world; I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, nor the
pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all that I was now
capable of enjoying: I was lord of the whole manor; or, if I pleased, I
might call myself king or emperor over the whole country which I had
possession of; there were no rivals; I had no competitor, none to
dispute sovereignty or command with me: I might have raised
ship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it; so I let as little grow
as I thought enough for my occasion. I had tortoise or turtle enough,
but now and then one was as much as I could put to any use: I had timber
enough to have built a fleet of ships; and I had grapes enough to have
made wine, or to have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when
it had been built.
But all I could make use of was all that was valuable: I had enough to
eat and supply my wants, and what was the rest to me? If I killed more
flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or vermin; if I sowed more
corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled; the trees that I cut down
were lying to rot on the ground; I could make no more use of them than
for fuel, and that I had no other occasion for but to dress my food.
In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon just
reflection, that all the good things of this world, are of no farther
good to us than for our use; and that whatever we may heap up to give
others, we enjoy only as much as we can use, and no more. The most
covetous griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of
covetousness, if he had been in my case; for I possessed infinitely more
than I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire, except it was for
things which I had not, and they were comparatively but trifles, though
indeed of great use to me. I had, as I hinted before, a parcel of money,
as well gold as silver, about thirty-six pounds sterling. Alas! there
the nasty, sorry, useless stuff lay: I had no manner of business for
it; and I often thought within myself, that I would have given a handful
of it for a gross of tobacco-pipes, or for a hand-mill to grind my corn;
nay, I would have given it all for sixpenny-worth of turnip and carrot
seed from England, or for a handful of peas and beans, and a bottle of
ink. As it was, I had not the least advantage by it, or benefit from it;
but there it lay in a drawer, and grew mouldy with the damp of the cave
in the wet seasons; and if I had had the drawer full of diamonds, it had
been the same case,--they had been of no manner of value to me because
of no use.
I had now brought my state of life to be much more comfortable in itself
than it was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body.
I frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of
God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness: I
learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon
the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what I
wanted: and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot
express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented
people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given
them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them.
All our discontents about what we want, appeared to me to spring from
the want of thankfulness for what we have.
Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be so to
any one that should fall into such distress as mine was; and this was,
to compare my present condition with what I at first expected it would
be; nay, with what it would certainly have been, if the good providence
of God had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up near to the
shore, where I not only could come at her, but could bring what I got
out of her to the shore, for my relief and comfort; without which, I had
wanted for tools to work, weapons for defence, and gunpowder and shot
for getting my food.
I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to myself, in
the most lively colours, how I must have acted if I had got nothing out
of the ship. I could not have so much as got any food, except fish and
turtles; and that, as it was long before I found any of them, I must
have perished; that I should have lived, if I had not perished, like a
mere savage; that if I had killed a goat or a fowl, by any contrivance,
I had no way to flay or open it, or part the flesh from the skin and the
bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth, and pull it
with my claws, like a beast.
These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence to
me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardships
and misfortunes: and this part also I cannot but recommend to the
reflection of those who are apt, in their misery, to say, Is any
affliction like mine? Let them consider how much worse the cases of some
people are, and their case might have been, if Providence had
thought fit.
I had another reflection, which assisted me also to comfort my mind with
hopes; and this was comparing my present condition with what I had
deserved, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of
Providence. I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the
knowledge and fear of God. I had been well instructed by my father and
mother; neither had they been wanting to me, in their endeavours to
infuse an early religious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty,
and what the nature and end of my being required of me. But, alas!
falling early into the seafaring life, which, of all lives, is the most
destitute of the fear of God, though his terrors are always before them;
I say, falling early into the seafaring life, and into seafaring
company, all that little sense of religion which I had entertained was
laughed out of me by my messmates; by a hardened despising of dangers,
and the views of death, which grew habitual to me; by my long absence
from all manner of opportunities to converse with any thing but what was
like myself, or to hear any thing that was good, or tending towards it.
So void was I of every thing that was good, or of the least sense of
what I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed
(such as my escape from Sallee, my being taken up by the Portuguese
master of a ship, my being planted so well in the Brazils, my receiving
the cargo from England, and the like,) I never had once the words, Thank
God, so much as on my mind, or in my mouth; nor in the greatest distress
had I so much as a thought to pray to him, or so much as to say, Lord,
have mercy upon me! no, nor to mention the name of God, unless it was to
swear by, and blaspheme it.
I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months, as I have
already observed, on account of my wicked and hardened life past; and
when I looked about me, and considered what particular providences had
attended me since my coming into this place, and how God had dealt
bountifully with me,--had not only punished me less than my iniquity had
deserved, but had so plentifully provided for me,--this gave me great
hopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercies in
store for me.
