The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
and tongs, which I wanted extremely, as also two little brass kettles,
a copper pot to make chocolate, and a gridiron; and with this cargo,
and the dog, I came away, the tide beginning to make home again—and the
same evening, about an hour within night, I reached the island again,
weary and fatigued to the last degree. I reposed that night in the boat
and in the morning I resolved to harbour what I had got in my new cave,
and not carry it home to my castle. After refreshing myself, I got all
my cargo on shore, and began to examine the particulars. The cask of
liquor I found to be a kind of rum, but not such as we had at the
Brazils; and, in a word, not at all good; but when I came to open the
chests, I found several things of great use to me—for example, I found
in one a fine case of bottles, of an extraordinary kind, and filled
with cordial waters, fine and very good; the bottles held about three
pints each, and were tipped with silver. I found two pots of very good
succades, or sweetmeats, so fastened also on the top that the
salt-water had not hurt them; and two more of the same, which the water
had spoiled. I found some very good shirts, which were very welcome to
me; and about a dozen and a half of white linen handkerchiefs and
coloured neckcloths; the former were also very welcome, being
exceedingly refreshing to wipe my face in a hot day. Besides this, when
I came to the till in the chest, I found there three great bags of
pieces of eight, which held about eleven hundred pieces in all; and in
one of them, wrapped up in a paper, six doubloons of gold, and some
small bars or wedges of gold; I suppose they might all weigh near a
pound. In the other chest were some clothes, but of little value; but,
by the circumstances, it must have belonged to the gunner’s mate;
though there was no powder in it, except two pounds of fine glazed
powder, in three flasks, kept, I suppose, for charging their
fowling-pieces on occasion. Upon the whole, I got very little by this
voyage that was of any use to me; for, as to the money, I had no manner
of occasion for it; it was to me as the dirt under my feet, and I would
have given it all for three or four pair of English shoes and
stockings, which were things I greatly wanted, but had had none on my
feet for many years. I had, indeed, got two pair of shoes now, which I
took off the feet of two drowned men whom I saw in the wreck, and I
found two pair more in one of the chests, which were very welcome to
me; but they were not like our English shoes, either for ease or
service, being rather what we call pumps than shoes. I found in this
seaman’s chest about fifty pieces of eight, in rials, but no gold: I
supposed this belonged to a poorer man than the other, which seemed to
belong to some officer. Well, however, I lugged this money home to my
cave, and laid it up, as I had done that before which I had brought
from our own ship; but it was a great pity, as I said, that the other
part of this ship had not come to my share; for I am satisfied I might
have loaded my canoe several times over with money; and, thought I, if
I ever escape to England, it might lie here safe enough till I come
again and fetch it.
CHAPTER XIV. A DREAM REALISED
Having now brought all my things on shore and secured them, I went back
to my boat, and rowed or paddled her along the shore to her old
harbour, where I laid her up, and made the best of my way to my old
habitation, where I found everything safe and quiet. I began now to
repose myself, live after my old fashion, and take care of my family
affairs; and for a while I lived easy enough, only that I was more
vigilant than I used to be, looked out oftener, and did not go abroad
so much; and if at any time I did stir with any freedom, it was always
to the east part of the island, where I was pretty well satisfied the
savages never came, and where I could go without so many precautions,
and such a load of arms and ammunition as I always carried with me if I
went the other way.
I lived in this condition near two years more; but my unlucky head,
that was always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable,
was all these two years filled with projects and designs how, if it
were possible, I might get away from this island: for sometimes I was
for making another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me that
there was nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage; sometimes
for a ramble one way, sometimes another—and I believe verily, if I had
had the boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea,
bound anywhere, I knew not whither.
I have been, in all my circumstances, a memento to those who are
touched with the general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know,
one half of their miseries flow: I mean that of not being satisfied
with the station wherein God and Nature hath placed them—for, not to
look back upon my primitive condition, and the excellent advice of my
father, the opposition to which was, as I may call it, my _original
sin_, my subsequent mistakes of the same kind had been the means of my
coming into this miserable condition; for had that Providence which so
happily seated me at the Brazils as a planter blessed me with confined
desires, and I could have been contented to have gone on gradually, I
might have been by this time—I mean in the time of my being in this
island—one of the most considerable planters in the Brazils—nay, I am
persuaded, that by the improvements I had made in that little time I
lived there, and the increase I should probably have made if I had
remained, I might have been worth a hundred thousand moidores—and what
business had I to leave a settled fortune, a well-stocked plantation,
improving and increasing, to turn supercargo to Guinea to fetch
negroes, when patience and time would have so increased our stock at
home, that we could have bought them at our own door from those whose
business it was to fetch them? and though it had cost us something
more, yet the difference of that price was by no means worth saving at
so great a hazard.
