fresh rafts, loading them with many stores, powder and shot, and lead
for bullets, seven muskets, a great barrel of bread, three casks of
rum, a quantity of flour, some grain, a box of sugar, sails and ropes
and twine, bags of nails, and many hatchets. With one of the sails he
made himself a good tent, in which he put everything that could be
spoiled by rain or sun. Around it he piled all the casks and other
heavy things, so that no wild beast could very easily get at him.
In about a fortnight the weather changed; it blew very hard one
night, and in the morning the ship had broken up, and was no more to
be seen. But that did not so much matter, for Robinson had got out of
her nearly everything that he could use.
Now Robinson thought it time to find some better place for his tent.
The land where it then stood was low and near the sea, and the only
water he could get to drink tasted rather salt. Looking about, he
found a little plain, about a hundred yards across, on the side of a
hill, and at the end of the plain was a great rock partly hollowed
out, but not so as quite to make a cave. Here he pitched his tent,
close to the hollow place in the rock. Round in front of the tent he
drove two rows of strong stakes, about eighteen inches apart,
sharpened at top; and he made this fence so strong that when it was
finished he was sure that nothing could get at him, for he left no
door, but climbed in and out by a ladder, which he always hauled up
after him.
Before closing up the end, Robinson hauled inside this fence all his
stores, his food and his guns, his powder and shot, and he rigged
inside a double tent, so better to keep off the hot sun and the rain.
Then he began to dig into the rock, which was not very hard, and soon
behind his tent he had a cave in which he thought it wise to stow his
gunpowder, about one hundred and forty pounds in all, packed in small
parcels; for, he thought, if a big thunderstorm were to come, a flash
of lightning might explode it all, and blow him to bits, if he kept
the whole of it in his tent.
Robinson was now very comfortable, and as he had saved from the wreck
two cats and a dog, he did not feel quite so lonely. He had got, also,
ink and pens and paper, so that he could keep a diary; and he set up a
large wooden cross, on which he cut with his knife the date of his
landing on the island--September 30, 1659; and every day he cut a
notch on the post, with a longer one each Sunday, so that he might
always know how the months and years passed.
As for food, he found that there were many goats on the island, and
numbers of pigeons, and he had no difficulty in shooting as many as he
needed.
But now he saw that his tent and cave were too small for all the
things he had stowed in them, so he began to make the cave bigger,
bringing out all the rock and soil that he cut down, and making with
it a kind of terrace round the inside of his stockade. And as he was
sure that there were no wild beasts on the island to harm him, he went
on tunneling to the right hand till he broke through the rock outside
his fence.
Then he began to hang things up against the side of the cave, and he
even made shelves, and a door for the outside entrance. This was a
very difficult job, and took him a long time; for, to make a board, he
was forced to cut down a whole tree, and chop away with his axe till
one side was flat, and then cut at the other side till the board was
thin enough, when he smoothed it with his adze. But in this way, out
of each tree he would only get one plank. He made for himself also a
table and a chair, and finally got his castle, as he called it, in
very good order.
With all his care, however, there was one thing that he forgot, and
that was, when he had made the cave so much bigger, to prop it, so as
to keep the roof from falling in. And so one day he got a terrible
fright, and was nearly killed, by a huge bit of the soft rock which
fell and buried many of his things. It took weeks of hard work
afterwards to clear away the fallen rubbish, and to cut beams strong
enough to prop the roof.
Every day, all this time, he used to climb up the hill and look around
over the lonely waters, hoping, always hoping, that some morning he
might see the sails of a ship that would take him home. But none ever
came, and sometimes the tears ran down his cheeks because of the
sorrow he felt at being so utterly alone. At times even, he thought in
his misery that if he only had any kind of a boat, it would be better
to sail away, and chance reaching other land, rather than to stop
where he was. By and by, however, he grew less unhappy, for he had
plenty of work to do.
