_He Returns to His Cave--His Agricultural Labors and Success_
In this journey my dog surprised a young kid, and seized upon it, and I
running in to take hold of it, caught it, and saved it alive from the
dog. I had a great mind to bring it home if I could, for I had often
been musing whether it might not be possible to get a kid or two, and
so raise a breed of tame goats, which might supply me when my powder
and shot should be all spent.
I made a collar to this little creature, and with a string, which I
made of some rope-yarn, which I always carried about me, I led him
along, though with some difficulty, till I came to my bower, and there
I enclosed him and left him, for I was very impatient to be at home,
from whence I had been absent above a month.
I cannot express what a satisfaction it was to me to come into my old
hutch, and lie down in my hammock-bed. This little wandering journey,
without settled place of abode, had been so unpleasant to me, that my
own house, as I called it to myself, was a perfect settlement to be
compared to that; and it rendered everything about me so comfortable,
that I resolved I would never go a great way from it again, while it
should be my lot to stay on the island.
I reposed myself here a week, to rest and regale myself after my long
journey; during which most of the time was taken up in the weighty
affair of making a cage for my Poll, who began now to be a mere
domestic, and to be mighty well acquainted with me. Then I began to
think of the poor kid which I had penned in within my little circle,
and resolved to go and fetch it home, or give it some food. Accordingly
I went, and found it where I left it, for indeed it could not get out,
but almost starved for want of food. I went and cut boughs of trees,
and branches of such shrubs as I could find, and threw it over, and
having fed it, I tied it as I did before, to lead it away; but it was
so tame with being hungry, that I had no need to have tied it, for
it followed me like a dog. And as I continually fed it, the creature
became so loving, so gentle, and so fond, that it became from that time
one of my domestics also, and would never leave me afterwards.
The rainy season of the autumnal equinox was now come, and I kept
the 30th of September in the same solemn manner as before, being
the anniversary of my landing on the island, having now been there
two years, and no more prospect of being delivered than the first
day I came there. I spent the whole day in humble and thankful
acknowledgments of the many wonderful mercies which my solitary
condition was attended with, and without which it might have been
infinitely more miserable. I gave humble and hearty thanks that God
had been pleased to discover to me even that it was possible I might
be more happy in this solitary condition, than I should have been in
a liberty of society, and in all the pleasures of the world; that He
could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state, and
the want of human society, by His presence, and the communications of
His grace to my soul, supporting, comforting, and encouraging me to
depend upon His providence here, and hope for His eternal presence
hereafter.
It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life
I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked,
cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days. And now
I changed both my sorrows and my joys; my very desires altered, my
affections changed their gusts, and my delights were perfectly new from
what they were at my first coming, or indeed for the two years past.
Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting, or for viewing the
country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon
me on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me, to think of
the woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in, and how I was a
prisoner, locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in
an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the
greatest composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a
storm, and make me wring my hands, and weep like a child. Sometimes it
would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit
down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together;
and this was still worse to me, for if I could burst out into tears, or
vent myself by words, it would go off, and the grief, having exhausted
itself, would abate.
But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts. I daily read the
Word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state.
One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon these words,
“I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Immediately it
occurred that these words were to me; why else should they be directed
in such a manner, just at the moment when I was mourning over my
condition, as one forsaken of God and man? “Well, then,” said I, “if
God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what
matters it, though the world should all forsake me, seeing on the other
hand if I had all the world, and should lose the favor and blessing of
God, there would be no comparison in the loss?”
From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible
for me to be more happy in this forsaken solitary condition, than it
was probable I should ever have been in any other particular state in
the world, and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for
bringing me to this place.
