_His Recovery--His Comfort in Reading the Scriptures--He Makes an
Excursion into the Interior of the Island--Forms His “Bower”_
_June 28._--Having been somewhat refreshed with the sleep I had had,
and the fit being entirely off, I got up; and though the fright and
terror of my dream was very great, yet I considered that the fit of
the ague would return again the next day, and now was my time to get
something to refresh and support myself when I should be ill. And the
first thing I did I filled a large square case-bottle with water, and
set it upon my table, in reach of my bed; and to take off the chill or
aguish disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum
into it, and mixed them together. Then I got me a piece of the goat’s
flesh, and broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little. I walked
about, but was very weak, and withal very sad and heavy-hearted in the
sense of my miserable condition, dreading the return of my distemper
the next day. At night I made my supper of three of the turtle’s eggs,
which I roasted in the ashes, and eat, as we call it, in the shell; and
this was the first bit of meat I had ever asked God’s blessing to, even
as I could remember, in my whole life.
After I had eaten, I tried to walk, but found myself so weak, that I
could hardly carry the gun (for I never went out without that); so I
went but a little way, and sat down upon the ground, looking out upon
the sea, which was just before me, and very calm and smooth. As I sat
there, some such thoughts as these occurred to me.
What is this earth and sea, of which I have seen so much? whence is it
produced? And what am I, and all the other creatures, wild and tame,
human and brutal, whence are we? Sure we are all made by some secret
Power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky. And who is that?
Then it followed most naturally, It is God that has made it all. Well,
but then it came on strangely, if God has made all these things, He
guides and governs them all, and all things that concern them; for the
Power that could make all things, must certainly have power to guide
and direct them.
If so, nothing can happen in the great circuit of His works, either
without His knowledge or appointment. And if nothing happens without
His knowledge, He knows that I am here, and am in this dreadful
condition. And if nothing happens without His appointment, He has
appointed all this to befall me.
Nothing occurred to my thoughts to contradict any of these conclusion;
and therefore it rested upon me with the greater force, that it must
needs be that God had appointed all this to befall me; that I was
brought to this miserable circumstance by His direction, He having the
sole power, not of me only, but of everything that happened in the
world. Immediately it followed, Why has God done this to me? What have
I done to be thus used?
My conscience presently checked me in that inquiry, as if I had
blasphemed, and methought it spoke to me like a voice: “Wretch! dost
thou ask what thou hast done? Look back upon a dreadful misspent life,
and ask thyself what thou hast not done? Ask, Why is it that thou wert
not long ago destroyed? Why wert thou not drowned in Yarmouth Roads;
killed in the fight when the ship was taken by the Sallee man-of-war;
devoured by the wild beasts on the coast of Africa; or drowned here,
when all the crew perished but thyself? Dost thou ask, What have I
done?”
I was struck dumb with these reflections, as one astonished, and had
not a word to say, no, not to answer to myself, but rose up pensive and
sad, walked back to my retreat, and went up over my wall, as if I had
been going to bed. But my thoughts were sadly disturbed, and I had no
inclination to sleep; so I sat down in my chair, and lighted my lamp,
for it began to be dark. Now, as the apprehension of the return of my
distemper terrified me very much, it occurred to my thought that the
Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for almost all distempers;
and I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in one of the chests, which was
quite cured, and some also that was green, and not quite cured.
I went, directed by Heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found a cure
both for soul and body. I opened the chest, and found what I looked
for, viz., the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay there too,
I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before, and which to
this time I had not found leisure, or so much as inclination, to look
into. I say, I took it out, and brought both that and the tobacco with
me to the table.
What use to make of the tobacco I knew not, as to my distemper, or
whether it was good for it or no; but I tried several experiments with
it, as if I was resolved it should hit one way or other. I first took
a piece of a leaf, and chewed it in my mouth, which indeed at first
almost stupefied my brain, the tobacco being green and strong, and that
I had not been much used to it. Then I took some and steeped it an hour
or two in some rum, and resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down.
And lastly, I burnt some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose close
over the smoke of it, as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat,
as almost for suffocation.
In the interval of this operation, I took up the Bible, and began to
read, but my head was too much disturbed with the tobacco to bear
reading, at least that time; only having opened the book casually, the
first words that occurred to me were these, “Call on Me in the day of
trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify Me.”
