that we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said, "Friday,
do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation?"--"Yes,"
he said, "I be much O glad to be at my own nation." "What would you do
there?" said I: "would you turn wild again, eat men's flesh again, and
be a savage as you were before?" He looked full of concern, and shaking
his head, said, "No, no, Friday tell them to live good; tell them to
pray God; tell them to eat corn-bread, cattle-flesh, milk; no eat man
again."--"Why then," said I to him, "they will kill you." He looked
grave at that, and then said, "No, no; they no kill me, they willing
love learn." He meant by this, they would be willing to learn. He added,
they learned much of the bearded mans that came in the boat. Then I
asked him if he would go back to them. He smiled at that, and told me
that he could not swim so far. I told him, I would make a canoe for him.
He told me he would go, if I would go with him. "I go!" says I, "why,
they will eat me if I come there."--"No, no," says he, "me make they no
eat you; me make they much love you," He meant, he would tell them how I
had killed his enemies, and saved his life, and so he would make them
love me. Then he told me, as well as he could, how kind they were to
seventeen white men, or bearded men, as he called them, who came on
shore there in distress.
From this time, I confess I had a mind to venture over, and see if I
could possibly join with those bearded men, who, I made no doubt, were
Spaniards and Portuguese: not doubting but if I could, we might find
some method to escape from thence, being upon the continent, and a good
company together, better than I could from an island forty miles off the
shore, and alone, without help. So, after some days, I took Friday to
work again, by way of discourse; and told him I would give him a boat to
go back to his own nation; and accordingly I carried him to my frigate,
which lay on the other side of the island, and having cleared it of
water (for I always kept it sunk in water,) I brought it out, showed it
him, and we both went into it. I found he was a most dexterous fellow at
managing it, and would make it go almost as swift again as I could. So
when he was in, I said to him, "Well, now, Friday, shall we go to your
nation?" He looked very dull at my saying so; which, it seems, was
because he thought the boat too small to go so far: I then told him I
had a bigger; so the next day I went to the place where the first boat
lay which I had made, but which I could not get into the water. He said
that was big enough: but then, as I had taken no care of it, and it had
lain two or three and twenty years there, the sun had split and dried
it, that, it was in a manner rotten. Friday told me such a boat would do
very well, and would carry "much enough vittle, drink, bread;" that was
his way of talking.
Upon the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going over
with him to the continent, that I told him we would go and make one as
big as that, and he should go home in it. He answered not one word, but
looked very grave and sad. I asked him what was the matter with him? He
asked me again, "Why you angry mad with Friday? what me done?" I asked
him what he meant: I told him I was not angry with him at all. "No
angry!" says he, repeating the words several times, "why send Friday
home away to my nation?"--"Why," says I, "Friday, did not you say you
wished you were there?"--"Yes, yes," says he, "wish be both there; no
wish Friday there, no master there." In a word, he would not think of
going there without me. "I go there, Friday!" says I, "what shall I do
there?" He returned very quick upon me at this: "You do great deal much
good," says he; "you teach wild mans be good, sober, tame mans; you tell
them know God, pray God, and live new life."--"Alas! Friday," says I,
"thou knowest not what thou sayest; I am but an ignorant man
myself."--"Yes, yes," says he, "you teachee me good, you teachee them
good."--"No, no, Friday," says I, "you shall go without me; leave me
here to live by myself, as I did before." He looked confused again at
that word; and running to one of the hatchets which he used to wear, he
takes it up hastily, and gives it to me. "What must I do with this?"
says I to him. "You take kill Friday," says he. "What must I kill you
for?" said I again. He returns very quick, "What you send Friday away
for? Take kill Friday, no send Friday away." This he spoke so earnestly,
that I saw tears stand in his eyes: in a word, I so plainly discovered
the utmost affection in him to me, and a firm resolution in him, that I
told him then, and often after, that I would never send him away from
me, if he was willing to stay with me.
Upon the whole, as I found, by all his discourse, a settled affection to
me, and that nothing should part him from me, so I found all the
foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent
affection to the people, and his hopes of my doing them good; a thing,
which, as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the least thought, or
intention, or desire of undertaking it. But still I found a strong
inclination to my attempting an escape, as above, founded on the
supposition gathered from the discourse, viz. that there were seventeen
bearded men there: and, therefore, without any more delay, I went to
work with Friday, to find out a great tree proper to fell, and make a
large periagua, or canoe, to undertake the voyage. There were trees
enough in the island to have built a little fleet, not of periaguas, or
canoes, but even of good large vessels: but the main thing I looked at
was, to get one so near the water that we might launch it when it was
made, to avoid the mistake I committed at first. At last, Friday pitched
upon a tree; for I found he knew much better than I what kind of wood
was fittest for it; nor can I tell, to this day, what wood to call the
tree we cut down, except that it was very like the tree we call fustic,
or between that and the Nicaragua wood, for it was much of the same
colour and smell. Friday was for burning the hollow or cavity of this
tree out, to make it for a boat, but I showed him how to cut it with
tools; which, after I had showed him how to use, he did very handily:
and in about a month's hard labour we finished it, and made it very
handsome; especially when, with our axes, which I showed him how to
handle, we cut and hewed the outside into the true shape of a boat.
