The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
daresay he would have sacrificed his life to save mine upon any
occasion whatsoever—the many testimonies he gave me of this put it out
of doubt, and soon convinced me that I needed to use no precautions for
my safety on his account.
This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder, that
however it had pleased God in His providence, and in the government of
the works of His hands, to take from so great a part of the world of
His creatures the best uses to which their faculties and the powers of
their souls are adapted, yet that He has bestowed upon them the same
powers, the same reason, the same affections, the same sentiments of
kindness and obligation, the same passions and resentments of wrongs,
the same sense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the
capacities of doing good and receiving good that He has given to us;
and that when He pleases to offer them occasions of exerting these,
they are as ready, nay, more ready, to apply them to the right uses for
which they were bestowed than we are. This made me very melancholy
sometimes, in reflecting, as the several occasions presented, how mean
a use we make of all these, even though we have these powers
enlightened by the great lamp of instruction, the Spirit of God, and by
the knowledge of His word added to our understanding; and why it has
pleased God to hide the like saving knowledge from so many millions of
souls, who, if I might judge by this poor savage, would make a much
better use of it than we did. From hence I sometimes was led too far,
to invade the sovereignty of Providence, and, as it were, arraign the
justice of so arbitrary a disposition of things, that should hide that
sight from some, and reveal it to others, and yet expect a like duty
from both; but I shut it up, and checked my thoughts with this
conclusion: first, that we did not know by what light and law these
should be condemned; but that as God was necessarily, and by the nature
of His being, infinitely holy and just, so it could not be, but if
these creatures were all sentenced to absence from Himself, it was on
account of sinning against that light which, as the Scripture says, was
a law to themselves, and by such rules as their consciences would
acknowledge to be just, though the foundation was not discovered to us;
and secondly, that still as we all are the clay in the hand of the
potter, no vessel could say to him, “Why hast thou formed me thus?”
But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with him,
and made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to make
him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, and
understand me when I spoke; and he was the aptest scholar that ever
was; and particularly was so merry, so constantly diligent, and so
pleased when he could but understand me, or make me understand him,
that it was very pleasant for me to talk to him. Now my life began to
be so easy that I began to say to myself that could I but have been
safe from more savages, I cared not if I was never to remove from the
place where I lived.
CHAPTER XV. FRIDAY’S EDUCATION
After I had been two or three days returned to my castle, I thought
that, in order to bring Friday off from his horrid way of feeding, and
from the relish of a cannibal’s stomach, I ought to let him taste other
flesh; so I took him out with me one morning to the woods. I went,
indeed, intending to kill a kid out of my own flock; and bring it home
and dress it; but as I was going I saw a she-goat lying down in the
shade, and two young kids sitting by her. I catched hold of Friday.
“Hold,” said I, “stand still;” and made signs to him not to stir:
immediately I presented my piece, shot, and killed one of the kids. The
poor creature, who had at a distance, indeed, seen me kill the savage,
his enemy, but did not know, nor could imagine how it was done, was
sensibly surprised, trembled, and shook, and looked so amazed that I
thought he would have sunk down. He did not see the kid I shot at, or
perceive I had killed it, but ripped up his waistcoat to feel whether
he was not wounded; and, as I found presently, thought I was resolved
to kill him: for he came and kneeled down to me, and embracing my
knees, said a great many things I did not understand; but I could
easily see the meaning was to pray me not to kill him.
I soon found a way to convince him that I would do him no harm; and
taking him up by the hand, laughed at him, and pointing to the kid
which I had killed, beckoned to him to run and fetch it, which he did:
and while he was wondering, and looking to see how the creature was
killed, I loaded my gun again. By-and-by I saw a great fowl, like a
hawk, sitting upon a tree within shot; so, to let Friday understand a
little what I would do, I called him to me again, pointed at the fowl,
which was indeed a parrot, though I thought it had been a hawk; I say,
pointing to the parrot, and to my gun, and to the ground under the
parrot, to let him see I would make it fall, I made him understand that
I would shoot and kill that bird; accordingly, I fired, and bade him
look, and immediately he saw the parrot fall. He stood like one
frightened again, notwithstanding all I had said to him; and I found he
was the more amazed, because he did not see me put anything into the
gun, but thought that there must be some wonderful fund of death and
destruction in that thing, able to kill man, beast, bird, or anything
near or far off; and the astonishment this created in him was such as
could not wear off for a long time; and I believe, if I would have let
him, he would have worshipped me and my gun. As for the gun itself, he
would not so much as touch it for several days after; but he would
speak to it and talk to it, as if it had answered him, when he was by
himself; which, as I afterwards learned of him, was to desire it not to
kill him. Well, after his astonishment was a little over at this, I
pointed to him to run and fetch the bird I had shot, which he did, but
stayed some time; for the parrot, not being quite dead, had fluttered
away a good distance from the place where she fell: however, he found
her, took her up, and brought her to me; and as I had perceived his
ignorance about the gun before, I took this advantage to charge the gun
again, and not to let him see me do it, that I might be ready for any
other mark that might present; but nothing more offered at that time:
so I brought home the kid, and the same evening I took the skin off,
and cut it out as well as I could; and having a pot fit for that
purpose, I boiled or stewed some of the flesh, and made some very good
broth. After I had begun to eat some I gave some to my man, who seemed
very glad of it, and liked it very well; but that which was strangest
to him was to see me eat salt with it. He made a sign to me that the
salt was not good to eat; and putting a little into his own mouth, he
seemed to nauseate it, and would spit and sputter at it, washing his
mouth with fresh water after it: on the other hand, I took some meat
into my mouth without salt, and I pretended to spit and sputter for
want of salt, as much as he had done at the salt; but it would not do;
he would never care for salt with meat or in his broth; at least, not
for a great while, and then but a very little.