III
THE EARTHQUAKE AND HURRICANE; AND HOW ROBINSON BUILT A BOAT
Now about this time, when Robinson had been some months on the island,
heavy and constant rain began to fall, and sometimes weeks would pass
without a single dry day. He found that instead of there being spring,
summer, autumn, and winter, as in England, the seasons in his island
were divided into the wet and the dry. There was no cold weather, no
winter. It chanced that just before this first rain began, Robinson
had emptied out some refuse from bags which had once held rice, and
other grain, and he had forgotten all about having emptied them. So he
was very much astonished to find, some time afterwards, both barley
and rice growing near his tent, in the shade of the rock. The ears,
when ripe, he kept to sow again, and from this very small beginning,
in the course of a few seasons, he had a great quantity of grain, both
for food and for sowing. But this meant every year much hard work, for
he had no plow nor harrow, and all the ground had to be dug with a
clumsy spade, made from a very hard, heavy wood that grew on the
island.
At first Robinson could not grind the grain that he grew, nor make
bread from it. If he could have found a large stone, slightly hollow
on top, he might, by pounding the grain on it with another round
stone, have made very good meal. But all the stones he could find were
too soft, and in the end he had to make a sort of mill of hard wood,
in which he burnt a hollow place, and on that he pounded the grain
into meal with a heavy stick.
Baking he did by building a big fire, then raking away the ashes, and
putting the dough on the hot place, covered with a kind of basin made
of clay, over which he heaped the red ashes. In this way very good
bread can be made.
Before the rainy season was over, and just after he had finished the
fence round his tent, one day when Robinson was at work in the cave,
all of a sudden the earth began to fall from the roof, and the strong
props he had put in cracked in a way which frightened him terribly. At
the same time there was a curious moaning, rumbling noise, that he
could not understand. He rushed out, and so afraid was he that the
roof was falling in, and that he should be buried, that he got over
the fence and began to run.
But he was even more frightened when he found that all the ground was
shaking. Then he knew that this was an earthquake.
Three times there came violent shocks; a huge rock about half a mile
away fell with a great noise like thunder, and the sea was churned up
as if by a whirlwind. Robinson was sick with the movement of the
ground, and trembling with the dread of being swallowed by the earth
as it cracked and gaped; and after the noise and shaking were over, he
was too frightened to go back to his tent, but sat where he was, all
the time expecting another shock.
Suddenly a furious wind began to blow, tearing up trees by the roots,
and lashing the water till nothing could be seen but foam and flying
spray. The air was full of branches and leaves torn off by the
hurricane, and birds in hundreds were swept helpless out to sea. In
about three hours, as suddenly as it had begun, the wind fell, and
there was a dead calm, followed by rain such as Robinson had never
before seen, which soaked him to the skin, and forced him to return to
the cave, where he sat in great fear.
For long after this he was very uneasy, and made up his mind to shift
his quarters as soon as he could find a better place for his tent. But
the earthquake had one good result, for what remained of the wreck was
again thrown up by the sea, and Robinson got more things out of it
which were useful to him, and for days he worked hard at that. One
day, too, when he was on his way to the remains of the ship, he came
on a large turtle, which he killed, and this gave him plenty of good
food, for besides the flesh, there were, inside the animal, many eggs,
which she had come to the shore to lay in the sand, as is the habit of
turtles, and which Robinson thought were even better than hen's eggs.
Now a few days after he had got so wet in the heavy rain, though the
weather was hot, Robinson felt very cold and shivery, and had pains
all over his body, and at night he dreamed terrible dreams. The
following day, and many days, he lay very ill with fever and ague, and
hardly knew what he was doing. So weak was he, that he believed he was
dying, and there was no one to give him water to quench his thirst,
nor to help him in any way. His only medicine was rum, in which he had
soaked tobacco. It was very nasty, and made him sick, but it also
made him sleep for more than a whole day and a night, and he woke much
better, and able to walk about a little, though for a fortnight he was
too weak to work. From this illness he learned not to go out more than
he could help during the rainy season.
When he was again quite strong, Robinson started to explore the island
better than he had yet done, and he found many things growing, of
which he made great use afterwards, tobacco, sugar-cane, and all
manner of fruits, among them grapes, which he used to dry to raisins
in the sun in great quantities.