After this, however, it cost us near a fortnight's time to get her
along, as it were inch by inch, upon great rollers into the water; but
when she was in, she would have carried twenty men with great ease.
When she was in the water, and though she was so big, it amazed me to
see with what dexterity, and how swift my man Friday would manage her,
turn her, and paddle her along. So I asked him if he would, and if we
might venture over in her. "Yes," he said, "we venture over in her very
well, though great blow wind." However, I had a farther design that he
knew nothing of, and that was to make a mast and a sail, and to fit her
with an anchor and cable. As to a mast, that was easy enough to get; so
I pitched upon a straight young cedar tree, which I found near the
place, and which there were great plenty of in the island: and I set
Friday to work to cut it down, and gave him directions how to shape and
order it. But as to the sail, that was my particular care. I knew I had
old sails, or rather pieces of old sails enough; but as I had had them
now six and twenty years by me, and had not been very careful to
preserve them, not imagining that I should ever have this kind of use
for them, I did not doubt but they were all rotten, and, indeed, most of
them were so. However, I found two pieces, which appeared pretty good,
and with these I went to work; and with a great deal of pains, and
awkward stitching, you may be sure, for want of needles, I, at length,
made a three-cornered ugly thing, like what we call in England a
shoulder of mutton sail, to go with a boom at bottom, and a little short
sprit at the top, such as usually our ships' long-boats sail with, and
such as I best knew how to manage, as it was such a one I had to the
boat in which I made my escape from Barbary, as related in the first
part of my story.
I was near two months performing this last work, viz. rigging and
fitting my mast and sails; for I finished them very complete, making a
small stay, and a sail, or fore-sail, to it, to assist, if we should
turn to windward; and, which was more than all, I fixed a rudder to the
stern of her to steer with. I was but a bungling shipwright, yet, as I
knew the usefulness, and even necessity of such a thing, I applied
myself with so much pains to do it, that at last I brought it to pass;
though, considering the many dull contrivances I had for it that failed,
I think it cost me almost as much labour as making the boat.
After all this was done, I had my man Friday to teach as to what
belonged to the navigation of my boat; for, though he knew very well how
to paddle a canoe, he knew nothing what belonged to a sail and a rudder;
and was the most amazed when he saw me work the boat to and again in the
sea by the rudder, and how the sail gibbed, and filled this way, or that
way, as the course we sailed changed; I say, when he saw this, he stood
like one astonished and amazed. However, with a little use, I made all
these things familiar to him, and he became an expert sailor, except
that as to the compass; I could make him understand very little of that.
On the other hand, as there was very little cloudy weather, and seldom
or never any fogs in those parts, there was the less occasion for a
compass, seeing the stars were always to be seen by night, and the shore
by day, except in the rainy seasons, and then nobody cared to stir
abroad, either by land or sea.
I was now entered on the seven and twentieth year of my captivity in
this place; though the three last years that I had this creature with me
ought rather to be left out of the account, my habitation being quite of
another kind than in all the rest of the time. I kept the anniversary of
my landing here with the same thankfulness to God for his mercies as at
first; and if I had such cause of acknowledgment at first, I had much
more so now, having such additional testimonies of the care of
Providence over me, and the great hopes I had of being effectually and
speedily delivered; for I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts
that my deliverance was at hand, and that I should not be another year
in this place. I went on, however, with my husbandry; digging, planting,
and fencing, as usual. I gathered and cured my grapes, and did every
necessary thing as before.
The rainy season was, in the mean time, upon me, when I kept more within
doors than at other times. We had stowed our new vessel as secure as we
could, bringing her up into the creek, where, as I said in the
beginning, I landed my rafts from the ship; and hauling her up to the
shore, at high-water mark, I made my man Friday dig a little dock, just
big enough to hold her, and just deep enough to give her water enough to
float in; and then, when the tide was out, we made a strong dam across
the end of it, to keep the water out; and so she lay dry, as to the
tide, from the sea; and to keep the rain off, we laid a great many
boughs of trees, so thick, that she was as well thatched as a house; and
thus we waited for the months of November and December, in which I
designed to make my adventure.
