_Robinson’s Mode of Reckoning Time--Difficulties Arising from Want of
Tools--He Arranges His Habitation_
After I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my
thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books and
pen and ink, and should even forget the Sabbath days from the working
days; but to prevent this, I cut it with my knife upon a large post, in
capital letters; and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the
shore where I first landed, viz., “I came on shore here on the 30th of
September, 1659.” Upon the sides of this square post I cut every day a
notch with my knife, and every seventh notch was as long again as the
rest, and every first day of the month as long again as that long one;
and thus I kept my calendar, or weekly, monthly, and yearly reckoning
of time.
In the next place we are to observe, that among the many things which
I brought out of the ship in the several voyages, which, as above
mentioned, I made to it, I got several things of less value, but not
all less useful to me, which I omitted setting down before; as in
particular, pens, ink, and paper, several parcels in the captain’s,
mate’s, gunner’s, and carpenter’s keeping, three or four compasses,
some mathematical instruments, dials, perspectives, charts, and books
of navigation, all of which I huddled together, whether I might want
them or no. Also I found three very good Bibles, which came to me in
my cargo from England, and which I had packed up among my things; some
Portuguese books also, and among them two or three Popish prayer-books,
and several other books, all which I carefully secured. And I must not
forget, that we had in the ship a dog and two cats, of whose eminent
history I may have occasion to say something in its place; for I
carried both the cats with me; and as for the dog, he jumped out of
the ship of himself, and swam on shore to me the day after I went on
shore with my first cargo, and was a trusty servant to me many years.
I wanted nothing that he could fetch me, nor any company that he could
make up to me; I only wanted to have him talk to me, but that would not
do. As I observed before, I found pen, ink, and paper, and I husbanded
them to the utmost; and I shall show that while my ink lasted, I kept
things very exact; but after that was gone, I could not, for I could
not make any ink by any means that I could devise.
And this put me in mind that I wanted many things, notwithstanding all
that I had amassed together; and of these, this of ink was one, as also
spade, pick-axe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth, needles, pins,
and thread; as for linen, I soon learned to want that without much
difficulty.
[Illustration: “_--and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the
shore where I first landed--_”]
This want of tools made every work I did go on heavily; and it was
near a whole year before I had entirely finished my little pale or
surrounded habitation. The piles or stakes, which were as heavy as
I could well lift, were a long time in cutting and preparing in the
woods, and more by far in bringing home; so that I spent sometimes two
days in cutting and bringing home one of those posts, and a third
day in driving it into the ground; for which purpose I got a heavy
piece of wood at first, but at last bethought myself of one of the iron
crows, which, however, though I found it, yet it made driving those
posts or piles very laborious and tedious work.
But what need I have been concerned at the tediousness of anything I
had to do, seeing I had time enough to do it in? Nor had I any other
employment, if that had been over, at least, that I could foresee,
except the ranging the island to seek for food, which I did more or
less every day.
I now began to consider seriously my condition, and the circumstance I
was reduced to; and I drew up the state of my affairs in writing; not
so much to leave them to any that were to come after me, for I was like
to have but few heirs, as to deliver my thoughts from daily poring upon
them, and afflicting my mind. And as my reason began now to master my
despondency, I began to comfort myself as well as I could, and to set
the good against the evil, that I might have something to distinguish
my case from worse; and I stated it very impartially, like debtor and
creditor, the comforts I enjoyed against the miseries I suffered, thus:
_Evil._ _Good._
I am cast upon a horrible But I am alive, and not
desolate island, void of all drowned, as all my ship’s
hope of recovery. company was.
I am singled out and separated, But I am singled out, too,
as it were, from all the from all the ship’s crew to be
world to be miserable. spared from death; and He
that miraculously saved me
from death, can deliver me
from this condition.
I am divided from mankind, But I am not starved and
a solitaire, one banished perishing on a barren place,
from human society. affording no sustenance.
I have not clothes to cover But I am in a hot climate,
me. where if I had clothes I could
hardly wear them.
I am without any defence But I am cast on an island,
or means to resist any violence where I see no wild beasts to
of man or beast. hurt me, as I saw on the coast
of Africa; and what if I had
been shipwrecked there?
