_Unexpected Alarm--Cause for Apprehension--He Fortifies His Abode_
It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was
exceedingly surprised with the print of a man’s naked foot on the
shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like one
thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked
round me, I could hear nothing, nor see anything. I went up to a rising
ground, to look farther. I went up the shore, and down the shore, but
it was all one; I could see no other impression but that one.
I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it
might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was
exactly the very print of a foot--toes, heel, and every part of a foot.
How it came thither I knew not, nor could in the least imagine. But
after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused
and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we
say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking
behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree,
and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man; nor is it possible
to describe how many various shapes affrighted imagination represented
things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my
fancy, and what strange, unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts
by the way.
When I came to my castle, for so I think I called it ever after this,
I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went over by the ladder, as
first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock, which I called a
door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I remember the next morning, for
never frightened hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror
of mind than I to this retreat.
[Illustration: “_I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an
apparition_”]
I slept none that night. The farther I was from the occasion of my
fright, the greater my apprehensions were; which is something contrary
to the nature of such things, and especially to the usual practice of
all creatures in fear. But I was so embarrassed with my own frightful
ideas of the thing, that I formed nothing but dismal imaginations
to myself, even though I was now a great way off it. Sometimes I
fancied it must be the devil, and reason joined in with me upon this
supposition; for how should any other thing in human shape come into
the place? Where was the vessel that brought them? What marks were
there of any other footsteps? And how was it possible a man should come
there? But then to think that Satan should take human shape upon him in
such a place, where there could be no manner of occasion for it, but to
leave the print of his foot behind him, and that even for no purpose
too, for he could not be sure I should see it; this was an amusement
the other way. I considered that the devil might have found out
abundance of other ways to have terrified me than this of the single
print of a foot; that as I lived quite on the other side of the island,
he would never have been so simple to leave a mark in a place where it
was ten thousand to one whether I should ever see it or not, and in
the sand too, which the first surge of the sea, upon a high wind, would
have defaced entirely. All this seemed inconsistent with the thing
itself, and with all the notions we usually entertain of the subtility
of the devil.
Abundance of such things as these assisted to argue me out of all
apprehensions of its being the devil; and I presently concluded then,
that it must be some more dangerous creature, viz., that it must be
some of the savages of the mainland over against me, who had wandered
out to sea in their canoes, and, either driven by the currents or by
contrary winds, had made the island, and had been on shore, but were
gone away again to sea, being as loth, perhaps, to have stayed in this
desolate island as I would have been to have had them.
While these reflections were rolling upon my mind, I was very thankful
in my thoughts that I was so happy as not to be thereabouts at that
time, or that they did not see my boat, by which they would have
concluded that some inhabitants had been in the place, and perhaps have
searched farther for me. Then terrible thoughts racked my imagination
about their having found my boat, and that there were people here; and
that if so, I should certainly have them come again in greater numbers,
and devour me; and if it should happen so that they should not find me,
yet they would find my enclosure, destroy all my corn, carry away all
my flock of tame goats, and I should perish at last for mere want.
Thus my fear banished all my religious hope. All that former confidence
in God, which was founded upon such wonderful experience as I had had
of His goodness, now vanished, as if He that had fed me by miracle
hitherto could not preserve, by His power, the provision which He had
made for me by His goodness. I reproached myself with my easiness,
that would not sow any more corn one year than would just serve me
till the next season, as if no accident could intervene to prevent my
enjoying the crop that was upon the ground. And this I thought so just
a reproof, that I resolved for the future to have two or three years’
corn beforehand, so that, whatever might come, I might not perish for
want of bread.
How strange a checker-work of Providence is the life of man! and by
what secret differing springs are the affections hurried about as
differing circumstances present! To-day we love what to-morrow we
hate; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what
to-morrow we fear; nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of. This was
exemplified in me, at this time, in the most lively manner imaginable;
for I, whose only affliction was that I seemed banished from human
society, that I was alone, circumscribed by the boundless ocean, cut
off from mankind, and condemned to what I called silent life; that I
was as one whom Heaven thought not worthy to be numbered among the
living, or to appear among the rest of His creatures; that to have
seen one of my own species would have seemed to me a raising me from
death to life, and the greatest blessing that Heaven itself, next to
the supreme blessing of salvation, could bestow; I say, that I should
now tremble at the very apprehensions of seeing a man, and was ready to
sink into the ground at but the shadow or silent appearance of a man’s
having set his foot in the island!
Such is the uneven state of human life; and it afforded me a great many
curious speculations afterwards, when I had a little recovered my first
surprise. I considered that this was the station of life the infinitely
wise and good providence of God had determined for me; that, as I could
not foresee what the ends of Divine wisdom might be in all this, so I
was not to dispute His sovereignty, who, as I was His creature, had an
undoubted right, by creation, to govern and dispose of me absolutely as
He thought fit, and who, as I was a creature who had offended Him, had
likewise a judicial right to condemn me to what punishment He thought
fit; and that it was my part to submit to bear His indignation, because
I had sinned against Him.