When the settled season began to come in, as the thought of my design
returned with the fair weather, I was preparing daily for the voyage:
and the first thing I did was to lay by a certain quantity of
provisions, being the stores for our voyage: and intended, in a week or
a fortnight's time, to open the dock, and launch out our boat. I was
busy one morning upon something of this kind, when I called to Friday,
and bid him go to the sea-shore, and see if he could find a turtle, or
tortoise, a thing which we generally got once a week, for the sake of
the eggs as well as the flesh. Friday had not been long gone, when he
came running back and flew over my outer-wall, or fence, like one that
felt not the ground, or the steps he set his feet on; and before I had
time to speak to him, he cries out to me, "O master! O master! O sorrow!
O bad!"--"What's the matter, Friday?" says I. "O yonder, there," says
he, "one, two, three canoe; one, two, three!" By this way of speaking, I
concluded there were six; but, on inquiry, I found it was but three.
"Well, Friday," says I, "do not be frightened." So I heartened him up
as well as I could: however, I saw the poor fellow was most terribly
scared; for nothing ran in his head but that they were come to look for
him, and would cut him in pieces, and eat him; and the poor fellow
trembled so, that I scarce knew what to do with him. I comforted him as
well as I could, and told him I was in as much danger as he, and that
they would eat me as well as him. "But," says I, "Friday, we must
resolve to fight them. Can you fight, Friday!"--"Me shoot," says he;
but there come many great number."--No matter for that," said I, again;
"our guns will fright them that we do not kill." So I asked him whether,
if I resolved to defend him, he would defend me, and stand by me, and do
just as I bid him. He said, "Me die, when you bid die, master." So I
went and fetched a good dram of rum and gave him; for I had been so good
a husband of my rum, that I had a great deal left. When he drank it, I
made him take the two fowling-pieces, which we always carried, and
loaded them with large swan-shot, as big as small pistol-bullets; then I
took four muskets, and loaded them with two slugs, and five small
bullets each; and my two pistols I loaded with a brace of bullets each;
I hung my great sword, as usual, naked by my side, and gave Friday his
hatchet. When I had thus prepared myself, I took my perspective-glass,
and went up to the side of the hill, to see what I could discover; and I
found quickly, by my glass, that there were one and twenty savages,
three prisoners, and three canoes; and that their whole business seemed
to be the triumphant banquet upon these three human bodies; a barbarous
feast indeed! but nothing more than, as I had observed, was usual with
them. I observed also, that they were landed, not where they had done
when Friday made his escape, but nearer to my creek: where the shore was
low, and where a thick wood came almost close down to the sea. This,
with the abhorrence of the inhuman errand these wretches came about,
filled me with such indignation, that I came down again to Friday, and
told him I was resolved to go down to them, and kill them all; and asked
him if he would stand by me. He had now got over his fright, and his
spirits being a little raised with the dram I had given him, he was very
cheerful, and told me, as before, he would die when I bid die.
In this fit of fury, I took and divided the arms which I had charged, as
before, between us: I gave Friday one pistol to stick in his girdle, and
three guns upon his shoulder; and I took one pistol, and the other three
guns, myself; and in this posture we marched out. I took a small bottle
of rum in my pocket, and gave Friday a large bag with more powder and
bullets; and, as to orders, I charged him to keep close behind me, and
not to stir, or shoot, or do any thing, till I bid him; and, in the mean
time, not to speak a word. In this posture, I fetched a compass to my
right hand of near a mile, as well to get over the creek as to get into
the wood, so that I might come within shot of them before I should be
discovered, which I had seen, by my glass, it was easy to do.
While I was making this march, my former thoughts returning, I began to
abate my resolution: I do not mean that I entertained any fear of their
number; for, as they were naked, unarmed wretches, it is certain I was
superior to them; nay, though I had been alone. But it occurred to my
thoughts, what call, what occasion, much less what necessity I was in,
to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack people who had neither done
or intended me any wrong? Who, as to me, were innocent, and whose
barbarous customs were their own disaster; being, in them, a token
indeed of God's having left them, with the other nations of that part of
the world, to such stupidity, and to such inhuman courses; but did not
call me to take upon me to be a judge of their actions, much less an
executioner of his justice; that, whenever he thought fit, he would take
the cause into his own hands, and, by national vengeance, punish them,
as a people, for national crimes; but that, in the mean time, it was
none of my business; that, it was true, Friday might justify it, because
he was a declared enemy, and in a state of war with those very
particular people, and it was lawful for him to attack them; but I could
not say the same with respect to myself. These things were so warmly
pressed upon my thoughts all the way as I went, that I resolved I would
only go and place myself near them, that I might observe their barbarous
feast, and that I would act then as God should direct; but that, unless
something offered that was more a call to me than yet I knew of, I would
not meddle with them.