Near the spot where the most fruit grew, he built a hut, and round it,
for safety, he put a double fence made of stakes cut from some of the
trees near at hand. During the next rainy season these stakes took
root, and grew so fast that soon nothing of the hut could be seen from
outside the hedge, and it made so good a hiding-place, that Robinson
cut more stakes of the same kind, and planted them outside the fence
around his first dwelling; and in a year or two that also was quite
hidden from view. The twigs of this tree, too, were good for making
baskets, of which he had been in great need.
When he had finished all this work, he started again to go over the
rest of the island, and on his way across, from a hill, the day being
very clear, he saw high land a great way off over the water, but
whether it was another island, or the coast of America, he could not
be sure.
When he reached the other side of his island Robinson found the beach
covered with turtles in astonishing numbers, and he thought how much
better off he would have been if he had been cast ashore here, for not
only would the turtles have supplied him with plenty of food, but
there were far more birds than on the part of the island where he had
been living, and far more goats.
During the journey back to his castle he caught a young parrot, which,
after a long time, he taught to speak and to call him by his name. It
was so long since he had heard any voice, that it was a comfort to
listen even to a parrot talking.
Now, the sight which Robinson had had of the far distant land raised
in him again the great longing to get away from this island where he
had been so long alone, and he wished greatly for a boat. He went over
to the remains of the boat in which he and the others had tried to
come ashore when their ship struck on the sand-bank, and which had
been flung far up on the beach by the sea, and he worked for weeks
trying to repair her and to get her into the water. But it was all of
no use; he could not move her.
Then, he thought, "I'll cut down a tree, and make a new boat." This he
fancied would be easy, for he had heard how the Indians make canoes by
felling a tree and burning out the inside. "If they can do it, then
surely I can do it even better," he thought. So he looked about, and
chose a huge tree which stood about a hundred yards from the water,
and with great labor in about three weeks he had cut it down.
Four months Robinson worked at this boat, thinking all the time of
what he would do when he reached the far distant land, and much
pleased with himself for the beautiful boat he was making. Day after
day he trimmed and shaped it, and very proud he was when it was
finished and lay there on the ground, big enough to carry twenty men.
Then he started to get her into the water. But that was quite another
thing. By no means in his power could he move her an inch, try as he
might. She was far too big. Then he began to dig a canal from the sea
to the boat; but before he had got much of that work done, he saw
clearly that there was so much earth to dig away, that, without some
one to help him, it must take years and years before he could get the
water to the boat. So he gave it up, and left her to lie and rot in
the sun and the rain--a great grief to him.
IV
ROBINSON BUILDS A SECOND BOAT, IN WHICH HE IS SWEPT OUT TO SEA
By the time that Robinson had been four years on the island, all his
clothes had become very ragged, and he had hardly anything that could
be called a hat. Clothes he must have, for he could not go naked
without getting his skin blistered by the hot sun, and he was afraid
of getting a sunstroke if he went about without a hat.
Now he had kept all the skins of the goats, and other animals, such as
hares and foxes, that he had shot; and from these, after many
failures, at last he made a hat and coat of goatskin, and a pair of
short trousers, all with the hair outside, so as to shoot off the wet
when it rained. The hat was very tall, and came to a sharp peak on
top, and it had a flap which hung down the back of his neck. Robinson
also, with much trouble, made of the skins an umbrella which he could
open and shut; and if his clothes and his umbrella, and especially his
hat, were not very good to look at, they were useful, and he could now
go about in any weather.
During the next five years nothing out of the common happened, and
Robinson's time was mostly taken up with the getting of food, the
yearly sowing and reaping of his crops, and the curing of his raisins.
But towards the end of that time he made another attempt to build a
boat, and this time he made one much smaller than the first, and
though it took him nearly two years to finish, in the end he got her
into the sea. She was not big enough for him to try to sail in to the
far-off land that he had seen, and he used her only for cruising about
the shores of his own island, and for fishing. In her he fixed a
little mast, on which he rigged a small sail, made from a bit of one
of the old ship's sails, and, using a paddle to steer with, he found
that she sailed very well. Over the stern he fixed his big umbrella,
to shade him from the sun, like an awning.
