subsistence, and what would have been my case if it had not happened,
which was an hundred thousand to one, that the ship floated from the
place where she first struck and was driven so near to the shore that
I had time to get all these things out of her; what would have been my
case, if I had been to have lived in the condition in which I at first
came on shore, without necessaries of life, or necessaries to supply
and procure them? "Particularly," said I aloud (though to myself),
"what should I have done without a gun, without ammunition, without
any tools to make anything, or to work with, without clothes, bedding,
a tent, or any manner of covering?" and that now I had all these to a
sufficient quantity, and was in a fair way to provide myself in such a
manner, as to live without my gun when my ammunition was spent; so
that I had a tolerable view of subsisting without any want as long as
I lived. For I considered from the beginning how I would provide for
the accidents that might happen, and for the time that was to come,
even not only after my ammunition should be spent, but even after my
health or strength should decay.
I confess I had not entertained any notion of my ammunition being
destroyed at one blast--I mean, my powder being blown up by lightning;
and this made the thoughts of it so surprising to me when it lightened
and thundered, as I observed just now.
ROBINSON CRUSOE BUILDS A BOAT
_By Daniel Defoe_
You may be sure my thoughts ran many times upon the prospect of land
which I had seen from the other side of the island, and I was not
without secret wishes that I were on shore there, fancying that seeing
the mainland, and in an inhabited country, I might find some way or
other to convey myself farther, and perhaps at last find some means of
escape.
But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such a
condition, and how I might fall into the hands of savages, and perhaps
such as I might have reason to think far worse than the lions and
tigers of Africa; that if I once came into their power, I should run a
hazard more than a thousand to one of being killed, and perhaps of
being eaten; for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coasts
were cannibals, or man-eaters, and I knew by the latitude that I could
not be far off from that shore. That suppose they were not cannibals,
yet that they might kill me, as many Europeans who had fallen into
their hands had been served, even when they had been ten or twenty
together, much more I, that was but one, and could make little or no
defense,--all these things, I say, which I ought to have considered
well of, and did cast up in my thoughts afterwards, yet took up none
of my apprehensions at first, but my head ran mightily upon the
thought of getting over to the shore.
Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long-boat with the
shoulder-of-mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on
the coast of Africa; but this was in vain. Then I thought I would go
and look at our ship's boat, which, as I have said, was blown up upon
the shore a great way, in the storm, when we were first cast away. She
lay almost where she did at first, but not quite; and was turned, by
the force of the waves and the winds, almost bottom upwards, against a
high ridge of beachy rough sand, but no water about her, as before.
If I had had hands to have refitted her, and to have launched her into
the water, the boat would have done well enough, and I might have gone
back into the Brazils with her easily enough; but I might have
foreseen that I could no more turn her, and set her upright upon her
bottom, than I could remove the island. However, I went to the woods,
and cut levers and rollers, and brought them to the boat, resolved to
try what I could do; suggesting to myself that if I could but turn her
down, I might easily repair the damage she had received, and she would
be a very good boat, and I might go to sea in her very easily.
I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent,
I think, three or four weeks about it. At last, finding it impossible
to heave it up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the
sand, to undermine it, and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of
wood to thrust and guide it right in the fall. But when I had done
this, I was unable to stir it up again, or to get under it, much less
to move it forward towards the water; so I was forced to give it over.
And yet, though I gave over the hopes of the boat, my desire to
venture over for the main increased, rather than decreased, as the
means for it seemed impossible.
This at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible to
make myself a canoe, or _periagua_, such as the natives of those
climates make, even without tools, or, as I might say, without hands,
viz., of the trunk of a great tree. This I not only thought possible,
but easy, and pleased myself extremely with the thoughts of making it,
and with my having much more convenience for it than any of the
negroes or Indians; but not at all considering the particular
inconveniences which I lay under more than the Indians did, viz., want
of hands to move it, when it was made, into the water, a difficulty
much harder for me to surmount than all the consequences of want of
tools could be to them. For what was it to me, that when I had chosen
a vast tree in the woods, I might with much trouble cut it down, if,
after I might be able with my tools to hew and dub the outside into
the proper shape of a boat, and burn or cut out the inside to make it
hollow, so to make a boat of it; if, after all this, I must leave it
just there where I found it, and was not able to launch it into the
water?