With these reflections, I worked my mind up, not only to a resignation
to the will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but
even to a sincere thankfulness for my condition; and that I, who was yet
a living man, ought not to complain, seeing I had not the due punishment
of my sins; that I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason to have
expected in that place, that I ought never more to repine at my
condition, but to rejoice, and to give daily thanks for that daily
bread, which nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought; that I
ought to consider I had been fed by a miracle, even as great as that of
feeding Elijah by ravens; nay, by a long series of miracles: and that I
could hardly have named a place in the uninhabitable part of the world
where I could have been cast more to my advantage; a place where, as I
had no society, which was my affliction on one hand, so I found no
ravenous beasts, no furious wolves or tigers, to threaten my life; no
venomous or poisonous creatures which I might feed on to my hurt; no
savages to murder and devour me. In a word, as my life was a life of
sorrow one way, so it was a life of mercy another; and I wanted nothing
to make it a life of comfort, but to make myself sensible of God's
goodness to me, and care over me in this condition; and after I did make
a just improvement of these things, I went away, and was no more sad.
I had now been here so long, that many things which I brought on shore
for my help were either quite gone, or very much wasted, and near spent.
My ink, as I observed, had been gone for some time, all but a very
little, which I eked out with water, a little and a little, till it was
so pale, it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long
as it lasted, I made use of it to minute down the days of the month on
which any remarkable thing happened to me: and, first, by casting up
times past, I remember that there was a strange concurrence of days in
the various providences which befel me, and which, if I had been
superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I might
have had reason to have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity.
First, I had observed, that the same day that I broke away from my
father and my friends, and ran away to Hull, in order to go to sea, the
same day afterwards I was taken by the Sallee man of war, and made a
slave: the same day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of the
ship in Yarmouth Roads, that same day-year afterwards I made my escape
from Sallee in the boat: and the same day of the year I was born on,
viz. the 30th of September, that same day I had my life so miraculously
saved twenty-six years after, when I was cast on shore in this island:
so that my wicked life and my solitary life began both on one day.
The next thing to my ink being wasted, was that of my bread, I mean the
biscuit which I brought out of the ship; this I had husbanded to the
last degree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a day for above a
year; and yet I was quite without bread for near a year before I got any
corn of my own; and great reason I had to be thankful that I had any at
all, the getting it being, as has been already observed, next to
miraculous.
My clothes, too, began to decay mightily: as to linen, I had none for a
great while, except some chequered shirts which I found in the chests of
the other seamen, and which I carefully preserved, because many times I
could bear no clothes on but a shirt; and it was a very great help to me
that I had, among all the men's clothes of the ship, almost three dozen
of shirts. There were also, indeed, several thick watch-coats of the
seamen's which were left, but they were too hot to wear: and though it
is true that the weather was so violently hot that there was no need of
clothes, yet I could not go quite naked, no, though I had been inclined
to it, which I was not, nor could I abide the thought of it, though, I
was all alone. The reason why I could not go quite naked was, I could
not bear the heat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some
clothes on; nay, the very heat frequently blistered my skin: whereas,
with a shirt on, the air itself made some motion, and whistling under
the shirt, was twofold cooler than without it. No more could I ever
bring myself to go out in the heat of the sun without a cap or hat; the
heat of the sun beating with such violence as it does in that place,
would give me the head-ach presently, by darting so directly upon my
head, without a cap or hat on, so that I could not bear it; whereas, if
I put on my hat, it would presently go away.
Upon these views, I began to consider about putting the few rags I had,
which I called clothes, into some order: I had worn out all the
waistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not make
jackets out of the great watch-coats that I had by me, and with such
other materials as I had; so I set to work a tailoring, or rather,
indeed; a botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made
shift to make two or three new waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me
a great while: as for breeches or drawers, I made but a very sorry shift
indeed till afterwards.
I have mentioned, that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I
killed, I mean four-footed ones; and I had hung them up, stretched out
with sticks, in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and
hard that they were fit for little, but others I found very useful. The
first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the hair
on the outside, to shoot off the rain; and this I performed so well,
that after this I made me a suit of clothes wholly of the skins, that is
to say, a waistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both loose; for
they were rather wanting to keep me cool than warm. I must not omit to
acknowledge that they were wretchedly made; for if I was a bad
carpenter, I was a worse tailor. However, they were such as I made very
good shift with; and when I was abroad, if it happened to rain, the hair
of my waistcoat and cap being uppermost, I was kept very dry.
After this I spent a great deal of time and pains to make me an
umbrella: I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to
make one; I had seen them made in the Brazils, where they were very
useful in the great heats which are there; and I felt the heats every
jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the equinox: besides,
as I was obliged to be much abroad, it was a most useful thing to me, as
well for the rains as the heats. I took a world of pains at it, and was
a great while before I could make any thing likely to hold; nay, after I
thought I had hit the way, I spoiled two or three before I made one to
my mind; but at last I made one that answered indifferently well; the
main difficulty I found was to make it to let down: I could make it
spread, but if it did not let down too, and draw in, it was not portable
for me any way but just over my head, which would not do. However, at
last, as I said, I made one to answer, and covered it with skins, the
hair upwards, so that it cast off the rain like a pent-house, and kept
off the sun so effectually, that I could walk out in the hottest of the
weather with greater advantage than I could before in the coolest; and
when I had no need of it, could close it, and carry it under my arm.
Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed by
resigning to the will of God, and throwing myself wholly upon the
disposal of his providence. This made my life better than sociable; for
when I began to regret the want of conversation, I would ask myself,
whether thus conversing mutually with my own thoughts, and, as I hope I
may say, with even God himself, by ejaculations, was not better than the
utmost enjoyment of human society in the world?
I cannot say that after this, for five years, any extraordinary thing
happened to me, but I lived on in the same course, in the same posture
and place, just as before; the chief things I was employed in, besides
my yearly labour of planting my barley and rice, and curing my raisins,
of both which I always kept up just enough to have sufficient stock of
one year's provision beforehand; I say, besides this yearly labour, and
my daily pursuit of going out with my gun, I had one labour, to make me
a canoe, which at last I finished: so that by digging a canal to it of
six feet wide, and four feet deep, I brought it into the creek, almost
half a mile. As for the first, which was so vastly big, as I made it
without considering beforehand, as I ought to do, how I should be able
to launch it, so, never being able to bring it into the water, or bring
the water to it, I was obliged to let it lie where it was, as a
memorandum to teach me to be wiser the next time: indeed, the next time,
though I could not get a tree proper for it, and was in a place where I
could not get the water to it at any less distance than, as I have said,
near half a mile, yet as I saw it was practicable at last, I never gave
it over: and though I was near two years about it, yet I never grudged
my labour, in hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last.
However, though my little periagua was finished, yet the size of it was
not at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I made the
first; I mean, of venturing over to the _terra firma_, where it was
above forty miles broad; accordingly, the smallness of my boat assisted
to put an end to that design, and now I thought no more of it. As I had
a boat, my next design was to make a cruise round the island; for as I
had been on the other side in one place, crossing, as I have already
described it, over the land, so the discoveries I made in that little
journey made me very eager to see other parts of the coast; and now I
had a boat, I thought of nothing but sailing round the island.
For this purpose, that I might do every thing with discretion and
consideration, I fitted up a little mast in my boat, and made a sail to
it out of some of the pieces of the ship's sails which lay in store, and
of which I had a great stock by me. Having fitted my mast and sail, and
tried the boat, I found she would sail very well: then I made little
lockers, or boxes, at each end of my boat, to put provisions,
necessaries, ammunition, &c. into, to be kept dry, either from rain or
the spray of the sea; and a little long hollow place I cut in the inside
of the boat, where I could lay my gun, making a flap to hang down over
it, to keep it dry.
I fixed my umbrella also in a step at the stern, like a mast, to stand
over my head, and keep the heat of the sun off me, like an awning; and
thus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but never
went far out, nor far from the little creek. At last, being eager to
view the circumference of my little kingdom, I resolved upon my cruise;
and accordingly I victualled my ship for the voyage, putting in two
dozen of loaves (cakes I should rather call them) of barley bread, an
earthen pot full of parched rice (a food I ate a great deal of,) a
little bottle of rum, half a goat, and powder and shot for killing more,
and two large watch-coats, of those which, as I mentioned before, I had
saved out of the seamen's chests; these I took, one to lie upon, and the
other to cover me in the night.
It was the 6th of November, in the sixth year of my reign, or my
captivity, which you please, that I set out on this voyage, and I found
it much longer than I expected; for though the island itself was not
very large, yet when I came to the east side of it, I found a great
ledge of rocks lie out about two leagues into the sea, some above water,
some under it; and beyond that a shoal of sand, lying dry half a league
more, so that I was obliged to go a great way out to sea to double
the point.
When first I discovered them, I was going to give over my enterprise,
and come back again, not knowing how far it might oblige me to go out to
sea, and, above all, doubting how I should get back again; so I came to
an anchor; for I had made me a kind of an anchor with a piece of a
broken grappling which I got out of the ship.
