TOLD TO THE CHILDREN SERIES
EDITED BY LOUEY CHISHOLM
ROBINSON CRUSOE
[Illustration: Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer the shore (page
15)]
Daniel Defoe
ROBINSON CRUSOE
TOLD TO THE CHILDREN BY
JOHN LANG
WITH PICTURES BY
W. B. ROBINSON
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
TO
ALEC CORSE SCOTT
MY DEAR ALEC,
When Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, nearly two hundred years ago, boys
had more time on their hands, fewer books and fewer games than they
have now, and they, as well as their fathers, read it and loved it. And
when your father and I were boys--though that is rather less than two
hundred years ago--we too used often to read it.
But boys nowadays do not seem to read Robinson Crusoe as they used to
do. It is too long, they think, and there is much in it that they have
not time to read. That is why I have written here, in as few words as
possible, the tale of Robinson’s twenty-eight years in his Island, and
I hope that you, and other boys, will like it.
The sea that lay round Robinson’s island is not like the one you
know--the grey North Sea, stormy and cold; but it is blue like a
sapphire, and where the rollers break in white foam on the coral
reefs it seems as if it were edged with pearls. On the shores of the
islands, cocoa-nut palms wave their feathery fronds in the breeze;
butterflies of wondrous colours hover about; and in and out amongst the
thick-leaved trees dash birds, chattering and screaming, all crimson
and blue and yellow and green.
Often there are snakes too, and it was lucky that no snakes on
Robinson’s island troubled him. For on some islands that I have seen
there are snakes--black and white, the most poisonous of them--that
swim about in the sea and come up on the beach, and you have to be
careful that you do not sit down on the top of one, for they are not
always very quick at getting out of the way.
When you are a man, perhaps some day you will go to one of those
tropical islands. And if you take a boat and row out to the inside of
the reef of coral that lies round the island, and put your face close
down, and look through the quiet, crystal clear water, you will know
what Fairyland beneath the sea is like. You will find there gardens
of a beauty never seen on land, only the branches of the trees are of
coral, and in and out amongst them, instead of bright-coloured birds,
you will see fishes swimming, some of a vivid yellow and black, others
blue as the sky. That is where the mermaids used to play, when the
world was younger than it is now.
Yours affectionately,
JOHN LANG.
CONTENTS
Chap. Page
I. How Robinson first went to sea, and how he
was shipwrecked, 1
II. Robinson works hard at making himself a
home, 12
III. The earthquake and hurricane; and how
Robinson built a boat, 22
IV. Robinson builds a second boat, in which he
is swept out to sea, 31
V. Robinson sees a footprint on the sand, and
finds traces of cannibal feasts, 38
VI. Robinson finds a cave; hears guns fired by
a ship in distress, 48
VII. Robinson visits the wrecked Spanish ship;
rescues a prisoner from the cannibals, 59
VIII. How Robinson trained Friday, 73
IX. Robinson and Friday build a large boat;
they rescue two prisoners from the
cannibals, 86
X. Arrival of an English ship; Robinson sails
for home, 99
LIST OF PICTURES
Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer the shore, _Frontispiece_
At page
Once Robinson shot a lion that he saw lying asleep, 8
One day he came on a large turtle, 26
He saw the mark of a naked foot on the sand, 40
The harbour where he had kept his boat so long, 64
The man knelt and kissed the ground, 70
Robinson ran to the white prisoner and cut his bonds, 94
What could an English ship be doing here? 102
CHAPTER I
HOW ROBINSON FIRST WENT TO SEA;
AND HOW HE WAS SHIPWRECKED
Long, long ago, before even your grandfather’s father was born, there
lived in the town of York a boy whose name was Robinson Crusoe. Though
he never even saw the sea till he was quite a big boy, he had always
wanted to be a sailor, and to go away in a ship to visit strange,
foreign, far-off lands; and he thought that if he could only do that,
he would be quite happy.
But his father wanted him to be a lawyer, and he often talked to
Robinson, and told him of the terrible things that might happen to him
if he went away, and how people who stopped at home were always the
happiest. He told him, too, how Robinson’s brother had gone away, and
had been killed in the wars.
So Robinson promised at last that he would give up wanting to be a
sailor. But in a few days the longing came back as bad as ever, and
he asked his mother to try to coax his father to let him go just one
voyage. But his mother was very angry, and his father said, ‘If he goes
abroad he will be the most miserable wretch that ever was born. I can
give no consent to it.’
Robinson stopped at home for another year, till he was nineteen years
old, all the time thinking and thinking of the sea. But one day when
he had gone on a visit to Hull, a big town by the sea, to say good-bye
to one of his friends who was going to London, he could not resist the
chance. Without even sending a message to his father and mother, he
went on board his friend’s ship, and sailed away.
But as soon as the wind began to blow and the waves to rise, poor
Robinson was very frightened and sea-sick, and he said to himself that
if ever he got on shore he would go straight home and never again leave
it.
He was very solemn till the wind stopped blowing. His friend and the
sailors laughed at him, and called him a fool, and he very soon forgot,
when the weather was fine and the sun shining, all he had thought about
going back to his father and mother.
But in a few days, when the ship had sailed as far as Yarmouth Roads
on her way to London, they had to anchor, and wait for a fair wind. In
those days there were no steamers, and vessels had only their sails to
help them along; so if it was calm, or the wind blew the wrong way,
they had just to wait where they were till a fair wind blew.
