_Another Visit of the Savages--Robinson Sees Them Dancing--He Perceives
the Wreck of a Vessel_
It was now the month of December, as I said above, in my twenty-third
year; and this, being the southern solstice (for winter I cannot call
it), was the particular time of my harvest, and required my being
pretty much abroad in the fields; when, going out pretty early in the
morning, even before it was thorough daylight, I was surprised with
seeing a light of some fire upon the shore, at a distance from me of
about two miles, towards the end of the island, where I had observed
some savages had been, as before. But not on the other side; but, to my
great affliction, it was on my side of the island.
I was indeed terribly surprised at the sight, and stopped short within
my grove, not daring to go out, lest I might be surprised; and yet I
had no more peace within, from the apprehensions I had that if these
savages, in rambling over the island, should find my corn standing
or cut, or any of my works and improvements, they would immediately
conclude that there were people in the place, and would then never give
over till they had found me out. In this extremity I went back directly
to my castle, pulled up the ladder after me, and made all things
without look as wild and natural as I could.
Then I prepared myself within, putting myself in a posture of defense.
I loaded all my cannon, as I called them, that is to say, my muskets,
which were mounted upon my new fortification, and all my pistols, and
resolved to defend myself to the last gasp; not forgetting seriously to
commend myself to the Divine protection, and earnestly to pray to God
to deliver me out of the hands of the barbarians. And in this posture
I continued about two hours; but began to be mighty impatient for
intelligence abroad, for I had no spies to send out.
After sitting a while longer, and musing what I should do in this case,
I was not able to bear sitting in ignorance any longer; so setting
up my ladder to the side of the hill where there was a flat place,
as I observed before, and then pulling the ladder up after me, I set
it up again, and mounted to the top of the hill; and pulling out my
perspective-glass, which I had taken on purpose, I laid me down flat on
my belly on the ground, and began to look for the place. I presently
found there was no less than nine naked savages sitting round a small
fire they had made, not to warm them, for they had no need of that, the
weather being extreme hot, but, as I supposed, to dress some of their
barbarous diet of human flesh which they had brought with them, whether
alive or dead, I could not know.
They had two canoes with them, which they had hauled up upon the
shore; and as it was then tide of ebb, they seemed to me to wait for
the return of the flood to go away again. It is not easy to imagine
what confusion this sight put me into, especially seeing them come on
my side the island, and so near me too. But when I observed their
coming must be always with the current of the ebb, I began afterwards
to be more sedate in my mind, being satisfied that I might go abroad
with safety all the time of the tide of flood, if they were not on
shore before; and having made this observation, I went abroad about my
harvest-work with the more composure.
As I expected, so it proved; for as soon as the tide made to the
westward, I saw them all take boat, and row (or paddle, as we call it)
all away. I should have observed, that for an hour and more before
they went off, they went to dancing; and I could easily discern their
postures and gestures by my glasses. I could not perceive, by my nicest
observation, but that they were stark naked, and had not the least
covering upon them; but whether they were men or women, that I could
not distinguish.
As soon as I saw them shipped and gone, I took two guns upon my
shoulders, and two pistols at my girdle, and my great sword by my side,
without a scabbard, and with all the speed I was able to make I went
away to the hill where I had discovered the first appearance of all.
And as soon as I got thither, which was not less than two hours (for
I could not go apace, being so laden with arms as I was), I perceived
there had been three canoes more of savages on that place; and looking
out farther, I saw they were all at sea together, making over for the
main.
[Illustration: “_I laid me down flat on my belly on the ground, and
began to look for the place_”]
This was a dreadful sight to me, especially when, going down to the
shore, I could see the marks of horror which the dismal work they had
been about had left behind it, viz., the blood, the bones, and part
of the flesh of human bodies, eaten and devoured by those wretches with
merriment and sport. I was so filled with indignation at the sight,
that I began now to premeditate the destruction of the next that I saw
there, let them be who or how many soever.
It seemed evident to me that the visits which they thus made to this
island were not very frequent, for it was above fifteen months before
any more of them came on shore there again; that is to say, I neither
saw them, nor any footsteps nor signals of them, in all that time; for,
as to the rainy seasons, then they are sure not to come abroad, at
least not so far. Yet all this while I lived uncomfortably, by reason
of the constant apprehensions I was in of their coming upon me by
surprise; from whence I observe, that the expectation of evil is more
bitter than the suffering, especially if there is no room to shake off
that expectation, or those apprehensions.
During all this time I was in a murdering humor, and took up most of
my hours, which should have been better employed, in contriving how to
circumvent and fall upon them the very next time I should see them;
especially if they should be divided, as they were the last time, into
two parties. Nor did I consider at all that if I killed one party,
suppose ten or a dozen, I was still the next day, or week, or month,
to kill another, and so another, even _ad infinitum_, till I should be
at length no less a murderer than they were in being man-eaters, and
perhaps much more so.
I spent my days now in great perplexity and anxiety of mind, expecting
that I should, one day or other, fall into the hands of these
merciless creatures; and if I did at any time venture abroad, it
was not without looking round me with the greatest care and caution
imaginable. And now I found, to my great comfort, how happy it was that
I provided for a tame flock or herd of goats; for I durst not, upon any
account, fire my gun, especially near that side of the island where
they usually came, lest I should alarm the savages. And if they had
fled from me now, I was sure to have them come back again, with perhaps
two or three hundred canoes with them, in a few days, and then I knew
what to expect.
