulty 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 goats' 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 occurred to me that I must keep the tame from
the wild, or else they would always run wild when they grew up; and
the only way for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground,
well fenced either with hedge or pale, to keep them in so
effectually, that those within might not break out, or those
without break in.
This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands yet, as I saw
there was an absolute necessity for doing it, my first work was to
find out a proper piece of ground, where there was likely to be
herbage for them to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep
them from the sun.
Those who understand such enclosures will think I had very little
contrivance when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these
(being a plain, open piece of meadow land, or savannah, as our
people call it in the western colonies), which had two or three
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 by enclosing 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 me; so I presently stopped short,
and, for the beginning, I resolved to enclose a piece of about one
hundred and fifty yards in length, and one hundred yards in
breadth, which, as it would maintain as many as I should have in
any reasonable time, so, as my stock increased, I could add more
ground to my enclosure.
This was acting with some prudence, and I went to work with
courage. I was about three months hedging in the first piece; and,
till I had done it, I tethered the three kids in the best part of
it, and used them to feed as near me as possible, to make them
familiar; and very often I would go and carry them some ears of
barley, or a handful of rice, and feed them out of my hand; so that
after my enclosure was finished and I let them loose, they would
follow me up and down, bleating after me for a handful of corn.
This answered my end, and in about a year and a half I had a flock
of about twelve goats, kids and all; and in two years more I had
three-and-forty, besides several that I took and killed for my
food. After that, I enclosed five several pieces of ground to feed
them in, with little pens to drive them 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 the
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 only
when I was a boy, after a great many essays and miscarriages, made
both butter and cheese at last, also salt (though I found it partly
made to my hand by the heat of the sun upon some of the rocks of
the sea), and never wanted it afterwards. How mercifully can our
Creator treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they
seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction! How can He sweeten the
bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise Him for dungeons
and prisons! What a table was here spread for me in the
wilderness, where I saw nothing at first but to perish for hunger!
CHAPTER XI - FINDS PRINT OF MAN'S FOOT ON THE SAND
IT would have made a Stoic smile to have seen me and my little
family sit down to dinner. There was my majesty the prince and
lord of the whole island; I had the lives of all my subjects at my
absolute command; I could hang, draw, give liberty, and take it
away, and no rebels among 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 person permitted to talk to
me. My dog, who was now grown 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 especial
favour.
But these were not the two cats which I brought on shore at first,
for they were both of them dead, and had been interred near my
habitation by my own hand; but one of them having multiplied by I
know not what kind of creature, these were two which I had
preserved tame; whereas the rest ran wild in the woods, and became
indeed troublesome to me at last, for they would often come into my
house, and plunder me too, till at last I was obliged to shoot
them, and did kill a great many; at length they left me. With this
attendance and in this plentiful manner I lived; neither could I be
said to want anything but society; and of that, some time after
this, I was likely 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, following the edge
of the shore. I did so; but had any one in England met such a man
as I was, it must either have frightened him, or raised a great
deal of laughter; and as I frequently stood still to look at
myself, I could not but smile at the notion of my travelling
through Yorkshire with such an equipage, and in such a dress. 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 the 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
knew 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 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 umbrella, but which, after all, was the
most necessary thing I had about me next to my gun. As for my
face, the colour of it was really not so mulatto-like as one might
expect from a man not at all careful of it, and living within nine
or ten degrees of the equinox. My beard I had once suffered to
grow till it was about a quarter of a yard long; but as I had both
scissors and razors sufficient, I had cut it pretty short, except
what grew on my upper lip, which I had trimmed into a large pair of
Mahometan whiskers, such as I had seen worn by some Turks at
Sallee, for the Moors did not wear such, though the Turks did; of
these moustachios, 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 of that. In this kind of dress 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 points 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 other
places. I was at a strange loss to understand this, and resolved
to spend some time in the observing it, to see if nothing from the
sets of the tide had occasioned it; but I was presently convinced
how it was - viz. that the tide of ebb setting from the west, and
joining with the current of waters from some great river on the
shore, must be the occasion of this current, and that, according as
the wind blew more forcibly from the west or from the north, this
current came nearer or went farther from the shore; for, 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.
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