Whilst they lay at Yarmouth the weather became very bad, and there was
a great storm. The sea was so heavy and Robinson’s ship was in such
danger, that at last they had to cut away the masts in order to ease
her and to stop her from rolling so terribly. The Captain fired guns
to show that his ship wanted help. So a boat from another ship was
lowered, and came with much difficulty and took off Robinson and all
the crew, just before their vessel sank; and they got ashore at last,
very wet and miserable, having lost all their clothes except what they
had on.
But Robinson had some money in his pocket, and he went on to London by
land, thinking that if he returned home now, people would laugh at him.
In London he made friends with a ship’s captain, who had not long
before come home from a voyage to the Guinea Coast, as that part of
Africa was then called; and the Captain was so pleased with the money
he had made there, that he easily persuaded Robinson to go with him on
his next voyage.
So Robinson took with him toys, and beads, and other things, to sell to
the natives in Africa, and he got there, in exchange for these things,
so much gold dust that he thought he was soon going in that way to make
his fortune.
And therefore he went on a second voyage.
But this time he was not so lucky, for before they reached the African
Coast, one morning, very early, they sighted another ship, which they
were sure was a Pirate. So fast did this other vessel sail, that before
night she had come up to Robinson’s ship, which did not carry nearly so
many men nor so many guns as the Pirate, and which therefore did not
want to fight; and the pirates soon took prisoner Robinson and all the
crew of his ship who were not killed, and made slaves of them.
The Pirate captain took Robinson as his own slave, and made him dig
in his garden and work in his house. Sometimes, too, he made him look
after his ship when she was in port, but he never took him away on a
voyage.
For two years Robinson lived like this, very unhappy, and always
thinking how he might escape.
At last, when the Captain happened one time to be at home longer than
usual, he began to go out fishing in a boat two or three times a week,
taking Robinson, who was a very good fisher, and a black boy named
Xury, with him.
One day he gave Robinson orders to put food and water, and some guns,
and powder and shot, on a big boat that the pirates had taken out of an
English ship, and to be ready to go with him and some of his friends on
a fishing trip.
But at the last moment the Captain’s friends could not come, and so
Robinson was told to go out in the boat with one of the Captain’s
servants who was not a slave, and with Xury, to catch fish for supper.
Then Robinson thought that his chance to escape had come.
He spoke to the servant, who was not very clever, and persuaded him to
put more food and water on the boat, for, said Robinson, ‘we must not
take what was meant for our master.’ And then he got the servant to
bring some more powder and shot, because, Robinson said, they might as
well kill some birds to eat.
When they had gone out about a mile, they hauled down the sail and
began to fish. But Robinson pretended that he could not catch anything
there, and he said that they ought to go further out. When they had
gone so far that nobody on shore could see what they were doing,
Robinson again pretended to fish. But this time he watched his chance,
and when the servant was not looking, came behind him and threw him
overboard, knowing that the man could swim so well that he could easily
reach the land.
Then Robinson sailed away with Xury down the coast to the south. He did
not know to what country he was steering, but cared only to get away
from the pirates, and to be free once more.
Long days and nights they sailed, sometimes running in close to the
land, but they were afraid to go ashore very often, because of the wild
beasts and the natives. Many times they saw great lions come roaring
down on to the beach, and once Robinson shot one that he saw lying
asleep, and took its skin to make a bed for himself on the boat.
At last, after some weeks, when they had got south as far as the great
cape that is called Cape de Verde, they saw a Portuguese vessel, which
took them on board. It was not easy for Robinson to tell who he was,
because he could not talk Portuguese, but everybody was very kind to
him, and they bought his boat and his guns and everything that he had.
They even bought poor Xury, who, of course, was a black slave, and
could be sold just like a horse or a dog.
So, when they got to Brazil, where the vessel was bound, Robinson had
enough money to buy a plantation; and he grew sugar and tobacco there
for four years, and was very happy and contented for a time, and made
money.
[Illustration: Once Robinson shot a lion that he saw lying asleep]
But he could never be contented for very long. So when some of his
neighbours asked him if he would go in a ship to the Guinea Coast to
get slaves for them, he went, only making a bargain that he was to
be paid for his trouble, and to get some of the slaves to work on his
plantation when he came back.
Twelve days after the ship sailed, a terrible storm blew, and they were
driven far from where they wanted to go. Great, angry, foaming seas
broke over the deck, sweeping everything off that could be moved, and
a man and a boy were carried overboard and drowned. No one on the ship
expected to be saved.
This storm was followed by another, even worse. The wind howled and
roared through the rigging, and the weather was thick with rain and
flying spray.
Then early one morning land was dimly seen through the driving rain,
but almost at once the vessel struck on a sand-bank. In an instant the
sails were blown to bits, and flapped with such uproar that no one
could hear the Captain’s orders. Waves poured over the decks, and the
vessel bumped on the sand so terribly that the masts broke off near
the deck, and fell over the side into the sea.
With great difficulty the only boat left on the ship was put in the
water, and everybody got into her. They rowed for the shore, hoping to
get perhaps into some bay, or to the mouth of a river, where the sea
would be quiet.
But before they could reach the land, a huge grey wave, big like the
side of a house, came foaming and thundering up behind them, and before
any one could even cry out, it upset the boat, and they were all left
struggling in the water.
Robinson was a very good swimmer, but no man could swim in such a sea,
and it was only good fortune that brought him at last safely to land.
Big wave after big wave washed him further and further up the beach,
rolling him over and over, once leaving him helpless, and more than
half-drowned, beside a rock.
But before the next wave could come up, perhaps to drag him back with
it into the sea, he was able to jump up and run for his life.
And so he got safely out of the reach of the water, and lay down upon
the grass. But of all on board the ship, Robinson was the only one who
was not drowned.