One would have thought I could not have had the least reflection upon
my mind of my circumstance while I was making this boat, but I should
have immediately thought how I should get it into the sea; but my
thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it that I never
once considered how I should get it off of the land; and it was
really, in its own nature, more easy for me to guide it over
forty-five miles of sea than about forty-five fathoms of land, where
it lay, to set it afloat in the water.
I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man did
who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design,
without determining whether I was ever able to undertake it. Not but
that the difficulty of launching my boat came often into my head; but
I put a stop to my own inquiries into it by this foolish answer which
I gave myself: "Let's first make it; I'll warrant I'll find some way
or other to get it along when 't is done."
This was a most preposterous method; but the eagerness of my fancy
prevailed, and to work I went. I felled a cedar-tree: I question much
whether Solomon ever had such a one for the building of the Temple at
Jerusalem. It was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part next
the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of
twenty-two feet, after which it lessened for a while, and then parted
into branches. It was not without infinite labor that I felled this
tree. I was twenty days hacking and hewing at it at the bottom; I was
fourteen more getting the branches and limbs, and the vast spreading
head of it cut off, which I hacked and hewed through with axe and
hatchet, and inexpressible labor. After this, it cost me a month to
shape it and dub it to a proportion, and to something like the bottom
of a boat, that it might swim upright as it ought to do. It cost me
near three months more to clear the inside, and work it so as to make
an exact boat of it. This I did, indeed, without fire, by mere mallet
and chisel, and by the dint of hard labor, till I had brought it to be
a very handsome _periagua_, and big enough to have carried six and
twenty men, and consequently big enough to have carried me and all my
cargo.
When I had gone through this work, I was extremely delighted with it.
The boat was really much bigger than I ever saw a canoe or _periagua_
that was made of one tree, in my life. Many a weary stroke it had
cost, you may be sure; and there remained nothing but to get it into
the water; and had I gotten it into the water, I make no question but
I should have begun the maddest voyage, and the most unlikely to be
performed, that ever was undertaken.
But all my devices to get it into the water failed me, though they
cost me infinite labor too. It lay about one hundred yards from the
water, and not more; but the first inconvenience was, it was uphill
towards the creek. Well, to take away this discouragement, I resolved
to dig into the surface of the earth, and so make a declivity. This I
began, and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains; but who grudges
pains that have their deliverance in view? But when this was worked
through, and this difficulty managed, it was still much at one, for I
could no more stir the canoe than I could the other boat.
Then I measured the distance of ground, and resolved to cut a dock or
canal, to bring the water up to the canoe, seeing I could not bring
the canoe down to the water. Well, I began this work; and when I began
to enter into it, and calculate how deep it was to be dug, how broad,
how the stuff to be thrown out, I found that by the number of hands I
had, being none but my own, it must have been ten or twelve years
before I should have gone through with it; for the shore lay high, so
that at the upper end it must have been at least twenty feet deep; so
at length, though with great reluctancy, I gave this attempt over
also.
This grieved me heartily; and now I saw, though too late, the folly of
beginning a work before we count the cost and before we judge rightly
of our own strength to go through with it.
THE MYSTERIOUS FOOTPRINT
_By Daniel Defoe_
I was something impatient to have the use of my boat, though very
loath to run any more hazards; and therefore sometimes I sat
contriving ways to get her about the island, and at other times I sat
myself down contented enough without her. But I had a strange
uneasiness in my mind to go down to the point of the island where, as
I have said, in my last ramble, I went up the hill to see how the
shore lay, and how the current set, that I might see what I had to do.