I know not what it was, but something shocked my mind at that thought,
and I durst not speak the words. “How canst thou be such a hypocrite,”
said I, even audibly, “to pretend to be thankful for a condition which,
however thou mayest endeavor to be contented with, thou wouldest rather
pray heartily to be delivered from?” So I stopped there; but though
I could not say I thanked God for being there, yet I sincerely gave
thanks to God for opening my eyes, by whatever afflicting providences,
to see the former condition of my life, and to mourn for my wickedness,
and repent. I never opened the Bible, or shut it, but my very soul
within me blessed God for directing my friend in England, without any
order of mine, to pack it up among my goods, and for assisting me
afterwards to save it out of the wreck of the ship.
Thus, and in this disposition of mind, I began my third year; and
though I have not given the reader the trouble of so particular account
of my works this year as the first, yet in general it may be observed,
that I was very seldom idle, but having regularly divided my time,
according to the several daily employments that were before me, such
as, first, my duty to God, and the reading the Scriptures, which I
constantly set apart some time for, thrice every day; secondly, the
going abroad with my gun for food, which generally took me up three
hours in every morning, when it did not rain; thirdly, the ordering,
curing, preserving, and cooking what I had killed or caught for my
supply; these took up a great part of the day; also, it is to be
considered that the middle of the day, when the sun was in the zenith,
the violence of the heat was too great to stir out; so that about four
hours in the evening was all the time I could be supposed to work in,
with this exception, that sometimes I changed my hours of hunting and
working, and went to work in the morning, and abroad with my gun in the
afternoon.
To this short time allowed for labor, I desire may be added the
exceeding laboriousness of my work; the many hours which, for want of
tools, want of help, and want of skill, everything I did took up out of
my time. For example, I was full two and forty days making me a board
for a long shelf, which I wanted in my cave; whereas two sawyers, with
their tools and a saw-pit, would have cut six of them out of the same
tree in half a day.
My case was this: it was to be a large tree which was to be cut down,
because my board was to be a broad one. This tree I was three days
a-cutting down, and two more cutting off the boughs, and reducing it
to a log, or piece of timber. With inexpressible hacking and hewing,
I reduced both the sides of it into chips till it begun to be light
enough to move; then I turned it, and made one side of it smooth and
flat as a board from end to end; then turning that side downward, cut
the other side, till I brought the plank to be about three inches
thick, and smooth on both sides. Any one may judge the labor of my
hands in such a piece of work; but labor and patience carried me
through that, and many other things. I only observe this in particular,
to show the reason why so much of my time went away with so little
work, viz., that what might be a little to be done with help and tools
was a vast labor and required a prodigious time to do alone, and
by hand. But notwithstanding this, with patience and labor, I went
through many things, and, indeed, everything that my circumstances made
necessary to me to do, as will appear by what follows.
I was now, in the months of November and December, expecting my crop of
barley and rice. The ground I had manured or dug up for them was not
great; for as I observed, my seed of each was not above the quantity of
half a peck; for I had lost one whole crop by sowing in the dry season.
But now my crop promised very well, when of a sudden I found I was in
danger of losing it all again by enemies of several sorts, which it was
scarce possible to keep from it; as, first the goats and wild creatures
which I called hares, who, tasting the sweetness of the blade, lay in
it night and day, as soon as it came up, and ate it so close, that it
could get no time to shoot up into stalk.
This I saw no remedy for but by making an enclosure about it with a
hedge, which I did with a great deal of toil, and the more, because it
required speed. However, as my arable land was but small, suited to
my crop, I got it totally well fenced in about three weeks’ time, and
shooting some of the creatures in the daytime, I set my dog to guard it
in the night, tying him up to a stake at the gate, where he would stand
and bark all night long; so in a little time the enemies forsook the
place, and the corn grew very strong and well, and began to ripen apace.
But as the beasts ruined me before while my corn was in the blade, so
the birds were as likely to ruin me now when it was in the ear; for
going along by the place to see how it throve, I saw my little crop
surrounded with fowls, of I know not how many sorts, who stood, as it
were, watching till I should be gone. I immediately let fly among them,
for I always had my gun with me. I had no sooner shot, but there rose
up a little cloud of fowls, which I had not seen at all, from among the
corn itself.