I have no soul to speak to, But God wonderfully sent
or relieve me. the ship in near enough to the
shore, that I have gotten out
so many necessary things as
will either supply my wants,
or enable me to supply myself
even as long as I live.
Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was scarce
any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something
negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; and let this
stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all
conditions in this world, that we may always find in it something to
comfort ourselves from, and to set in the description of good and evil
on the credit side of the account.
Having now brought my mind a little to relish my condition, and given
over looking out to sea, to see if I could spy a ship; I say, giving
over these things, I began to apply myself to accommodate my way of
living, and to make things as easy to me as I could.
I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under the
side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables;
but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up
against it of turfs, about two feet thick on the outside, and after
some time--I think it was a year and a half--I raised rafters from it
leading to the rock, and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees
and such things as I could get to keep out the rain, which I found at
some times of the year very violent.
I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale, and
into the cave which I had made behind me. But I must observe, too, that
at first this was a confused heap of goods, which as they lay in no
order, so they took up all my place; I had no room to turn myself. So
I set myself to enlarge my cave and works farther into the earth; for
it was a loose sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labor I bestowed
on it. And so, when I found I was pretty safe as to beasts of prey, I
worked sideways to the right hand into the rock; and then, turning to
the right again, worked quite out, and made me a door to come out on
the outside of my pale or fortification. This gave me not only egress
and regress, as it were a back-way to my tent and to my storehouse,
but gave me room to stow my goods.
And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I
found I most wanted, as particularly a chair and a table; for without
these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world. I
could not write or eat, or do several things with so much pleasure
without a table.
So I went to work; and here I must needs observe, that as reason is
the substance and original of the mathematics, so by stating and
squaring everything by reason, and by making the most rational judgment
of things, every man may be in time master of every mechanic art.
I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet in time, by labor,
application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but
I could have made it, especially if I had had tools. However, I made
abundance of things even without tools, and some with no more tools
than an adze and a hatchet, which, perhaps, were never made that way
before, and that with infinite labor. For example, if I wanted a board,
I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before me,
and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I had brought it to be
thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze. It is true, by
this method I could make but one board out of a whole tree; but this I
had no remedy for but patience, any more than I had for the prodigious
deal of time and labor which it took me up to make a plank or board.
But my time or labor was little worth, and so it was as well employed
one way as another.
However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the
first place, and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that
I brought on my raft from the ship. But when I had wrought out some
boards, as above, I made large shelves of the breadth of a foot and a
half one over another, all along one side of my cave, to lay all my
tools, nails, and iron-work; and, in a word, to separate everything
at large in their places, that I might come easily at them. I knocked
pieces into the wall of the rock to hang my guns and all things that
would hang up; so that had my cave been to be seen, it looked like a
general magazine of all necessary things; and I had everything so ready
at my hand, that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in
such order, and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great.
And now it was when I began to keep a journal of every day’s
employment; for, indeed, at first I was in too much hurry, and not
only hurry as to labor, but in too much discomposure of mind; and
my journal would have been full of many dull things. For example, I
must have said thus: _Sept, the 30th_.--After I got to shore, and had
escaped drowning, instead of being thankful to God for my deliverance,
having first vomited with the great quantity of salt water which was
gotten into my stomach, and recovering myself a little, I ran about the
shore, wringing my hands, and beating my head and face, exclaiming at
my misery, and crying out, I was undone, undone, till, tired and faint,
I was forced to lie down on the ground to repose; but durst not sleep,
for fear of being devoured.
Some days after this, and after I had been on board the ship, and got
all that I could out of her, yet I could not forbear getting up to the
top of a little mountain, and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a
ship; then fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail, please myself with
the hopes of it, and then, after looking steadily till I was almost
blind, lose it quite, and sit down and weep like a child, and thus
increase my misery by my folly.
But having gotten over these things in some measure, and having settled
my household stuff and habitation, made me a table and a chair, and all
as handsome about me as I could, I began to keep my journal, of which
I shall here give you the copy (though in it will be told all these
particulars over again) as long as it lasted; for, having no more ink,
I was forced to leave it off.