The words were very apt to my case, and made some impression upon my
thoughts at the time of reading them, though not so much as they did
afterwards; for as for being delivered, the word had no sound, as I may
say, to me, the thing was so remote, so impossible in my apprehension
of things, that I began to say, as the children of Israel did when they
were promised flesh to eat, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?”
so I began to say, Can God Himself deliver me from this place? And as
it was not for many years that any hope appeared, this prevailed very
often upon my thoughts. But, however, the words made a great impression
upon me, and I mused upon them very often.
It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said, dazed my head so
much, that I inclined to sleep; so I left my lamp burning in the cave,
lest I should want anything in the night, and went to bed. But before
I lay down, I did what I never had done in all my life; I kneeled
down, and prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me, that if I called
upon Him in the day of trouble, He would deliver me. After my broken
and imperfect prayer was over, I drank the rum in which I had steeped
the tobacco; which was so strong and rank of the tobacco, that indeed
I could scarce get it down. Immediately upon this I went to bed. I
found presently it flew up in my head violently; but I fell into a
sound sleep, and waked no more till, by the sun, it must necessarily
be near three o’clock in the afternoon the next day. Nay, to this hour
I am partly of the opinion that I slept all the next day and night,
and till almost three that day after; for otherwise I knew not how I
should lose a day out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it
appeared some years after I had done. For if I had lost it by crossing
and re-crossing the line, I should have lost more than one day. But
certainly I lost a day in my account, and never knew which way.
Be that, however, one way or the other, when I awaked I found myself
exceedingly refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful. When I got
up, I was stronger than I was the day before, and my stomach better,
for I was hungry; and, in short, I had no fit the next day, but
continued much altered for the better. This was the 29th.
The 30th was my well day, of course, and I went abroad with my gun, but
did not care to travel too far. I killed a seafowl or two, something
like a brand goose, and brought them home, but was not very forward
to eat them; so I eat some more of the turtle’s eggs, which were very
good. This evening I renewed the medicine, which I had supposed did me
good the day before, viz., the tobacco steeped in rum; only I did not
take so much as before, nor did I chew any of the leaf, or hold my head
over the smoke. However, I was not so well the next day, which was the
first of July, as I hoped I should have been; for I had a little spice
of the cold fit, but it was not much.
_July 2._--I renewed the medicine all the three ways; and dosed myself
with it as at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank.
_July 3._--I missed the fit for good and all, though I did not recover
my full strength for some weeks after. While I was thus gathering
strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this Scripture, “I will
deliver thee”; and the impossibility of my deliverance lay much upon
my mind, in bar of my ever expecting it. But as I was discouraging
myself with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind that I pored so
much upon my deliverance from the main affliction, that I disregarded
the deliverance I had received; and I was, as it were, made to ask
myself such questions as these, viz., Have I not been delivered, and
wonderfully too, from sickness? from the most distressed condition
that could be, and that was so frightful to me? and what notice had I
taken of it? Had I done my part? God had delivered me, but I had not
glorified Him; that is to say, I had not owned and been thankful for
that as a deliverance; and how could I expect greater deliverance?
This touched my heart very much; and immediately I kneeled down, and
gave God thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.
_July 4._--In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the New
Testament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself to
read awhile every morning and every night, not tying myself to the
number of chapters, but as long as my thoughts should engage me. It was
not long after I set seriously to this work, but I found my heart more
deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life.
[Illustration: “_In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the
New Testament, I began seriously to read it--_”]
The impression of my dream revived, and the words, “All these things
have not brought thee to repentance” ran seriously in my thought. I
was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened
providentially, the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I came to
these words, “He is exalted a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance,
and to give remission.” I threw down the book; and with my heart as
well as my hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I
cried out aloud, “Jesus, Thou son of David! Jesus, Thou exalted Prince
and Savior, give me repentance!”
This was the first time that I could say, in the true sense of the
words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense
of my condition, and with a true Scripture view of hope founded on the
encouragement of the Word of God; and from this time, I may say, I
began to have hope that God would hear me.
Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, “Call on Me, and
I will deliver you,” in a different sense from what I had ever done
before; for then I had no notion of anything being called deliverance
but my being delivered from the captivity I was in; for though I was
indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly a prison
to me, and that in the worst sense in the world. But now I learned to
take it in another sense; now I looked back upon my past life with
such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul sought
nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down
all my comfort. As for my solitary life, it was nothing; I did not so
much as pray to be delivered from it or think of it; it was all of no
consideration, in comparison to this. And I add this part here, to hint
to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of
things, they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing
than deliverance from affliction.