Having thus fed him with boiled meat and broth, I was resolved to feast
him the next day by roasting a piece of the kid: this I did by hanging
it before the fire on a string, as I had seen many people do in
England, setting two poles up, one on each side of the fire, and one
across the top, and tying the string to the cross stick, letting the
meat turn continually. This Friday admired very much; but when he came
to taste the flesh, he took so many ways to tell me how well he liked
it, that I could not but understand him: and at last he told me, as
well as he could, he would never eat man’s flesh any more, which I was
very glad to hear.
The next day I set him to work beating some corn out, and sifting it in
the manner I used to do, as I observed before; and he soon understood
how to do it as well as I, especially after he had seen what the
meaning of it was, and that it was to make bread of; for after that I
let him see me make my bread, and bake it too; and in a little time
Friday was able to do all the work for me as well as I could do it
myself.
I began now to consider, that having two mouths to feed instead of one,
I must provide more ground for my harvest, and plant a larger quantity
of corn than I used to do; so I marked out a larger piece of land, and
began the fence in the same manner as before, in which Friday worked
not only very willingly and very hard, but did it very cheerfully: and
I told him what it was for; that it was for corn to make more bread,
because he was now with me, and that I might have enough for him and
myself too. He appeared very sensible of that part, and let me know
that he thought I had much more labour upon me on his account than I
had for myself; and that he would work the harder for me if I would
tell him what to do.
This was the pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place.
Friday began to talk pretty well, and understand the names of almost
everything I had occasion to call for, and of every place I had to send
him to, and talked a great deal to me; so that, in short, I began now
to have some use for my tongue again, which, indeed, I had very little
occasion for before. Besides the pleasure of talking to him, I had a
singular satisfaction in the fellow himself: his simple, unfeigned
honesty appeared to me more and more every day, and I began really to
love the creature; and on his side I believe he loved me more than it
was possible for him ever to love anything before.
I had a mind once to try if he had any inclination for his own country
again; and having taught him English so well that he could answer me
almost any question, I asked him whether the nation that he belonged to
never conquered in battle? At which he smiled, and said—“Yes, yes, we
always fight the better;” that is, he meant always get the better in
fight; and so we began the following discourse:—
_Master_.—You always fight the better; how came you to be taken
prisoner, then, Friday?
_Friday_.—My nation beat much for all that.
_Master_.—How beat? If your nation beat them, how came you to be taken?
_Friday_.—They more many than my nation, in the place where me was;
they take one, two, three, and me: my nation over-beat them in the
yonder place, where me no was; there my nation take one, two, great
thousand.
_Master_.—But why did not your side recover you from the hands of your
enemies, then?
_Friday_.—They run, one, two, three, and me, and make go in the canoe;
my nation have no canoe that time.
_Master_.—Well, Friday, and what does your nation do with the men they
take? Do they carry them away and eat them, as these did?
_Friday_.—Yes, my nation eat mans too; eat all up.
_Master_.—Where do they carry them?
_Friday_.—Go to other place, where they think.
_Master_.—Do they come hither?
_Friday_.—Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.
_Master_.—Have you been here with them?
_Friday_.—Yes, I have been here (points to the NW. side of the island,
which, it seems, was their side).
By this I understood that my man Friday had formerly been among the
savages who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island, on
the same man-eating occasions he was now brought for; and some time
after, when I took the courage to carry him to that side, being the
same I formerly mentioned, he presently knew the place, and told me he
was there once, when they ate up twenty men, two women, and one child;
he could not tell twenty in English, but he numbered them by laying so