The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
pressure of mind, surrounded with danger, and in expectation every
night of being murdered and devoured before morning; and I must
testify, from my experience, that a temper of peace, thankfulness,
love, and affection, is much the more proper frame for prayer than that
of terror and discomposure: and that under the dread of mischief
impending, a man is no more fit for a comforting performance of the
duty of praying to God than he is for a repentance on a sick-bed; for
these discomposures affect the mind, as the others do the body; and the
discomposure of the mind must necessarily be as great a disability as
that of the body, and much greater; praying to God being properly an
act of the mind, not of the body.
But to go on. After I had thus secured one part of my little living
stock, I went about the whole island, searching for another private
place to make such another deposit; when, wandering more to the west
point of the island than I had ever done yet, and looking out to sea, I
thought I saw a boat upon the sea, at a great distance. I had found a
perspective glass or two in one of the seamen’s chests, which I saved
out of our ship, but I had it not about me; and this was so remote that
I could not tell what to make of it, though I looked at it till my eyes
were not able to hold to look any longer; whether it was a boat or not
I do not know, but as I descended from the hill I could see no more of
it, so I gave it over; only I resolved to go no more out without a
perspective glass in my pocket. When I was come down the hill to the
end of the island, where, indeed, I had never been before, I was
presently convinced that the seeing the print of a man’s foot was not
such a strange thing in the island as I imagined: and but that it was a
special providence that I was cast upon the side of the island where
the savages never came, I should easily have known that nothing was
more frequent than for the canoes from the main, when they happened to
be a little too far out at sea, to shoot over to that side of the
island for harbour: likewise, as they often met and fought in their
canoes, the victors, having taken any prisoners, would bring them over
to this shore, where, according to their dreadful customs, being all
cannibals, they would kill and eat them; of which hereafter.
When I was come down the hill to the shore, as I said above, being the
SW. point of the island, I was perfectly confounded and amazed; nor is
it possible for me to express the horror of my mind at seeing the shore
spread with skulls, hands, feet, and other bones of human bodies; and
particularly I observed a place where there had been a fire made, and a
circle dug in the earth, like a cockpit, where I supposed the savage
wretches had sat down to their human feastings upon the bodies of their
fellow-creatures.
I was so astonished with the sight of these things, that I entertained
no notions of any danger to myself from it for a long while: all my
apprehensions were buried in the thoughts of such a pitch of inhuman,
hellish brutality, and the horror of the degeneracy of human nature,
which, though I had heard of it 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
uncommon violence, I was a little relieved, but could not bear to stay
in the place a moment; so I got up the hill again with all the speed I
could, and walked on towards my own habitation.
When I came a little out of that part of the island I stood still
awhile, as amazed, and then, recovering myself, I looked up with the
utmost affection of my soul, and, with a flood of tears in my eyes,
gave God thanks, that had cast my first lot in a part of the world
where I was distinguished from such dreadful creatures as these; and
that, though I had esteemed my present condition very miserable, had
yet given me so many comforts in it that I had still more to give
thanks for than to complain of: and this, above all, that I had, even
in this miserable condition, been comforted with the knowledge of
Himself, and the hope of His blessing: which was a felicity more than
sufficiently equivalent to all the misery which I had suffered, or
could suffer.
In this frame of thankfulness I went home to my castle, and began to be
much easier now, as to the safety of my circumstances, than ever I was
before: for I observed that these wretches never came to this island in
search of what they could get; perhaps not seeking, not wanting, or not
expecting anything here; and having often, no doubt, been up 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 eighteen years
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 concealed where I was, unless I found
a better sort of creatures than cannibals to make myself known to. Yet
I entertained such an abhorrence of the savage wretches that I have
been speaking of, and of the wretched, inhuman custom of their
devouring and eating one another up, that I continued pensive and sad,
and kept close within my own circle for almost two years after this:
when I say my own circle, I mean by it my three plantations—viz. my
castle, my country seat (which I called my bower), and my enclosure in
the woods: nor did I look after this for any other use than 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. I did not so much as go to look after my boat
all this time, but began rather to think of making 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 case, if I had happened to have fallen into their
hands, I knew what would have been my lot.
Time, however, and the satisfaction I had that I was in no danger of
being discovered by these people, began to wear off my uneasiness about
them; and I began to live just in the same composed manner as before,
only with this difference, that I used more caution, and kept my eyes
more about me than I did before, lest I should happen to be seen by any
of them; and particularly, I was more cautious of firing my gun, lest
any of them, being on the island, should happen to hear it. It was,
therefore, a very good providence to me that I had furnished myself
with a tame breed of goats, and that I had no need to 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 what 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. I also furbished up
one of the great cutlasses that I had out of the ship, and made me a
belt to hang 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 broadsword hanging at my
side in a belt, but without a scabbard.
Things going on thus, as I have said, for some time, I seemed,
excepting these cautions, to be reduced to my former calm, sedate way
of living. All these things tended to show me more and more how far my
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 were 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 invention, for my own conveniences; and I
had dropped a good design, which I had once bent my thoughts upon, and
that was to try if I could not make some of my barley into malt, and
then try to brew myself some beer. This was really a whimsical thought,
and I reproved myself often for the simplicity of it: for I presently
saw there would be the want of several things necessary to the making
my beer that it would be impossible for me to supply; as, first, casks
to preserve it in, which was a thing that, as I have observed already,
I could never compass: no, though I spent not only many days, but
weeks, nay months, in attempting it, but to no purpose. In the next
place, I had no hops to make it keep, no yeast to make it work, no
copper or kettle to make it boil; and yet with all these things
wanting, I verily believe, had not the frights and terrors I was in
about the savages intervened, I had undertaken it, and perhaps brought
it to pass too; for I seldom gave anything over without accomplishing
it, when once I had it in my head to began 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 the 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 this 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 thought of digging a hole under the place where they made
their fire, and putting 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 unwilling to
waste so much powder upon them, my store being now within the quantity
of one barrel, so neither could I be sure of its going off at any
certain time, when it might surprise them; and, at best, that it would
do little more than just blow the fire about their ears and fright
them, but not sufficient to make them forsake the place: so I laid it
aside; and then proposed that I would place myself in ambush in some
convenient place, with my three guns all double-loaded, and in the
middle of their bloody ceremony let fly at them, when I should be sure
to kill or wound perhaps two or three at every shot; and then falling
in upon them with my three pistols and my sword, I made no doubt but
that, if there were twenty, I should kill them all. This fancy pleased
my thoughts for some weeks, and I was so full of it that I often
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; but while my