But leaving this part, I return to my journal.
My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my way of
living, yet much easier to my mind; and my thoughts being directed, by
a constant reading the Scripture, and praying to God, to things of a
higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within, which, till now, I
knew nothing of. Also, as my health and strength returned, I bestirred
myself to furnish myself with everything that I wanted, and make my
way of living as regular as I could.
From the 4th of July to the 14th, I was chiefly employed in walking
about with my gun in my hand, a little and a little at a time, as a
man that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness; for
it is hardly to be imagined how low I was, and to what weakness I was
reduced. The application which I made use of was perfectly new, and
perhaps what had never cured an ague before; neither can I recommend it
to any one to practise, by this experiment; and though it did carry off
the fit, yet it rather contributed to weakening me; for I had frequent
convulsions in my nerves and limbs for some time.
I learnt from it also this, in particular, that being abroad in the
rainy season was the most pernicious thing to my health that could
be, especially in those rains which came attended with storms and
hurricanes of wind; for as the rain which came in the dry season was
always most accompanied with such storms, so I found that rain was much
more dangerous than the rain which fell in September and October.
I had been now in this unhappy island above ten months; all possibility
of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from
me; and I firmly believed that no human shape had ever set foot upon
that place. Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to
my mind, I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the
island, and to see what other productions I might find, which I yet
knew nothing of.
It was the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey
of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I
brought my rafts on shore. I found, after I came about two miles up,
that the tide did not flow any higher, and that it was no more than a
little brook of running water, and very fresh and good; but this being
the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it, at
least, not enough to run in any stream, so as it could be perceived.
On the bank of this brook I found many pleasant savannas or meadows,
plain, smooth, and covered with grass; and on the rising parts of them,
next to the higher grounds, where the water, as might be supposed,
never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and growing
to a great and very strong stalk. There were divers other plants, which
I had no notion of, or understanding about, and might perhaps have
virtues of their own, which I could not find out.
I searched for the cassava root, which the Indians, in all that
climate, make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants
of aloes, but did not then understand them. I saw several sugar-canes,
but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect.
I contented myself with these discoveries for this time, and came back,
musing with myself what course I might take to know the virtue and
goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover; but
could bring it to no conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little
observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little of the
plants in the field, at least very little that might serve me to any
purpose now in my distress.
The next day, the 16th, I went up the same way again; and after going
something farther than I had gone the day before, I found the brook and
the savannas began to cease, and the country became more woody than
before. In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found
melons upon the ground in great abundance, and grapes upon the trees.
The vines had spread indeed over the trees, and the clusters of grapes
were just now in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a surprising
discovery, and I was exceeding glad of them; but I was warned by my
experience to eat sparingly of them, remembering that when I was ashore
in Barbary eating of grapes killed several of our Englishmen, who were
slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes and fevers. But I found an
excellent use for these grapes; and that was, to cure or dry them in
the sun, and keep them as dried grapes or raisins are kept, which I
thought would be, as indeed they were, as wholesome as agreeable to
eat, when no grapes might be to be had.
I spent all that evening there, and went not back to my habitation;
which, by the way, was the first night, as I might say, I had lain
from home. In the night, I took my first contrivance, and got up into
a tree, where I slept well; and the next morning proceeded upon my
discovery, travelling near four miles, as I might judge by the length
of the valley, keeping still due north, with a ridge of hills on the
south and north side of me.
At the end of this march I came to an opening, where the country seemed
to descend to the west; and a little spring of fresh water, which
issued out of the side of the hill by me, ran the other way, that is,
due east; and the country appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishing,
everything being in a constant verdure or flourish of spring, that it
looked like a planted garden.
I descended a little on the side of that delicious vale, surveying it
with a secret kind of pleasure, though mixed with my other afflicting
thoughts, to think that this was all my own; that I was king and lord
of all this country indefeasibly, and had a right of possession; and,
if I could convey it, I might have it in inheritance as completely as
any lord of a manor in England.
I saw here abundance of cocoa trees, orange, and lemon, and citron
trees; but all wild, and very few bearing fruit, at least not then.
However, the green limes that I gathered were not only pleasant to eat,
but very wholesome; and I mixed their juice afterwards with water,
which made it very wholesome, and very cool and refreshing.
