The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
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 notwithstanding all
that I had amassed together; and of these, ink was one; as also a
spade, pickaxe, 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 bringing home one of those posts, and a third
day in driving it into the ground; for which purpose I got a heavy
piece of wood at first, but at last bethought myself of one of the iron
crows; which, however, though I found it, made driving those 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 circumstances 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
likely to have but few heirs—as to deliver my thoughts from daily
poring over them, and afflicting my mind; and as my reason began now to
master my despondency, I began to comfort myself as well as I could,
and to set the good against the evil, that I might have something to
distinguish my case from worse; and I stated very impartially, like
debtor and creditor, the comforts I enjoyed against the miseries I
suffered, thus:—
_Evil_.
_Good_.
I am cast upon a horrible, desolate island, void of all hope of
recovery.
But I am alive; and not drowned, as all my ship’s company were.
I am singled out and separated, as it were, from all the world, to be
miserable.
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.
I am divided from mankind—a solitaire; one banished from human society.
But I am not starved, and perishing on a barren place, affording no
sustenance.
I have no clothes to cover me.
But I am in a hot climate, where, if I had clothes, I could hardly wear
them.
I am without any defence, or means to resist any violence of man or
beast.
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?
I have no soul to speak to or relieve me.
But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I
have got out as many necessary things as will either supply my wants or
enable me to supply myself, even as long as I live.
Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony that there was scarce
any condition in the world so miserable but there was something
negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; and let this
stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all
conditions in this world: that we may always find in it something to
comfort ourselves from, and to set, in the description of good and
evil, 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—I say, giving
over these things, I began to apply myself to arrange 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 store my goods.
And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I
found I most wanted, particularly a chair and a table; for without
these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world; I
could not write or eat, or do several things, with so much pleasure
without a table: so I went to work. And here I must needs observe, that
as reason is the substance and origin 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
nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools.
However, I made abundance of things, even without tools; and some with
no more tools than an adze and a hatchet, which perhaps were never made
that way before, and that with infinite labour. For example, if I
wanted a board, I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an
edge before me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I
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 prodigious 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 into 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 had everything so ready
at my hand, that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in
such order, and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so
great.
And now it was that I began to keep a journal of every day’s
employment; for, indeed, at first I was in too much hurry, and not only
hurry as to labour, but in too much discomposure of mind; and my
journal would have been full of many dull things; for example, I must
have said thus: “30_th_.—After I had got to shore, and escaped
drowning, instead of being thankful to God for my deliverance, having
first vomited, with the great quantity of salt water which had got into
my stomach, and recovering myself a little, I ran about the shore
wringing my hands and beating my head and face, exclaiming at my
misery, and crying out, ‘I was undone, undone!’ till, tired and faint,
I was forced to lie down on the ground to repose, but durst not sleep
for fear of being devoured.”
Some days after this, and after I had been on board the ship, and got
all that I could out of her, yet I could not forbear getting up to the
top of a little mountain and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a
ship; then fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail, please myself with
the hopes of it, and then after looking steadily, till I was almost
blind, lose it quite, and sit down and weep like a child, and thus
increase my misery by my folly.
But having gotten over these things in some measure, and having settled
my household staff 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.
CHAPTER V. BUILDS A HOUSE—THE JOURNAL
September 30, 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 the day I spent in afflicting myself at the dismal
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 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
set 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 stayed 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 the
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