The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
things, a secret joy ran through every part of my soul, and I
frequently rejoiced that ever I was brought to this place, which I had
so often thought the most dreadful of all afflictions that could
possibly have befallen me.
I continued in this thankful frame all the remainder of my time; and
the conversation which employed the hours between Friday and me was
such as made the three years which we lived there together perfectly
and completely happy, if any such thing as complete happiness can be
formed in a sublunary state. This savage was now a good Christian, a
much better than I; though I have reason to hope, and bless God for it,
that we were equally penitent, and comforted, restored penitents. We
had here the Word of God to read, and no farther off from His Spirit to
instruct than if we had been in England. I always applied myself, in
reading the Scripture, to let him know, as well as I could, the meaning
of what I read; and he again, by his serious inquiries and
questionings, made me, as I said before, a much better scholar in the
Scripture knowledge than I should ever have been by my own mere private
reading. Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here also, from
experience in this retired part of my life, viz. how infinite and
inexpressible a blessing it is that the knowledge of God, and of the
doctrine of salvation by Christ Jesus, is so plainly laid down in the
Word of God, so easy to be received and understood, that, as the bare
reading the Scripture made me capable of understanding enough of my
duty to carry me directly on to the great work of sincere repentance
for my sins, and laying hold of a Saviour for life and salvation, to a
stated reformation in practice, and obedience to all God’s commands,
and this without any teacher or instructor, I mean human; so the same
plain instruction sufficiently served to the enlightening this savage
creature, and bringing him to be such a Christian as I have known few
equal to him in my life.
As to all the disputes, wrangling, strife, and contention which have
happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in doctrines or
schemes of church government, they were all perfectly useless to us,
and, for aught I can yet see, they have been so to the rest of the
world. We had the sure guide to heaven, viz. the Word of God; and we
had, blessed be God, comfortable views of the Spirit of God teaching
and instructing by His word, leading us into all truth, and making us
both willing and obedient to the instruction of His word. And I cannot
see the least use that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points of
religion, which have made such confusion in the world, would have been
to us, if we could have obtained it. But I must go on with the
historical part of things, and take every part in its order.
After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and that he could
understand almost all I said to him, and speak pretty fluently, though
in broken English, to me, I acquainted him with my own history, or at
least so much of it as related to my coming to this place: how I had
lived there, and how long; I let him into the mystery, for such it was
to him, of gunpowder and bullet, and taught him how to shoot. I gave
him a knife, which he was wonderfully delighted with; and I made him a
belt, with a frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in;
and in the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was
not only as good a weapon in some cases, but much more useful upon
other occasions.
I described to him the country of Europe, particularly England, which I
came from; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how we behaved to one
another, and how we traded in ships to all parts of the world. I gave
him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of, and showed
him, as near as I could, the place where she lay; but she was all
beaten in pieces before, and gone. I showed him the ruins of our boat,
which we lost when we escaped, and which I could not stir with my whole
strength then; but was now fallen almost all to pieces. Upon seeing
this boat, Friday stood, musing a great while, and said nothing. I
asked him what it was he studied upon. At last says he, “Me see such
boat like come to place at my nation.” I did not understand him a good
while; but at last, when I had examined further into it, I understood
by him that a boat, such as that had been, came on shore upon the
country where he lived: that is, as he explained it, was driven thither
by stress of weather. I presently imagined that some European ship must
have been cast away upon their coast, and the boat might get loose and
drive ashore; but was so dull that I never once thought of men making
their escape from a wreck thither, much less whence they might come: so
I only inquired after a description of the boat.
Friday described the boat to me well enough; but brought me better to
understand him when he added with some warmth, “We save the white mans
from drown.” Then I presently asked if there were any white mans, as he
called them, in the boat. “Yes,” he said; “the boat full of white
mans.” I asked him how many. He told upon his fingers seventeen. I
asked him then what became of them. He told me, “They live, they dwell
at my nation.”
This put new thoughts into my head; for I presently imagined that these
might be the men belonging to the ship that was cast away in the sight
of my island, as I now called it; and who, after the ship was struck on
the rock, and they saw her inevitably lost, had saved themselves in
their boat, and were landed upon that wild shore among the savages.
Upon this I inquired of him more critically what was become of them. He
assured me they lived still there; that they had been there about four
years; that the savages left them alone, and gave them victuals to live
on. I asked him how it came to pass they did not kill them and eat
them. He said, “No, they make brother with them;” that is, as I
understood him, a truce; and then he added, “They no eat mans but when
make the war fight;” that is to say, they never eat any men but such as
come to fight with them and are taken in battle.