This inclination increased upon me every day, and at length I resolved
to travel thither by land, following the edge of the shore. I did so;
but had anyone in England been to meet such a man as I was, it must
either have frighted him, or raised a great deal of laughter; and as I
frequently stood still to look at myself, I could not but smile at the
notion of my traveling through Yorkshire, with such an equipage, and
in such a dress. Be pleased to take a sketch of my figure, as
follows:--
I had a great high shapeless cap, made of a goat-skin, with a flap
hanging down behind, as well to keep the sun from me, as to shoot the
rain off from running into my neck; nothing being so hurtful in these
climates as the rain upon the flesh, under the clothes.
I had a short jacket of goat-skin, the skirts coming down to about the
middle of my thighs; and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same.
The breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung
down such a length on either side, that, like pantaloons, it reached
to the middle of my legs. Stockings and shoes I had none, but had made
me a pair of somethings, I scarce know what to call them, like
buskins, to flap over my legs, and lace on either side like
spatterdashes; but of a most barbarous shape, as indeed were all the
rest of my clothes.
I had on a broad belt of goat-skin dried, which I drew together with
two thongs of the same, instead of buckles; and in a kind of frog on
either side of this, instead of a sword and a dagger, hung a little
saw and a hatchet, one on one side, one on the other. I had another
belt, not so broad, and fastened in the same manner, which hung over
my shoulder; and at the end of it, under my left arm, hung two
pouches, both made of goat-skin too; in one of which hung my powder,
in the other my shot. At my back I carried my basket, on my shoulder
my gun, and over my head a great clumsy, ugly goat-skin umbrella, but
which, after all, was the most necessary thing I had about me, next to
my gun. As for my face, the color of it was really not so mulatto-like
as one might expect from a man not at all careful of it, and living
within nineteen degrees of the equinox. My beard I had once suffered
to grow till it was about a quarter of a yard long; but as I had both
scissors and razors sufficient, I had cut it pretty short, except what
grew on my upper lip, which I had trimmed into a large pair of
Mahometan whiskers such as I had seen worn by some Turks whom I saw at
Sallee; for the Moors did not wear such, though the Turks did. Of
these mustachios or whiskers, I will not say they were long enough to
hang my hat upon them, but they were of a length and shape monstrous
enough, and such as, in England, would have passed for frightful.
But all this is by the bye; for as to my figure I had so few to
observe me that it was of no manner of consequence; so I say no more
to that part. In this kind of figure I went my new journey, and was
out five or six days. I traveled first along the seashore, directly to
the place where I first brought my boat to an anchor, to get up upon
the rocks. And having no boat now to take care of, I went over the
land, a nearer way, to the same height that I was upon before; when,
looking forward to the point of the rocks which lay out, and which I
was obliged to double with my boat, as is said above, I was surprised
to see the sea all smooth and quiet, no rippling, no motion, no
current, any more there than in other places.
I was at a strange loss to understand this, and resolved to spend some
time in the observing it, to see if nothing from the sets of the tide
had occasioned it. But I was presently convinced how it was, viz.,
that the tide of ebb setting from the west, and joining with the
current of waters from some great river on the shore, must be the
occasion of this current; and that according as the wind blew more
forcibly from the west, or from the north, this current came near, or
went farther from the shore; for waiting thereabouts till evening, I
went up to the rock again, and then the tide of ebb being made, I
plainly saw the current again as before, only that it run farther off,
being near half a league from the shore; whereas in my case it set
close upon the shore, and hurried me and my canoe along with it,
which, at another time, it would not have done.
This observation convinced me that I had nothing to do but to observe
the ebbing and the flowing of the tide, and I might very easily bring
my boat about the island again. But when I began to think of putting
it in practice, I had such a terror upon my spirits at the remembrance
of the danger I had been in that I could not think of it again with
any patience; but, on the contrary, I took up another resolution,
which was more safe, though more laborious; and this was, that I would
build, or rather make me another _periagua_, or canoe, and so have one
for one side of the island, and one for the other.