I found now I had business enough to gather and carry home; and I
resolved to lay up a store, as well of grapes as limes and lemons to
furnish myself for the wet season, which I knew was approaching.
In order to do this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place,
and a lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of limes and
lemons in another place; and taking a few of each with me, I travelled
homeward; and resolved to come again, and bring a bag or sack, or what
I could make, to carry the rest home.
Accordingly, having spent three days in this journey, I came home (so
I must now call my tent and my cave); but before I got thither, the
grapes were spoiled; the richness of the fruits, and the weight of the
juice, having broken them and bruised them, they were good for little
or nothing: as to the limes, they were good, but I could bring but a
few.
The next day, being the 19th, I went back, having made me two small
bags to bring home my harvest; but I was surprised, when, coming to my
heap of grapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them, I
found them all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some
here, some there, and abundance eaten and devoured. By this I concluded
there were some wild creatures thereabouts, which had done this; but
what they were, I knew not.
However, as I found that there was no laying them up on heaps, and no
carrying them away in a sack, but that one way they would be destroyed,
and the other way they would be crushed with their own weight, I took
another course; for I gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hung
them up upon the out-branches of the trees, that they might cure and
dry in the sun; and as for the limes and lemons, I carried as many back
as I could stand under.
When I came home from this journey, I contemplated with great pleasure
the fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of the situation;
the security from storms on that side the water and the wood; and
concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode, which
was by far the worst part of the country. Upon the whole, I began to
consider of removing my habitation, and to look out for a place equally
safe as where I now was situate, if possible, in that pleasant fruitful
part of the island.
This thought ran long in my head, and I was exceeding fond of it
for some time, the pleasantness of the place tempting me; but when
I came to a nearer view of it and to consider that I was now by the
seaside, where it was at least possible that something might happen
to my advantage, and, by the same ill fate that brought me hither,
might bring some other unhappy wretches to the same place; and though
it was scarce probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to
enclose myself among the hills and woods in the centre of the island,
was to anticipate my bondage, and to render such an affair not only
improbable, but impossible; and that therefore I ought not by any means
to remove.
However, I was so enamored of this place, that I spent much of my time
there for the whole remaining part of the month of July; and, though,
upon second thoughts, I resolved, as above, not to remove, yet I built
me a little kind of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance with a
strong fence, being a double hedge as high as I could reach, well
staked, and filled between with brushwood. And here I lay very secure,
sometimes two or three nights together, always going over it with a
ladder, as before; so that I fancied now I had my country house and my
seacoast house; and this work took me up to the beginning of August.
I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labor, but
the rains came on, and made me stick close to my first habitation; for
though I had made me a tent like the other, with a piece of a sail, and
spread it very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me
from storms, nor a cave behind me to retreat into when the rains were
extraordinary.
About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower, and
began to enjoy myself. The 3rd of August, I found the grapes I had hung
up were perfectly dried, and indeed were excellent good raisins of the
sun; so I began to take them down from the trees. And it was very happy
that I did so, for the rains which followed would have spoiled them,
and I had lost the best part of my winter food; for I had above two
hundred large bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, and
carried most of them home to my cave, but it began to rain; and from
hence, which was the 14th of August, it rained, more or less, every day
till the middle of October, and sometimes so violently, that I could
not stir out of my cave for several days.
In this season, I was much surprised with the increase of my family.
I had been concerned for the loss of one of my cats, who ran away
from me, or, as I thought, had been dead, and I heard no more tale or
tidings of her, till, to my astonishment, she came home about the end
of August with three kittens. This was the more strange to me, because,
though I had killed a wild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I
thought it was a quite different kind from our European cats; yet the
young cats were the same kind of house-breed like the old one; and both
my cats being females, I thought it very strange. But from these three
cats I afterwards came to be so pestered with cats, that I was forced
to kill them like vermin, or wild beasts, and to drive them from my
house as much as possible.
From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain, so that I could
not stir, and was now very careful not to be much wet. In this
confinement, I began to be straitened for food; but venturing out
twice, I one day killed a goat, and the last day, which was the 26th,
found a very large tortoise, which was a treat to me, and my food was
regulated thus: I ate a bunch of raisins for my breakfast, a piece of
the goat’s flesh, or of the turtle, for my dinner, broiled; for, to my
great misfortune, I had no vessel to boil or stew anything; and two or
three of the turtle’s eggs for my supper.