Eager to go all round the island, one day Robinson put a lot of food
on board, and, taking his gun, started on a voyage. All went well till
he came to the east end of the island, where he found that a ledge of
rocks, and beyond that a sand-bank, stretched out to sea for eight or
nine miles. Robinson did not like the idea of venturing so far in a
boat so small, and he therefore ran the boat ashore, and climbed a
hill, to get a good view of the rocks and shoals before going near
them. From the hill, he saw that a strong current was sweeping past
the sand-bank, which showed just clear of the water, and on which the
sea was breaking; but he thought there was an eddy which would swing
him safely round the point, without bringing him near the breakers.
However, that day and the next, there was a good deal of wind blowing
in the direction contrary to the current, which, of course, raised a
sea too big for a small boat, so Robinson stopped on shore where he
was.
On the third day it was calm, and he set off. But no sooner had he
come abreast of the sand-bank than he found himself in very deep
water, with a current running like a mill-race, which carried the boat
further and further away from the land, in spite of all that he could
do with his paddle. There was no wind, and the sail was useless.
Now he gave himself up for lost, for the harder he worked, only the
further away seemed the boat to be swept. The island was soon so far
off that Robinson could hardly see it, and he was quite exhausted with
the hard struggle to paddle the boat against the current. He was in
despair, and giving up paddling, left the boat to drift where she
would. Just then a faint puff of wind touched his cheek, and Robinson
hurriedly hoisted his sail. Soon a good breeze blew, which carried him
past a dangerous reef of rocks. Here the current seemed to divide, the
part in which he now was began to swing round towards the island, and
he plucked up heart again, and with his paddle did all he could to
help the sail. Robinson felt like a man who is set free after he has
been told that he must die; he could almost have wept for joy. Miles
and miles he sailed, steadily getting nearer to the land, and late in
the evening at last he got ashore, but on the other side of the point
that he had tried to round in the morning. He drew up his boat on the
shore of a little cove that he found, and when he had made her fast,
so that the tide could not carry her away, there among the trees he
lay down, and slept sound, quite worn out.
In the morning he again got on board, and coasted along close inshore,
till he came to a bay with a little river running into it, which made
a very good harbor for the boat. Here he left her, and went on foot.
Soon he found that he was not far from a spot that he had once before
visited, and by afternoon he arrived at the hut which he called his
country-house. Robinson got over the fence by the ladder, as usual,
pulling it up after him, and then he lay down to rest in the shade,
for he was still very weary from the hard work of the day before. Soon
he fell asleep. But what was his surprise in a little time to be
awakened by a voice calling, "Robin! Robin Crusoe! where are you?"
At first he thought he was dreaming. But still the voice went on
calling:
"Where are you, Robin?"
Up he jumped, trembling with fright and wonder, for it was so long
since he had heard any voice but his own that he fancied it must be
something more than human that he now listened to. But no sooner had
he risen than he saw, sitting on the tree near to him, his parrot,
which must have flown all the way from Robinson's other house, where
it had been left. It was talking away at a great rate, very excited at
again seeing its master, and Robinson hardly knew whether to be more
relieved or disappointed that it was only the bird that had called
him.
For about a year after this Robinson kept to his own side of the
island, and employed his time chiefly in working on his land, and in
making dishes and pots of clay. These he had now learned to burn
properly. Pipes, too, he made, and they were a great comfort to him,
for he managed to cure very good tobacco from the wild plants that
grew around. And as he feared lest his powder might begin to run
short, he thought much over ways whereby he could trap goats for food,
instead of shooting them. After many trials, the best plan, he
decided, was to dig holes, which he covered with thin branches and
leaves, on which he sprinkled earth, so that when anything heavy
passed over, it must fall into the pit. By this means he caught many,
and the kids he kept and tamed, so that in no great time he had quite
a large herd of goats. These he kept in various small fields, round
which from time to time he had put fences.
