The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
I taught to feed out of my hand; and I had two more parrots, which
talked pretty well, and would all call “Robin 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 name I knew
not, that 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 agreeable to me; so that, as I said above, I
began to be very well contented with the life I led, if I could 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: 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, 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 me to be
pretty much abroad in the fields, when, going out 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, toward that part of the island where I had observed some savages
had been, as before, and not on the other side; but, to my great
affliction, it was on my side of the island.
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 or improvements, they would immediately
conclude that there were people in the place, and would then never rest
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 fortification—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. I continued in this
posture about two hours, and began to be impatient for intelligence
abroad, for I had no spies to send out. After sitting a while longer,
and musing what I should do in this case, I was not able to bear
sitting in ignorance 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 after me, I set it up again and mounted the top of
the hill, and pulling out my perspective 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 extremely 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 tell.
They had two canoes with them, which they had hauled up upon the shore;
and as it was then ebb of tide, 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 of the island, and so near to me; but when I considered their
coming must be always with the current 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 flood of tide, 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)
away. I should have observed, that for an hour or more before they went
off they were dancing, and I could easily discern their postures and
gestures by my glass. 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 in my girdle, and my great sword by my side
without a scabbard, and with all the speed I was able to make went away
to the hill where I had discovered the first appearance of all; and as
soon as I got thither, which was not in less than two hours (for I
could not go quickly, being so loaded with arms as I was), I perceived
there had been three canoes more of the savages at 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 as, 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 devoured by those
wretches with merriment and sport. I was so filled with indignation at
the sight, that I now began to premeditate the destruction of the next
that I saw there, let them be whom or how many soever. It seemed
evident to me that the visits which they made thus to this island were
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 nor
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 constant
apprehensions 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 a murdering humour, and spent 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 around me with the
greatest care and caution imaginable. And now I found, to my great
comfort, how happy it was that I had provided 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 see 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 unquietly, 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 doing it.
But to waive all 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 on 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 quite of a
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 immediately
considered that this must be some ship in distress, and that they had
some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these for
signals of distress, and to obtain help. I had the presence of mind at
that minute to think, that though I could not help them, it might be
that 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 burned fairly out; so 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 soon 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 glass: 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 did
not move; so I presently concluded that it was a ship at anchor; 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 destruction; for