But as this is usually the fate of young heads, so reflection upon the
folly of it is as commonly the exercise of more years, or of the
dear-bought experience of time—so it was with me now; and yet so deep
had the mistake taken root in my temper, that I could not satisfy
myself in my station, but was continually poring upon the means and
possibility of my escape from this place; and that I may, with greater
pleasure to the reader, bring on the remaining part of my story, it may
not be improper to give some account of my first conceptions on the
subject of this foolish scheme for my escape, and how, and upon what
foundation, I acted.
I am now to be supposed retired into my castle, after my late voyage to
the wreck, my frigate laid up and secured under water, as usual, and my
condition restored to what it was before: I had more wealth, indeed,
than I had before, but was not at all the richer; for I had no more use
for it than the Indians of Peru had before the Spaniards came there.
It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, the
four-and-twentieth year of my first setting foot in this island of
solitude, I was lying in my bed or hammock, awake, very well in health,
had no pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body, nor any uneasiness of
mind more than ordinary, but could by no means close my eyes, that is,
so as to sleep; no, not a wink all night long, otherwise than as
follows:
It is impossible to set down the innumerable crowd of thoughts that
whirled through that great thoroughfare of the brain, the memory, in
this night’s time. I ran over the whole history of my life in
miniature, or by abridgment, as I may call it, to my coming to this
island, and also of that part of my life since I came to this island.
In my reflections upon the state of my case since I came on shore on
this island, I was comparing the happy posture of my affairs in the
first years of my habitation here, with the life of anxiety, fear, and
care which I had lived in ever since I had seen the print of a foot in
the sand. Not that I did not believe the savages had frequented the
island even all the while, and might have been several hundreds of them
at times on shore there; but I had never known it, and was incapable of
any apprehensions about it; my satisfaction was perfect, though my
danger was the same, and I was as happy in not knowing my danger as if
I had never really been exposed to it. This furnished my thoughts with
many very profitable reflections, and particularly this one: How
infinitely good that Providence is, which has provided, in its
government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of
things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers,
the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and
sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of
things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which
surround him.
After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to
reflect seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years
in this very island, and how I had walked about in the greatest
security, and with all possible tranquillity, even when perhaps nothing
but the brow of a hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night,
had been between me and the worst kind of destruction—viz. that of
falling into the hands of cannibals and savages, who would have seized
on me with the same view as I would on a goat or turtle; and have
thought it no more crime to kill and devour me than I did of a pigeon
or a curlew. I would unjustly slander myself if I should say I was not
sincerely thankful to my great Preserver, to whose singular protection
I acknowledged, with great humanity, all these unknown deliverances
were due, and without which I must inevitably have fallen into their
merciless hands.
When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up in
considering the nature of these wretched creatures, I mean the savages,
and how it came to pass in the world that the wise Governor of all
things should give up any of His creatures to such inhumanity—nay, to
something so much below even brutality itself—as to devour its own
kind: but as this ended in some (at that time) fruitless speculations,
it occurred to me to inquire what part of the world these wretches
lived in? how far off the coast was from whence they came? what they
ventured over so far from home for? what kind of boats they had? and
why I might not order myself and my business so that I might be able to
go over thither, as they were to come to me?
I never so much as troubled myself to consider what I should do with
myself when I went thither; what would become of me if I fell into the
hands of these savages; or how I should escape them if they attacked
me; no, nor so much as how it was possible for me to reach the coast,
and not to be attacked by some or other of them, without any
possibility of delivering myself; and if I should not fall into their
hands, what I should do for provision, or whither I should bend my
course; none of these thoughts, I say, so much as came in my way; but
my mind was wholly bent upon the notion of my passing over in my boat
to the mainland. I looked upon my present condition as the most
miserable that could possibly be; that I was not able to throw myself
into anything but death, that could be called worse; and if I reached
the shore of the main I might perhaps meet with relief, or I might
coast along, as I did on the African shore, till I came to some
inhabited country, and where I might find some relief; and after all,
perhaps I might fall in with some Christian ship that might take me in: