ROBINSON WORKS HARD AT MAKING
HIMSELF A HOME
When he had rested a little, Robinson got up and began to walk about
very sadly, for darkness was coming on; he was wet, and cold, and
hungry, and he did not know where to sleep, because he was afraid of
wild beasts coming out of the woods and killing him during the night.
But he found that he still had his knife in his pocket, so he cut a big
stick to protect himself with. Then he climbed into a tree which had
very thick leaves, and there he fixed himself among the branches as
well as he could, and fell sound asleep.
In the morning when he awoke, the storm was past, and the sea quieter.
To his surprise, he saw that the ship had been carried in the night,
by the great seas, much nearer to the shore than she had been when the
boat left her, and was now lying not far from the rock where Robinson
had first been washed up.
By midday the sea was quite calm, and the tide had gone so far out that
he could walk very near to the ship. So he took off his clothes and
swam the rest of the way to her. But it was not easy to get on board,
because the ship was resting on the sand, and lay so high out of the
water that Robinson could not reach anything by which he could pull
himself up.
At last, after swimming twice round the vessel, he saw a rope hanging
over, near the bow, and by its help he climbed on board.
Everything in the stern of the ship was dry, and in pretty good order,
and the water had not hurt the provisions much. So he took some
biscuits, and ate them as he looked about, and drank some rum, and then
he felt better, and stronger, and more fit to begin work.
First of all, he took a few large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or
two, that were on the deck. These he pushed overboard, tying each with
a rope to keep it from drifting away. Then he went over the side of the
ship, and tied all the spars together so as to make a raft, and on top
he put pieces of plank across. But it was long before he could make the
raft fit to carry the things he wanted to take on shore.
At last, after much hard work, he got on to it three of the seamen’s
chests, which he had broken open and emptied, and he filled these with
bread, and rice, and cheese, and whatever he could find to eat, and
with all sorts of things that he thought he might need. He found, too,
the carpenter’s tool chest, and put it on the raft; and nothing on the
whole ship was of more use to him than that.
Then he set about looking for clothes, for while he had been on the
ship, the tide had risen and had washed away his coat and waistcoat
and shirt, which he had left lying on the sand.
Guns and pistols also, and powder and shot, he took, and two old rusty
cutlasses.
Now the trouble was to reach land, for the raft had no mast nor sail
nor rudder, and was too heavy and clumsy to be pulled by Robinson with
the broken oars that he had found. But the tide was rising, and slowly
she drifted nearer and nearer, and at last was carried up the mouth of
a little river which Robinson had not seen when he was on shore.
There was a strong tide running up, which once carried the raft against
a point of land, where she stuck for a time, and very nearly upset all
the things into deep water. But as the tide rose higher, Robinson was
able to push her into a little bay where the water was shallow and the
ground beneath flat, and when the tide went out there she was left high
and dry, and he got everything safely ashore.
The next thing that Robinson did was to climb a hill, that he might
see what sort of country he was in, and find out if there were any
other people in it. But when he got to the top, he saw to his sorrow
that he was on an island, with no other land in sight except some
rocks, and two smaller islands far over the sea. There were no signs of
any people, and he saw nothing living except great numbers of birds,
one of which he shot. But it was not fit to eat, being some kind of
hawk.
After this, with the chests and boards that he had brought on shore, he
made a kind of hut to sleep in that night, and he lay there on the sand
very comfortably.
Day by day now for some time Robinson swam out to the ship, and made
fresh rafts, loading them with many stores, powder and shot, and lead
for bullets, seven muskets, a great barrel of bread, three casks of
rum, a quantity of flour, some grain, a box of sugar, sails and ropes
and twine, bags of nails, and many hatchets. With one of the sails he
made himself a good tent, in which he put everything that could be
spoiled by rain or sun. Around it he piled all the casks and other
heavy things, so that no wild beast could very easily get at him.
In about a fortnight the weather changed; it blew very hard one night,
and in the morning the ship had broken up, and was no more to be seen.
But that did not so much matter, for Robinson had got out of her nearly
everything that he could use.
Now, Robinson thought it time to find some better place for his tent.
The land where it then stood was low and near the sea, and the only
water he could get to drink tasted rather salt. Looking about, he found
a little plain, about a hundred yards across, on the side of a hill,
and at the end of the plain was a great rock partly hollowed out, but
not so as quite to make a cave. Here he pitched his tent, close to the
hollow place in the rock. Round in front of the tent he drove two rows
of strong stakes, about eighteen inches apart, sharpened at top; and he
made this fence so strong that when it was finished he was sure that
nothing could get at him, for he left no door, but climbed in and out
by a ladder, which he always hauled up after him.
Before closing up the end, Robinson hauled inside this fence all his
stores, his food and his guns, his powder and shot, and he rigged
inside a double tent, so better to keep off the hot sun and the rain.
Then he began to dig into the rock, which was not very hard, and soon
behind his tent he had a cave in which he thought it wise to stow his
gunpowder, about one hundred and forty pounds in all, packed in small
parcels; for, he thought, if a big thunderstorm were to come, a flash
of lightning might explode it all, and blow him to bits, if he kept the
whole of it in his tent.
Robinson was now very comfortable, and as he had saved from the wreck
two cats and a dog, he did not feel quite so lonely. He had got, also,
ink and pens and paper, so that he could keep a diary; and he set up
a large wooden cross, on which he cut with his knife the date of his
landing on the island--30th September 1659; and every day he cut a
notch on the post, with a longer one each Sunday, so that he might
always know how the months and years passed.
As for food, he found that there were many goats on the island, and
numbers of pigeons, and he had no difficulty in shooting as many as he
needed.
But now he saw that his tent and cave were too small for all the things
he had stowed in them, so he began to make the cave bigger, bringing
out all the rock and soil that he cut down, and making with it a
kind of terrace round the inside of his stockade. And as he was sure
that there were no wild beasts on the island to harm him, he went on
tunnelling to the right hand till he broke through the rock outside his
fence.
Then he began to hang things up against the side of the cave, and he
even made shelves, and a door for the outside entrance. This was a very
difficult job, and took him a long time; for, to make a board, he was
forced to cut down a whole tree, and chop away with his axe till one
side was flat, and then cut at the other side till the board was thin
enough, when he smoothed it with his adze. But in this way, out of each
tree he would only get one plank. He made for himself also a table and
a chair, and finally got his castle, as he called it, in very good
order.
With all his care, however, there was one thing that he forgot, and
that was, when he had made the cave so much bigger, to prop it, so as
to keep the roof from falling in. And so one day he got a terrible
fright, and was nearly killed, by a huge bit of the soft rock which
fell and buried many of his things. It took weeks of hard work
afterwards to clear away the fallen rubbish, and to cut beams strong
enough to prop the roof.
Every day, all this time, he used to climb up the hill and look around
over the lonely waters, hoping, always hoping, that some morning he
might see the sails of a ship that would take him home. But none ever
came, and sometimes the tears ran down his cheeks because of the sorrow
he felt at being so utterly alone. At times even, he thought in his
misery that if only he had any kind of a boat, it would be better to
sail away, and chance reaching other land, rather than to stop where
he was. By and by, however, he grew less unhappy, for he had plenty of
work to do.