During this confinement in my cover by the rain, I worked daily two or
three hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked it on towards
one side, till I came to the outside of the hill, and made a door, or
way out, which came beyond my fence or wall; and so I came in and out
this way. But I was not perfectly easy at lying so open; for as I had
managed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure; whereas now, I
thought I lay exposed, and open for anything to come in upon me; and
yet I could not perceive that there was any living thing to fear, the
biggest creature that I had yet seen upon the island being a goat.
_Sept. 30._--I was now come to the unhappy anniversary of my landing.
I cast up the notches on my post, and found I had been on shore three
hundred and sixty-five days. I kept this day as a solemn fast, setting
it apart to religious exercise, prostrating myself on the ground with
the most serious humiliation, confessing my sins to God, acknowledging
His righteous judgments upon me, and praying to Him to have mercy on
me through Jesus Christ; and having not tasted the least refreshment
for twelve hours, even till the going down of the sun, I then ate a
biscuit-cake and a bunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day
as I began it.
I had all this time observed no Sabbath day, for as at first I had no
sense of religion upon my mind, I had, after some time, omitted to
distinguish the weeks, by making a longer notch than ordinary for the
Sabbath day, and so did not really know what any of the days were. But
now, having cast up the days, as above, I found I had been there a
year, so I divided it into weeks, and set apart every seventh day for a
Sabbath; though I found at the end of my account, I had lost a day or
two in my reckoning.
A little after this my ink began to fail me, and so I contented myself
to use it more sparingly, and to write down only the most remarkable
events of my life, without continuing a daily memorandum of other
things.
The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear regular to me,
and I learned to divide them so as to provide for them accordingly;
but I bought all my experience before I had it, and this I am going
to relate was one of the most discouraging experiments that I made
at all. I have mentioned that I had saved the few ears of barley and
rice, which I had so surprisingly found spring up, as I thought, of
themselves, and believe there were about thirty stalks of rice, and
about twenty of barley; and now I thought it a proper time to sow it
after the rains, the sun being in its southern position, going from me.
Accordingly I dug up a piece of ground as well as I could with my
wooden spade, and dividing it into two parts, I sowed my grain; but as
I was sowing, it casually occurred to my thoughts that I would not sow
it all at first, because I did not know when was the proper time for
it, so I sowed about two-thirds of the seed, leaving about a handful of
each.
It was a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one
grain of that I sowed this time came to anything, for the dry months
following, the earth having had no rain after the seed was sown, it had
no moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at all till the wet
season had come again, and then it grew as if it had been but newly
sown.
Finding my first seed did not grow, which I easily imagined was by the
drought, I sought for a moister piece of ground to make another trial
in, and I dug up a piece of ground near my new bower, and sowed the
rest of my seed in February, a little before the vernal equinox. And
this having the rainy months of March and April to water it, sprung up
very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having part of the
seed left only, and not daring to sow all that I had, I had but a small
quantity at last, my whole crop not amounting to above half a peck of
each kind. But by this experiment I was made master of my business,
and knew exactly when the proper season was to sow, and that I might
expect two seed-times and two harvests every year.
While this corn was growing, I made a little discovery, which was of
use to me afterwards. As soon as the rains were over, and the weather
began to settle, which was about the month of November, I made a visit
up the country to my bower, where, though I had not been some months,
yet I found all things just as I left them. The circle or double hedge
that I had made was not only firm and entire, but the stakes which I
had cut out of some trees that grew thereabouts were all shot out, and
grown with long branches, as much as a willow-tree usually shoots the
first year after lopping its head. I could not tell what tree to call
it that these stakes were cut from. I was surprised, and yet very well
pleased to see the young trees grow, and I pruned them, and led them
up to grow as much alike as I could. And it is scarce credible how
beautiful a figure they grew into in three years; so that though the
hedge made a circle of about twenty-five yards in diameter, yet the
trees, for such I might now call them, soon covered it, and it was a
complete shade, sufficient to lodge under all the dry season.
This made me resolve to cut some more stakes, and make me a hedge like
this, in a semicircle round my wall (I mean that of my first dwelling),
which I did; and placing the trees or stakes in a double row, at about
eight yards distance from my first fence, they grew presently, and were
at first a fine cover to my habitation, and afterward served for a
defence also, as I shall observe in its order.