However, I wore out a year and three months more before I ever saw
any more of the savages, and then I found them again, as I shall soon
observe. It is true they might have been there once or twice, but
either they made no stay, or at least I did not hear them; but in
the month of May, as near as I could calculate, and in my four and
twentieth year, I had a very strange encounter with them; of which in
its place.
The perturbation of my mind, during this fifteen or sixteen months’
interval, was very great. I slept unquiet, dreamed always frightful
dreams, and often started out of my sleep in the night. In the day
great troubles overwhelmed my mind, and in the night I dreamed often of
killing the savages, and of the reasons why I might justify the doing
of it. But, to waive all this for a while, it was in the middle of
May, on the sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor wooden calendar
would reckon, for I marked all upon the post still: I say, it was the
sixteenth of May that it blew a very great storm of wind all day, with
a great deal of lightning and thunder, and a very foul night it was
after it. I know not what was the particular occasion of it, but as
I was reading in the Bible, and taken up with very serious thoughts
about my present condition, I was surprised with a noise of a gun, as I
thought, fired at sea.
This was, to be sure, a surprise of a quite different nature from any
I had met with before; for the notions this put into my thoughts were
quite of another kind. I started up in the greatest haste imaginable,
and, in a trice, clapped my ladder to the middle place of the rock, and
pulled it after me; and mounting it the second time, got to the top of
the hill the very moment that flash of fire bid me listen for a second
gun, which accordingly, in about half a minute, I heard; and, by the
sound, knew that it was from that part of the sea where I was driven
down the current in my boat.
I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress, and
that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired
these guns for signals of distress, and to obtain help. I had this
presence of mind, at that minute, as to think that though I could not
help them, it may be they might help me; so I brought together all the
dry wood I could get at hand, and, making a good handsome pile, I set
it on fire upon the hill. The wood was dry, and blazed freely; and
though the wind blew very hard, yet it burnt fairly out; so that I was
certain, if there was any such thing as a ship, they must needs see it,
and no doubt they did; for as soon as ever my fire blazed up I heard
another gun, and after that several others, all from the same quarter.
I plied my fire all night long till day broke; and when it was broad
day, and the air cleared up, I saw something at a great distance at
sea, full east of the island, whether a sail or a hull I could not
distinguish, no, not with my glasses, the distance was so great, and
the weather still something hazy also; at least it was so out at sea.
I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived that it did
not move; so I presently concluded that it was a ship at an anchor. And
being eager, you may be sure, to be satisfied, I took my gun in my hand
and ran toward the south side of the island, to the rocks where I had
formerly been carried away with the current; and getting up there, the
weather by this time being perfectly clear, I could plainly see, to my
great sorrow, the wreck of a ship, cast away in the night upon those
concealed rocks which I found when I was out in my boat; and which
rocks, as they checked the violence of the stream, and made a kind of
counter-stream or eddy, were the occasion of my recovering from the
most desperate, hopeless condition that ever I had been in in all my
life.
Thus, what is one man’s safety is another man’s destruction; for it
seems these men, whoever they were, being out of their knowledge, and
the rocks being wholly under water, had been driven upon them in the
night, the wind blowing hard at E. and E.N.E. Had they seen the island,
as I must necessarily suppose they did not, they must, as I thought,
have endeavored to have saved themselves on shore by the help of their
boat; but their firing of guns for help, especially when they saw, as I
imagined, my fire, filled me with many thoughts. First, I imagined that
upon seeing my light, they might have put themselves into their boat,
and have endeavored to make the shore; but that the sea going very
high, they might have been cast away. Other times I imagined that they
might have lost their boat before, as might be the case many ways; as,
particularly, by the breaking of the sea upon their ship, which many
times obliges men to stave, or take in pieces their boat, and sometimes
to throw it overboard with their own hands.
Other times I imagined they had some other ship or ships in company,
who, upon the signals of distress they had made, had taken them up and
carried them off. Other times I fancied they were all gone off to sea
in their boat, and being hurried away by the current that I had been
formerly in, were carried out into the great ocean, where there was
nothing but misery and perishing; and that, perhaps, they might by this
time think of starving, and of being in a condition to eat one another.
As all these were but conjectures at best, so, in the condition I was
in, I could do no more than look on upon the misery of the poor men,
and pity them; which had still this good effect on my side, that it
gave me more and more cause to give thanks to God, who had so happily
and comfortably provided for me in my desolate condition; and that
of two ships’ companies who were now cast away upon this part of the
world, not one life should be spared but mine. I learned here again
to observe, that it is very rare that the providence of God casts us
into any condition of life so low, or any misery so great, but we may
see something or other to be thankful for, and may see others in worse
circumstances than our own.
Such certainly was the case of these men, of whom I could not so much
as see room to suppose any of them were saved. Nothing could make it
rational so much as to wish or expect that they did not all perish
there, except the possibility only of their being taken up by another
ship in company; and this was but mere possibility indeed, for I saw
not the least sign or appearance of any such thing.
I cannot explain, by any possible energy of words, what a strange
longing or hankering of desires I felt in my soul upon this sight,
breaking out sometimes thus: “Oh that there had been but one or two,
nay, or but one soul, saved out of this ship, to have escaped to me,
that I might but have had one companion, one fellow-creature, to have
spoken to me, and to have conversed with!” In all the time of my
solitary life, I never felt so earnest, so strong a desire after the
society of my fellow-creatures, or so deep a regret at the want of it.