This touched me sensibly, for I foresaw that in a few days they would
devour all my hopes, that I should be starved, and never be able to
raise a crop at all, and what to do I could not tell. However, I
resolved not to lose my corn, if possible, though I should watch it
night and day. In the first place, I went among it to see what damage
was already done, and found they had spoiled a good deal of it; but
that as it was yet too green for them, the loss was not so great but
that the remainder was like to be a good crop if it could be saved.
I stayed by it to load my gun, and then coming away, I could easily see
the thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they only waited
till I was gone away. And the event proved it to be so; for as I walked
off, as if I was gone, I was no sooner out of their sight but they
dropped down, one by one, into the corn again. I was so provoked, that
I could not have patience to stay till more came on, knowing that every
grain that they ate now was, as it might be said, a peck-loaf to me in
the consequence; but coming up to the hedge, I fired again, and killed
three of them. This was what I wished for; so I took them up, and
served them as we serve notorious thieves in England, viz., hanged them
in chains, for a terror to others. It is impossible to imagine almost
that this should have such an effect as it had, for the fowls would not
only not come at the corn, but, in short, they forsook all that part of
the island, and I could never see a bird near the place as long as my
scarecrows hung there.
This I was very glad of, you may be sure; and about the latter end of
December, which was our second harvest of the year, I reaped my crop.
I was sadly put to it for a scythe or a sickle to cut it down, and
all I could do was to make one as well as I could out of one of
the broadswords, or cutlasses, which I saved among the arms out of
the ship. However, as my first crop was but small, I had no great
difficulty to cut it down; in short, I reaped it my way, for I cut
nothing off but the ears, and carried it away in a great basket which
I had made, and so rubbed it out with my hands; and at the end of all
my harvesting, I found that out of my half peck of seed I had near two
bushels of rice, and above two bushels and a half of barley, that is to
say, by my guess, for I had no measure at that time.
However, this was a great encouragement to me, and I foresaw that, in
time, it would please God to supply me with bread. And yet here I was
perplexed again, for I neither knew how to grind or make meal of my
corn, or indeed how to clean it and part it; nor, if made into meal,
how to make bread of it, and if how to make it, yet I knew not how
to bake it. These things being added to my desire of having a good
quantity for store, and to secure a constant supply, I resolved not to
taste any of this crop, but to preserve it all for seed against the
next season, and, in the meantime, to employ all my study and hours of
working to accomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and
bread.
It might be truly said, that now I worked for my bread. ’Tis a little
wonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon, viz.,
the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing,
producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one article of
bread.
[Illustration: “_I reaped it my way, for I cut nothing off but the
ears, and carried it away in a great basket which I had made_”]
I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to my daily
discouragement, and was made more and more sensible of it every
hour, even after I had got the first handful of seed-corn, which, as I
have said, came up unexpectedly, and indeed to a surprise.
First, I had no plough to turn up the earth, no spade or shovel to dig
it. Well, this I conquered by making a wooden spade, as I observed
before, but this did my work in but a wooden manner; and though it
cost me a great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not
only wore out the sooner, but made my work the harder, and made it be
performed much worse.
However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out with
patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When the corn
was sowed, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, and
drag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch it, as it may be
called, rather than rake or harrow it.
When it was growing and grown, I have observed already how many things
I wanted to fence it, secure it, mow or reap it, cure and carry it
home, thrash, part it from the chaff, and save it. Then I wanted a
mill to grind it, sieves to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into
bread, and an oven to bake it, and yet all these things I did without,
as shall be observed; and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and
advantage to me too. All this, as I said, made everything laborious and
tedious to me, but that there was no help for; neither was my time so
much loss to me, because, as I had divided it, a certain part of it was
every day appointed to these works, and as I resolved to use none of
the corn for bread till I had a greater quantity by me, I had the next
six months to apply myself wholly, by labor and invention, to furnish
myself with utensils proper for the performing all the operations
necessary for the making the corn, when I had it, fit for my use.