You are to understand that now I had, as I may call it, two
plantations in the island; one, my little fortification or tent, with
the wall about it, under the rock, with the cave behind me, which, by
this time, I had enlarged into several apartments or caves, one within
another. One of these, which was the driest and largest, and had a
door out beyond my wall or fortification, that is to say, beyond where
my wall joined to the rock, was all filled up with the large earthen
pots, of which I have given an account, and with fourteen or fifteen
great baskets, which would hold five or six bushels each, where I laid
up my stores of provision, especially my corn, some in the ear, cut
off short from the straw, and the other rubbed out with my hand.
As for my wall, made, as before, with long stakes or piles, those
piles grew all like trees, and were by this time grown so big, and
spread so very much, that there was not the least appearance, to any
one's view, of any habitation behind them.
Near this dwelling of mine, but a little farther within the land, and
upon lower ground, lay my two pieces of corn ground, which I kept duly
cultivated and sowed, and which duly yielded me their harvest in its
season; and whenever I had occasion for more corn, I had more land
adjoining as fit as that.
Besides this, I had my country seat, and I had now a tolerable
plantation there also; for, first, I had my little bower, as I called
it, which I kept in repair; that is to say, I kept the hedge which
circled it in constantly fitted up to its usual height, the ladder
standing always in the inside. I kept the trees, which at first were
no more than my stakes, but were now grown very firm and tall,--I kept
them always so cut that they might spread and grow thick and wild, and
make the more agreeable shade, which they did effectually to my mind.
In the middle of this, I had my tent always standing, being a piece of
a sail spread over poles, set up for that purpose, and which never
wanted any repair or renewing; and under this I had made me a squab or
couch, with the skins of the creatures I had killed, and with other
soft things, and a blanket laid on them, such as belonged to our
sea-bedding, which I had saved, and a great watch-coat to cover me;
and here, whenever I had occasion to be absent from my chief seat, I
took up my country habitation.
Adjoining to this I had my enclosures for my cattle, that is to say,
my goats. And as I had taken an inconceivable deal of pains to fence
and enclose this ground, so I was so uneasy to see it kept entire,
lest the goats should break through, that I never left off till, with
infinite labor, I had stuck the outside of the hedge so full of small
stakes, and so near to one another, that it was rather a pale than a
hedge, and there was scarce room to put a hand through between them;
which afterwards, when those stakes grew, as they all did in the next
rainy season, made the enclosure strong like a wall,--indeed, stronger
than any wall.
This will testify for me that I was not idle, and that I spared no
pains to bring to pass whatever appeared necessary for my comfortable
support; for I considered the keeping up a breed of tame creatures
thus at my hand would be a living magazine of flesh, milk, butter, and
cheese for me as long as I lived in the place, if it were to be forty
years; and that keeping them in my reach depended entirely upon my
perfecting my enclosures to such a degree that I might be sure of
keeping them together; which, by this method, indeed, I so effectually
secured that when these little stakes began to grow, I had planted
them so very thick I was forced to pull some of them up again.
In this place also I had my grapes growing, which I principally
depended on for my winter store of raisins, and which I never failed
to preserve very carefully, as the best and most agreeable dainty of
my whole diet. And indeed they were not agreeable only, but physical,
wholesome, nourishing, and refreshing to the last degree.
As this was also about halfway between my other habitation and the
place where I had laid up my boat, I generally stayed and lay here in
my way thither; for I used frequently to visit my boat, and I kept all
things about or belonging to her in very good order. Sometimes I went
out in her to divert myself, but no more hazardous voyages would I go,
nor scarce ever above a stone's cast or two from the shore, I was so
apprehensive of being hurried out of my knowledge again by the
currents or winds, or any other accident. But now I come to a new
scene of my life.
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.
[Illustration: ONE DAY ABOUT NOON, GOING TOWARDS MY BOAT, I WAS
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.]
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 frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more
terror of mind than I to this retreat.
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
subtilty 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 loath, perhaps, to stay in this
desolate island as I should have been to have 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; that 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.