THE EARTHQUAKE AND HURRICANE;
AND HOW ROBINSON BUILT A BOAT
Now about this time, when Robinson had been some months on the island,
heavy and constant rain began to fall, and sometimes weeks would pass
without a single dry day. He found that instead of there being Spring,
Summer, Autumn, and Winter, as in England, the seasons in his island
were divided into the wet and the dry. There was no cold weather, no
winter. It chanced that just before this first rain began, Robinson
had emptied out some refuse from bags which had once held rice, and
other grain, and he had forgotten all about having emptied them. So he
was very much astonished to find, some time afterwards, both barley
and rice growing near his tent, in the shade of the rock. The ears,
when ripe, he kept to sow again, and from this very small beginning,
in the course of a few seasons, he had a great quantity of grain, both
for food and for sowing. But this meant every year much hard work, for
he had no plough nor harrow, and all the ground had to be dug with a
clumsy spade, made from a very hard, heavy wood that grew on the island.
At first Robinson could not grind the grain that he grew, nor make
bread from it. If he could have found a large stone, slightly hollow on
top, he might, by pounding the grain on it with another round stone,
have made very good meal. But all the stones he could find were too
soft, and in the end he had to make a sort of mill of hard wood, in
which he burnt a hollow place, and on that he pounded the grain into
meal with a heavy stick.
Baking he did by building a big fire, then raking away the ashes, and
putting the dough on the hot place, covered with a kind of basin made
of clay, over which he heaped the red ashes. In this way very good
bread can be made.
Before the rainy season was over, and just after he had finished the
fence round his tent, one day when Robinson was at work in the cave,
all of a sudden the earth began to fall from the roof, and the strong
props he had put in cracked in a way which frightened him terribly.
At the same time there was a curious moaning, rumbling noise, that he
could not understand. He rushed out, and so afraid was he that the roof
was falling in, and that he should be buried, that he got over the
fence and began to run.
But he was even more frightened when he found that all the ground was
shaking. Then he knew that this was an earthquake.
Three times there came violent shocks; a huge rock about half a mile
away fell with a great noise like thunder, and the sea was churned
up as if by a whirlwind. Robinson was sick with the movement of the
ground, and trembling with the dread of being swallowed by the earth
as it cracked and gaped; and after the noise and shaking were over, he
was too frightened to go back to his tent, but sat where he was, all
the time expecting another shock.
Suddenly a furious wind began to blow, tearing up trees by the roots,
and lashing the water till nothing could be seen but foam and flying
spray. The air was full of branches and leaves torn off by the
hurricane, and birds in hundreds were swept helpless out to sea. In
about three hours, as suddenly as it had begun, the wind fell, and
there was a dead calm, followed by rain such as Robinson had never
before seen, which soaked him to the skin, and forced him to return to
the cave, where he sat in great fear.
For long after this he was very uneasy, and made up his mind to shift
his quarters as soon as he could find a better place for his tent. But
the earthquake had one good result, for what remained of the wreck
was again thrown up by the sea, and Robinson got more things out of
it which were useful to him, and for days he worked hard at that. One
day, too, when he was on his way to the remains of the ship, he came
on a large turtle, which he killed, and this gave him plenty of good
food, for besides the flesh, there were, inside the animal, many eggs,
which she had come to the shore to lay in the sand, as is the habit of
turtles, and which Robinson thought were even better than hen’s eggs.
[Illustration: One day he came on a large turtle]
Now a few days after he had got so wet in the heavy rain, though the
weather was hot, Robinson felt very cold and shivery, and had pains all
over his body, and at night he dreamed terrible dreams. The following
day, and many days, he lay very ill with fever and ague, and hardly
knew what he was doing. So weak was he, that he believed he was dying,
and there was no one to give him water to quench his thirst, nor to
help him in any way. His only medicine was rum, in which he had soaked
tobacco. It was very nasty, and made him sick, but it also made him
sleep for more than a whole day and a night, and he woke much better,
and able to walk about a little, though for a fortnight he was too weak
to work. From this illness he learned not to go out more than he could
help during the rainy season.
When he was again quite strong, Robinson started to explore the island
better than he had yet done, and he found many things growing, of which
he made great use afterwards, tobacco, sugar-cane, and all manner of
fruits, amongst them grapes, which he used to dry to raisins in the sun
in great quantities.
Near the spot where the most fruit grew, he built a hut, and round it,
for safety, he put a double fence made of stakes cut from some of the
trees near at hand. During the next rainy season these stakes took
root, and grew so fast that soon nothing of the hut could be seen from
outside the hedge, and it made so good a hiding-place, that Robinson
cut more stakes of the same kind, and planted them outside the fence
around his first dwelling; and in a year or two that also was quite
hidden from view. The twigs of this tree, too, were good for making
baskets, of which he had been in great need.
When he had finished all this work, he started again to go over the
rest of the island, and on his way across, from a hill, the day being
very clear, he saw high land a great way off over the water, but
whether it was another island, or the coast of America, he could not be
sure.
When he reached the other side of his island Robinson found the beach
covered with turtles in astonishing numbers, and he thought how much
better off he would have been if he had been cast ashore here, for not
only would the turtles have supplied him with plenty of food, but there
were far more birds than on the part of the island where he had been
living, and far more goats.
During the journey back to his castle he caught a young parrot, which,
after a long time, he taught to speak and to call him by his name. It
was so long since he had heard any voice, that it was a comfort to
listen even to a parrot talking.
Now, the sight which Robinson had had of the far distant land raised in
him again the great longing to get away from this island where he had
been so long alone, and he wished greatly for a boat. He went over to
the remains of the boat in which he and the others had tried to come
ashore when their ship struck on the sand-bank, and which had been
flung far up on the beach by the sea, and he worked for weeks trying to
repair her and to get her into the water. But it was all of no use; he
could not move her.
Then, he thought, ‘I’ll cut down a tree, and make a new boat.’ This he
fancied would be easy, for he had heard how the Indians make canoes by
felling a tree and burning out the inside. ‘If they can do it, then
surely I can do it even better,’ he thought. So he looked about, and
chose a huge tree which stood about a hundred yards from the water, and
with great labour in about three weeks he had cut it down.
Four months Robinson worked at this boat, thinking all the time of what
he would do when he reached the far distant land, and much pleased with
himself for the beautiful boat he was making. Day after day he trimmed
and shaped it, and very proud he was when it was finished and lay there
on the ground, big enough to carry twenty men.
Then he started to get her into the water. But that was quite another
thing. By no means in his power could he move her an inch, try as he
might. She was far too big. Then he began to dig a canal from the sea
to the boat; but before he had got much of that work done, he saw
clearly that there was so much earth to dig away, that, without some
one to help him, it must take years and years before he could get the
water to the boat. So he gave it up, and left her to lie and rot in the
sun and the rain,--a great grief to him.