It was after this some considerable time, that being upon the top of
the hill at the east side of the island, from whence, as I have said, I
had, in a clear day, discovered the main or continent of America,
Friday, the weather being very serene, looks very earnestly towards the
mainland, and, in a kind of surprise, falls a jumping and dancing, and
calls out to me, for I was at some distance from him. I asked him what
was the matter. “Oh, joy!” says he; “Oh, glad! there see my country,
there my nation!” I observed an extraordinary sense of pleasure
appeared in his face, and his eyes sparkled, and his countenance
discovered a strange eagerness, as if he had a mind to be in his own
country again. This observation of mine put a great many thoughts into
me, which made me at first not so easy about my new man Friday as I was
before; and I made no doubt but that, if Friday could get back to his
own nation again, he would not only forget all his religion but all his
obligation to me, and would be forward enough to give his countrymen an
account of me, and come back, perhaps with a hundred or two of them,
and make a feast upon me, at which he might be as merry as he used to
be with those of his enemies when they were taken in war. But I wronged
the poor honest creature very much, for which I was very sorry
afterwards. However, as my jealousy increased, and held some weeks, I
was a little more circumspect, and not so familiar and kind to him as
before: in which I was certainly wrong too; the honest, grateful
creature having no thought about it but what consisted with the best
principles, both as a religious Christian and as a grateful friend, as
appeared afterwards to my full satisfaction.
While my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every day
pumping him to see if he would discover any of the new thoughts which I
suspected were in him; but I found everything he said was so honest and
so innocent, that I could find nothing to nourish my suspicion; and in
spite of all my uneasiness, he made me at last entirely his own again;
nor did he in the least perceive that I was uneasy, and therefore I
could not suspect him of deceit.
One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at sea,
so that we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said,
“Friday, do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own
nation?” “Yes,” he said, “I be much O glad to be at my own nation.”
“What would you do there?” said I. “Would you turn wild again, eat
men’s flesh again, and be a savage as you were before?” He looked full
of concern, and shaking his head, said, “No, no, Friday tell them to
live good; tell them to pray God; tell them to eat corn-bread, cattle
flesh, milk; no eat man again.” “Why, then,” said I to him, “they will
kill you.” He looked grave at that, and then said, “No, no, they no
kill me, they willing love learn.” He meant by this, they would be
willing to learn. He added, they learned much of the bearded mans that
came in the boat. Then I asked him if he would go back to them. He
smiled at that, and told me that he could not swim so far. I told him I
would make a canoe for him. He told me he would go if I would go with
him. “I go!” says I; “why, they will eat me if I come there.” “No, no,”
says he, “me make they no eat you; me make they much love you.” He
meant, he would tell them how I had killed his enemies, and saved his
life, and so he would make them love me. Then he told me, as well as he
could, how kind they were to seventeen white men, or bearded men, as he
called them who came on shore there in distress.
From this time, I confess, I had a mind to venture over, and see if I
could possibly join with those bearded men, who I made no doubt were
Spaniards and Portuguese; not doubting but, if I could, we might find
some method to escape from thence, being upon the continent, and a good
company together, better than I could from an island forty miles off
the shore, alone and without help. So, after some days, I took Friday
to work again by way of discourse, and told him I would give him a boat
to go back to his own nation; and, accordingly, I carried him to my
frigate, which lay on the other side of the island, and having cleared
it of water (for I always kept it sunk in water), I brought it out,
showed it him, and we both went into it. I found he was a most
dexterous fellow at managing it, and would make it go almost as swift
again as I could. So when he was in, I said to him, “Well, now, Friday,
shall we go to your nation?” He looked very dull at my saying so; which
it seems was because he thought the boat was too small to go so far. I
then told him I had a bigger; so the next day I went to the place where
the first boat lay which I had made, but which I could not get into the
water. He said that was big enough; but then, as I had taken no care of
it, and it had lain two or three and twenty years there, the sun had so
split and dried it, that it was rotten. Friday told me such a boat
would do very well, and would carry “much enough vittle, drink, bread;”
this was his way of talking.
CHAPTER XVI. RESCUE OF PRISONERS FROM CANNIBALS
Upon the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going
over with him to the continent that I told him we would go and make one
as big as that, and he should go home in it. He answered not one word,
but looked very grave and sad. I asked him what was the matter with
him. He asked me again, “Why you angry mad with Friday?—what me done?”
I asked him what he meant. I told him I was not angry with him at all.
“No angry!” says he, repeating the words several times; “why send