Having secured my boat, I took my gun and went on shore, climbing up on
a hill, which seemed to overlook that point, where I saw the full extent
of it, and resolved to venture.
In my viewing the sea from that hill where I stood, I perceived a
strong, and indeed a most furious current, which ran to the east, and
even came close to the point; and I took the more notice of it, because
I saw there might be some danger, that when I came into it, I might be
carried out to sea by the strength of it, and not be able to make the
island again: and, indeed, had I not got first upon this hill, I believe
it would have been so; for there was the same current on the other side
the island, only that it set off at a farther distance, and I saw there
was a strong eddy under the shore; so I had nothing to do but to get out
of the first current, and I should presently be in an eddy.
I lay here, however, two days, because the wind blowing pretty fresh at
E.S.E. and that being just contrary to the said current, made a great
breach of the sea upon the point; so that it was not safe for me to keep
too close to the shore for the breach, nor to go too far off because of
the stream.
The third day, in the morning, the wind having abated over-night, the
sea was calm, and I ventured: but I am a warning piece again to all
rash and ignorant pilots; for no sooner was I come to the point, when I
was not even my boat's length from the shore, but I found myself in a
great depth of water, and a current like the sluice of a mill; it
carried my boat along with it with such violence, that all I could do
could not keep her so much as on the edge of it; but I found it hurried
me farther and farther out from the eddy, which was on my left hand.
There was no wind stirring to help me, and all I could do with my
paddles signified nothing: and now I began to give myself over for lost;
for as the current was on both sides of the island, I knew in a few
leagues distance they must join again, and then I was irrecoverably
gone; nor did I see any possibility of avoiding it; so that I had no
prospect before me but of perishing, not by the sea, for that was calm
enough, but of starving for hunger. I had indeed found a tortoise on the
shore, as big almost as I could lift, and had tossed it into the boat;
and I had a great jar of fresh water, that is to say, one of my earthen
pots; but what was all this to being driven into the vast ocean, where,
to be sure, there was no shore, no main land or island, for a thousand
leagues at least?
And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make even the
most miserable condition of mankind worse. Now I looked back upon my
desolate solitary island, as the most pleasant place in the world; and
all the happiness my heart could wish for was to be but there again. I
stretched out my hands to it, with eager wishes: "O happy desert!" said
I, "I shall never see thee more. O miserable creature! whither am I
going!" Then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper, and how I
had repined at my solitary condition; and now what would I give to be on
shore there again! Thus we never see the true state of our condition
till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value
what we enjoy, but by the want of it. It is scarce possible to imagine
the consternation I was now in, being driven from my beloved island (for
so it appeared to me now to be) into the wide ocean, almost two leagues,
and in the utmost despair of ever recovering it again. However, I worked
hard, till indeed my strength was almost exhausted, and kept my boat as
much to the northward, that is, towards the side of the current which
the eddy lay on, as possibly I could; when about noon, as the sun passed
the meridian, I thought I felt a little breeze of wind in my face,
springing up from S.S.E. This cheered my heart a little, and especially
when, in about half an hour more, it blew a pretty gentle gale. By this
time I was got at a frightful distance from the island, and had the
least cloudy or hazy weather intervened, I had been undone another way
too; for I had no compass on board, and should never have known how to
have steered towards the island, if I had but once lost sight of it; but
the weather continuing clear, I applied myself to get up my mast again,
and spread my sail, standing away to the north as much as possible, to
get out of the current.
Just as I had set my mast and sail, and the boat began to stretch away,
I saw even by the clearness of the water some alteration of the current
was near; for where the current was so strong, the water was foul; but
perceiving the water clear, I found the current abate; and presently I
found to the east, at about half a mile, a breach of the sea upon some
rocks: these rocks I found caused the current to part again, and as the
main stress of it ran away more southerly, leaving the rocks to the
north-east, so the other returned by the repulse of the rocks, and made
a strong eddy, which ran back again to the north-west, with a very
sharp stream.
They who know what it is to have a reprieve brought to them upon the
ladder, or to be rescued from thieves just going to murder them, or who
have been in such-like extremities, may guess what my present surprise
of joy was, and how gladly I put my boat into the stream of this eddy;
and the wind also freshening, how gladly I spread my sail to it, running
cheerfully before the wind, and with a strong tide or eddy under foot.
This eddy carried me about a league in my way back again, directly
towards the island, but about two leagues more to the northward than the
current which carried me away at first: so that when I came near the
island, I found myself open to the northern shore of it, that is to say,
the other end of the island, opposite to that which I went out from.