I then reflected that God, who was not only righteous, but omnipotent,
as He had thought fit thus to punish and afflict me, so He was able to
deliver me; that if He did not think fit to do it ’twas my unquestioned
duty to resign myself absolutely and entirely to His will; and, on
the other hand, it was my duty also to hope in Him, pray to Him, and
quietly to attend the dictates and directions of His daily providence.
These thoughts took me up many hours, days, nay, I may say, weeks and
months; and one particular effect of my cogitations on this occasion
I cannot omit, viz., one morning early, lying in my bed, and filled
with thought about my danger from the appearance of savages, I found
it discomposed me very much; upon which those words of the Scripture
came into my thoughts, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will
deliver, and thou shalt glorify Me.”
Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, my heart was not only
comforted, but I was guided and encouraged to pray earnestly to God for
deliverance. When I had done praying, I took up my Bible, and opening
it to read, the first words that presented to me were, “Wait on the
Lord, and be of good cheer, and He shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I
say, on the Lord.” It is impossible to express the comfort this gave
me. In answer, I thankfully laid down the book, and was no more sad, at
least, not on that occasion.
In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflections, it
came into my thought one day, that all this might be a mere chimera
of my own; and that this foot might be the print of my own foot, when
I came on shore from my boat. This cheered me up a little too, and I
began to persuade myself it was all a delusion, that it was nothing
else but my own foot; and why might not I come that way from the boat,
as well as I was going that way to the boat? Again, I considered also,
that I could by no means tell, for certain, where I had trod, and where
I had not; and that if, at last, this was only the print of my own
foot, I had played the part of those fools who strive to make stories
of spectres and apparitions, and then are frightened at them more than
anybody.
Now I began to take courage, and to peep abroad again, for I had not
stirred out of my castle for three days and nights, so that I began to
starve for provision; for I had little or nothing within doors but some
barley-cakes and water. Then I knew that my goats wanted to be milked
too, which usually was my evening diversion; and the poor creatures
were in great pain and inconvenience for want of it; and, indeed, it
almost spoiled some of them, and almost dried up their milk.
Heartening myself, therefore, with the belief that this was nothing but
the print of one of my own feet, and so I might be truly said to start
at my own shadow, I began to go abroad again, and went to my country
house to milk my flock. But to see with what fear I went forward, how
often I looked behind me, how I was ready, every now and then, to lay
down my basket, and run for my life, it would have made any one have
thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or that I had been
lately most terribly frightened; and so, indeed, I had.
However, as I went down thus two or three days, and having seen
nothing, I began to be a little bolder, and to think there was really
nothing in it but my own imagination. But I could not persuade myself
fully of this till I should go down to the shore again, and see this
print of a foot, and measure it by my own, and see if there was any
similitude or fitness, that I might be assured it was my own foot. But
when I came to the place, first, it appeared evidently to me, that
when I laid up my boat, I could not possibly be on shore anywhere
thereabout; secondly, when I came to measure the mark with my own
foot, I found my foot not so large by a great deal. Both these things
filled my head with new imaginings, and gave me the vapors again to the
highest degree; so that I shook with cold, like one in an ague; and I
went home again, filled with the belief that some man or men had been
on shore there; or, in short, that the island was inhabited, and I
might be surprised before I was aware. And what course to take for my
security, I knew not.
Oh, what ridiculous resolutions men take when possessed with fear! It
deprives them of the use of those means which reason offers for their
relief. The first thing I proposed to myself was to throw down my
enclosures, and turn all my tame cattle wild into the woods, that the
enemy might not find them, and then frequent the island in prospect of
the same or the like booty; then to the simple thing of digging up my
two cornfields, that they might not find such a grain there, and still
be prompted to frequent the island; then to demolish my bower and tent,
that they might not see any vestiges of habitation, and be prompted to
look farther, in order to find out the persons inhabiting.
These were the subject of the first night’s cogitation, after I was
come home again, while the apprehensions which had so overrun my mind
were fresh upon me, and my head was full of vapors, as above. Thus
fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger
itself when apparent to the eyes; and we find the burden of anxiety
greater, by much, than the evil which we are anxious about; and, which
was worse than all this, I had not that relief in this trouble from
the resignation I used to practise, that I hoped to have. I looked,
I thought, like Saul, who complained not only that the Philistines
were upon him, but that God had forsaken him; for I did not now take
due ways to compose my mind, by crying to God in my distress, and
resting upon His providence, as I had done before, for my defence and
deliverance; which, if I had done, I had at least been more cheerfully
supported under this new surprise, and perhaps carried through it with
more resolution.