V
ROBINSON SEES A FOOTPRINT ON THE SAND, FINDS A CAVE, AND RESCUES
FRIDAY
All this time Robinson had never gone near his canoe, but now the
longing came on him to go over to where he had left her, though he
felt that he should be afraid again to put to sea in her. This time,
however, when he got to the hill from which he had watched the set of
the current the day that he had been carried out to sea, he noticed
that there was no current to be seen, from which he concluded that it
must depend on the ebb and flow of the tide. Still, he was afraid to
venture far in the canoe, though he stopped some time at his
country-house, and went out sailing very often.
One day when Robinson was walking along the sand towards his boat,
suddenly, close to the water, he stopped as if he had been shot, and,
with thumping heart, stood staring in wonder and fear at something
that he saw. The mark of a naked foot on the sand! It could not be his
own, he knew, for the shape was quite different. Whose could it be?
He listened, he looked about, but nothing could he hear or see. To the
top of a rising ground he ran, and looked all around. There was
nothing to be seen. And though he searched everywhere on the beach for
more footmarks, he found none.
Whose footprint could it be? That of some man, perhaps, he thought,
who might come stealing on him out from the trees, or murder him while
he slept.
Back to his house he hurried, all the way in a state of terror,
starting every now and again and facing round, thinking he was being
followed, and fancying often that a stump or a bush was a man, waiting
to spring on him. That night he slept not at all, and so shaken was
his nerve that every cry of a night-bird, even every sound made by an
insect or a frog, caused him to start with fear, so that the
perspiration ran down his brow.
As day followed day, however, and nothing happened, Robinson began to
be less uneasy in his mind, and went about his usual work again. But
he strengthened the fence round his castle, and cut in it seven small
loopholes, in which, fixed on frames, he placed loaded muskets, all
ready to fire if he should be attacked. And some distance from the
outside of the fence he planted a thick belt of small stakes, so that
in a few years' time a perfect thicket of trees and bushes hid all
trace of his dwelling.
Years passed quietly, and nothing further happened to disturb
Robinson, or to make him think more of the footprint that had
frightened him so much. But he kept more than formerly to the interior
of the island, and lost no chance of looking for good places to hide
in, if he should ever need them. And he always carried a cutlass now,
as well as his gun and a couple of pistols.
One day it chanced, however, that he had gone further to the west of
the island than he had ever done before, and, looking over the sea, he
fancied that he saw, at a great distance, something like a boat or a
long canoe, but it was so far off that he he could not be sure what it
was. This made him determine that always in future he would bring with
him to his lookout-place the telescope which he had saved from the
wreck.
The sight of this supposed boat brought back his uneasiness to some
extent, but he went on down to the beach, and there he saw a sight
which filled him with horror. All about the shore were scattered men's
skulls and bones, and bits of burnt flesh, and in one place were the
remains of a big fire. Robinson stood aghast, feeling deadly sick. It
was easy for him to know the meaning of the terrible sight. It meant
that cannibals had been there, killing and eating their prisoners; for
when the natives of some parts of the world go to war, and catch any
of their enemies, it is their habit to build a fire, then to kill the
prisoners and feast on their roasted bodies, eating till they can eat
no more. Sometimes, if the man they are going to eat is too thin, they
keep him, and feed him up, till they think he is fat enough.
Now Robinson knew all this, though he had never yet met any cannibals.
And when he looked around he saw many bones lying about. They were so
old that it seemed certain to him that all those years he had been
living on an island which was a regular place for the natives to come
to for such feasts. Then he saw what a mercy it was that he had been
wrecked on the other side of the island, to which, he supposed, the
cannibals never came, because the beach was not so good for them to
land on.
Full of horror, Robinson hurried back to his house, and for almost two
years he never again came near that part of the island where the bones
lay, nor ever visited his boat. But all the time he kept thinking how
he might some day kill those cannibals while they were at their feast,
and perhaps save some of the poor men whom they had not yet killed.