The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
been daylight we had killed many more. The field of battle being thus
cleared, we made forward again, for we had still near a league to go.
We heard the ravenous creatures howl and yell in the woods as we went
several times, and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them; but the
snow dazzling our eyes, we were not certain. In about an hour more we
came to the town where we were to lodge, which we found in a terrible
fright and all in arms; for, it seems, the night before the wolves and
some bears had broken into the village, and put them in such terror
that they were obliged to keep guard night and day, but especially in
the night, to preserve their cattle, and indeed their people.
The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs swelled so much
with the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so we
were obliged to take a new guide here, and go to Toulouse, where we
found a warm climate, a fruitful, pleasant country, and no snow, no
wolves, nor anything like them; but when we told our story at Toulouse,
they told us it was nothing but what was ordinary in the great forest
at the foot of the mountains, especially when the snow lay on the
ground; but they inquired much what kind of guide we had got who would
venture to bring us that way in such a severe season, and told us it
was surprising we were not all devoured. When we told them how we
placed ourselves and the horses in the middle, they blamed us
exceedingly, and told us it was fifty to one but we had been all
destroyed, for it was the sight of the horses which made the wolves so
furious, seeing their prey, and that at other times they are really
afraid of a gun; but being excessively hungry, and raging on that
account, the eagerness to come at the horses had made them senseless of
danger, and that if we had not by the continual fire, and at last by
the stratagem of the train of powder, mastered them, it had been great
odds but that we had been torn to pieces; whereas, had we been content
to have sat still on horseback, and fired as horsemen, they would not
have taken the horses so much for their own, when men were on their
backs, as otherwise; and withal, they told us that at last, if we had
stood altogether, and left our horses, they would have been so eager to
have devoured them, that we might have come off safe, especially having
our firearms in our hands, being so many in number. For my part, I was
never so sensible of danger in my life; for, seeing above three hundred
devils come roaring and open-mouthed to devour us, and having nothing
to shelter us or retreat to, I gave myself over for lost; and, as it
was, I believe I shall never care to cross those mountains again: I
think I would much rather go a thousand leagues by sea, though I was
sure to meet with a storm once a-week.
I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through
France—nothing but what other travellers have given an account of with
much more advantage than I can. I travelled from Toulouse to Paris, and
without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover
the 14th of January, after having had a severe cold season to travel
in.
I was now come to the centre of my travels, and had in a little time
all my new-discovered estate safe about me, the bills of exchange which
I brought with me having been currently paid.
My principal guide and privy-counsellor was my good ancient widow, who,
in gratitude for the money I had sent her, thought no pains too much
nor care too great to employ for me; and I trusted her so entirely that
I was perfectly easy as to the security of my effects; and, indeed, I
was very happy from the beginning, and now to the end, in the unspotted
integrity of this good gentlewoman.
And now, having resolved to dispose of my plantation in the Brazils, I
wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who, having offered it to the two
merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brazils, they
accepted the offer, and remitted thirty-three thousand pieces of eight
to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon to pay for it.
In return, I signed the instrument of sale in the form which they sent
from Lisbon, and sent it to my old man, who sent me the bills of
exchange for thirty-two thousand eight hundred pieces of eight for the
estate, reserving the payment of one hundred moidores a year to him
(the old man) during his life, and fifty moidores afterwards to his son
for his life, which I had promised them, and which the plantation was
to make good as a rent-charge. And thus I have given the first part of
a life of fortune and adventure—a life of Providence’s chequer-work,
and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to show the like
of; beginning foolishly, but closing much more happily than any part of
it ever gave me leave so much as to hope for.
Any one would think that in this state of complicated good fortune I
was past running any more hazards—and so, indeed, I had been, if other
circumstances had concurred; but I was inured to a wandering life, had
no family, nor many relations; nor, however rich, had I contracted
fresh acquaintance; and though I had sold my estate in the Brazils, yet
I could not keep that country out of my head, and had a great mind to
be upon the wing again; especially I could not resist the strong
inclination I had to see my island, and to know if the poor Spaniards
were in being there. My true friend, the widow, earnestly dissuaded me
from it, and so far prevailed with me, that for almost seven years she
prevented my running abroad, during which time I took my two nephews,
the children of one of my brothers, into my care; the eldest, having
something of his own, I bred up as a gentleman, and gave him a
settlement of some addition to his estate after my decease. The other I
placed with the captain of a ship; and after five years, finding him a
sensible, bold, enterprising young fellow, I put him into a good ship,
and sent him to sea; and this young fellow afterwards drew me in, as
old as I was, to further adventures myself.
In the meantime, I in part settled myself here; for, first of all, I
married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction, and
had three children, two sons and one daughter; but my wife dying, and
my nephew coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my
inclination to go abroad, and his importunity, prevailed, and engaged
me to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies; this was
in the year 1694.
In this voyage I visited my new colony in the island, saw my successors
the Spaniards, had the old story of their lives and of the villains I
left there; how at first they insulted the poor Spaniards, how they
afterwards agreed, disagreed, united, separated, and how at last the
Spaniards were obliged to use violence with them; how they were
subjected to the Spaniards, how honestly the Spaniards used them—a
history, if it were entered into, as full of variety and wonderful
accidents as my own part—particularly, also, as to their battles with
the Caribbeans, who landed several times upon the island, and as to the
improvement they made upon the island itself, and how five of them made
an attempt upon the mainland, and brought away eleven men and five
women prisoners, by which, at my coming, I found about twenty young
children on the island.
Here I stayed about twenty days, left them supplies of all necessary
things, and particularly of arms, powder, shot, clothes, tools, and two
workmen, which I had brought from England with me, viz. a carpenter and
a smith.
Besides this, I shared the lands into parts with them, reserved to
myself the property of the whole, but gave them such parts respectively
as they agreed on; and having settled all things with them, and engaged
them not to leave the place, I left them there.
From thence I touched at the Brazils, from whence I sent a bark, which
I bought there, with more people to the island; and in it, besides
other supplies, I sent seven women, being such as I found proper for
service, or for wives to such as would take them. As to the Englishmen,
I promised to send them some women from England, with a good cargo of
necessaries, if they would apply themselves to planting—which I
afterwards could not perform. The fellows proved very honest and
diligent after they were mastered and had their properties set apart
for them. I sent them, also, from the Brazils, five cows, three of them
being big with calf, some sheep, and some hogs, which when I came again
were considerably increased.
But all these things, with an account how three hundred Caribbees came
and invaded them, and ruined their plantations, and how they fought
with that whole number twice, and were at first defeated, and one of
them killed; but at last, a storm destroying their enemies’ canoes,
they famished or destroyed almost all the rest, and renewed and
recovered the possession of their plantation, and still lived upon the
island.
All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new
adventures of my own, for ten years more, I shall give a farther
account of in the Second Part of my Story.