This confusion of my thoughts kept me waking all night, but in the
morning I fell asleep; and having, by the amusement of my mind, been,
as it were, tired, and my spirits exhausted, I slept very soundly, and
waked much better composed than I had ever been before. And now I began
to think sedately; and upon the utmost debate with myself, I concluded
that this island, which was so exceeding pleasant, fruitful, and no
farther from the mainland than as I had seen, was not so entirely
abandoned as I might imagine; that although there were no stated
inhabitants who lived on the spot, yet that there might sometimes come
boats off from the shore, which, either with design, or perhaps never
but when they were driven by cross winds, might come to this place;
that I had lived here fifteen years now, and had not met with the least
shadow or figure of any people yet; and that if at any time they should
be driven here, it was probable they went away again as soon as ever
they could, seeing they had never thought fit to fix there upon any
occasion to this time; that the most I could suggest any danger from,
was from any such casual accidental landing of straggling people from
the main, who, as it was likely if they were driven hither, were here
against their wills; so they made no stay here, but went off again with
all possible speed, seldom staying one night on shore, lest they should
not have the help of the tides and daylight back again; and that,
therefore, I had nothing to do but to consider of some safe retreat, in
case I should see any savages land upon the spot.
Now I began sorely to repent that I had dug my cave so large as to
bring a door through again, which door, as I said, came out beyond
where my fortification joined to the rock. Upon maturely considering
this, therefore, I resolved to draw me a second fortification in the
same manner of a semicircle, at a distance from my wall, just where I
had planted a double row of trees about twelve years before, of which
I made mention. These trees having been planted so thick before, they
wanted but a few piles to be driven between them, that they should be
thicker and stronger, and my wall would be soon finished.
So that I had now a double wall; and my outer wall was thickened with
pieces of timber, old cables, and everything I could think of, to make
it strong, having in it seven little holes, about as big as I might put
my arm out at. In the inside of this I thickened my wall to about ten
feet thick, with continual bringing earth out of my cave, and laying
it at the foot of the wall, and walking upon it; and through the seven
holes I contrived to plant the muskets, of which I took notice that I
got seven on shore out of the ship. These, I say, I planted like my
cannon, and fitted them into frames, that held them like a carriage,
that so I could fire all the seven guns in two minutes’ time. This wall
I was many a weary month a-finishing, and yet never thought myself safe
till it was done.
When this was done, I stuck all the ground without my wall, for a great
way every way, as full with stakes, or sticks, of the osier-like wood,
which I found so apt to grow, as they could well stand; insomuch, that
I believe I might set in near twenty thousand of them, leaving a pretty
large space between them and my wall, that I might have room to see
an enemy, and they might have no shelter from the young trees, if they
attempted to approach my outer wall.
Thus in two years’ time I had a thick grove; and in five or six years’
time I had a wood before my dwelling, growing so monstrous thick and
strong, that it was indeed perfectly impassable; and no men, of what
kind soever, would ever imagine that there was anything beyond it, much
less a habitation. As for the way which I proposed to myself to go in
and out, for I left no avenue, it was by setting two ladders, one to
a part of the rock which was low, and then broke in, and left room to
place another ladder upon that; so when the two ladders were taken
down, no man living could come down to me without hurting himself; and
if they had come down, they were still on the outside of my outer wall.
Thus I took all the measures human prudence could suggest for my own
preservation; and it will be seen, at length, that they were not
altogether without just reason; though I foresaw nothing at that time
more than my mere fear suggested to me.
While this was doing, I was not altogether careless of my other
affairs; for I had a great concern upon me for my little herd of goats.
They were not only a present supply to me upon every occasion, and
began to be sufficient to me, without the expense of powder and shot,
but also without the fatigue of hunting after the wild ones; and I was
loth to lose the advantage of them, and to have them all to nurse up
over again.
To this purpose, after long consideration, I could think of but two
ways to preserve them. One was, to find another convenient place to
dig a cave under ground, and to drive them into it every night; and
the other was, to enclose two or three little bits of land, remote
from one another, and as much concealed as I could, where I might keep
about half a dozen young goats in each place; so that if any disaster
happened to the flock in general, I might be able to raise them again
with little trouble and time. And this, though it would require a great
deal of time and labor, I thought was the most rational design.
Accordingly I spent some time to find out the most retired parts of the
island; and I pitched upon one which was as private indeed as my heart
could wish for. It was a little damp piece of ground, in the middle of
the hollow and thick woods, where, as is observed, I almost lost myself
once before, endeavoring to come back that way from the eastern part of
the island. Here I found a clear piece of land, near three acres, so
surrounded with woods, that it was almost an enclosure by Nature; at
least, it did not want near so much labor to make it so as the other
pieces of ground I had worked so hard at.