With this resolution I entered the wood; and, with all possible
weariness and silence, Friday following close at my heels, I marched
till I came to the skirt of the wood, on the side which was next to
them, only that one corner of the wood lay between me and them. Here I
called softly to Friday, and showing him a great tree, which was just at
the corner of the wood, I bade him go to the tree, and bring me word if
he could see there plainly what they were doing. He did so; and came
immediately back to me, and told me they might be plainly viewed there;
that they were all about their fire, eating the flesh of one of their
prisoners, and that another lay bound upon the sand, a little from them,
which, he said, they would kill next, and which fired the very soul
within me. He told me it was not one of their nation, but one of the
bearded men he had told me of, that came to their country in the boat. I
was filled with horror at the very naming the white-bearded man; and,
going to the tree, I saw plainly, by my glass, a white man, who lay upon
the beach of the sea, with his hands and his feet tied with flags, or
things like rushes, and that he was an European, and had clothes on.
There was another tree, and a little thicket beyond it, about fifty
yards nearer to them than the place where I was, which, by going a
little way about, I saw I might come at undiscovered, and that then I
should be within half a shot of them: so I withheld my passion, though I
was indeed enraged to the highest degree; and going back about twenty
paces, I got behind some bushes, which held all the way till I came to
the other tree; and then came to a little rising ground, which gave me a
full view of them, at the distance of about eighty yards.
I had now not a moment to lose, for nineteen of the dreadful wretches
sat upon the ground, all close huddled together, and had just sent the
other two to butcher the poor Christian, and bring him, perhaps, limb by
limb, to their fire; and they were stooping down to untie the bands at
his feet. I turned to Friday--"Now, Friday," said I, "do as I bid thee."
Friday said he would. "Then, Friday," says I, "do exactly as you see me
do; fail in nothing." So I set down one of the muskets and the
fowling-piece upon the ground, and Friday did the like by his; and with
the other musket I took my aim at the savages, bidding him to do the
like: then asking him if he was ready, he said, "Yes." "Then fire at
them," said I; and the same moment I fired also.
Friday took his aim so much better than I, that on the side that he
shot, he killed two of them, and wounded three more; and on my side, I
killed one, and wounded two. They were, you may be sure, in a dreadful
consternation; and all of them who were not hurt jumped upon their feet,
but did not immediately know which way to run, or which way to look, for
they knew not from whence their destruction came. Friday kept his eyes
close upon me, that, as I had bid him, he might observe what I did; so,
as soon as the first shot was made, I threw down the piece, and took up
the fowling-piece, and Friday did the like: he saw me cock and present;
he did the same again. "Are you ready, Friday?" said I.--"Yes," says he.
"Let fly, then," says I, "in the name of God!" and with that, I fired
again among the amazed wretches, and so did Friday; and as our pieces
were now loaden with what I called swan-shot, or small pistol-bullets,
we found only two drop, but so many were wounded, that they ran about
yelling and screaming like mad creatures, all bloody, and most of them
miserably wounded, whereof three more fell quickly after, though not
quite dead.
"Now, Friday," says I, laying down the discharged pieces, and taking up
the musket which was yet loaden, "follow me;" which he did with a great
deal of courage; upon which I rushed out of the wood, and showed myself,
and Friday close at my foot. As soon as I perceived they saw me, I
shouted as loud as I could, and bade Friday do so too; and running as
fast as I could, which, by the way, was not very fast, being loaded with
arms as I was, I made directly towards the poor victim, who was, as I
said, lying upon, the beach, or shore, between the place where they sat
and the sea. The two butchers, who were just going to work with him, had
left him at the surprise of our first fire, and fled in a terrible
fright to the sea-side, and had jumped into a canoe, and three more of
the rest made the same way. I turned to Friday, and bade him step
forwards, and fire at them; he understood me immediately, and running
about forty yards, to be nearer them, he shot at them, and I thought he
had killed them all, for I saw them all fall of a heap into the boat,
though I saw two of them up again quickly: however, he killed two of
them, and wounded the third so, that he lay down in the bottom of the
boat as if he had been dead.
While my man Friday fired at them, I pulled out my knife and cut the
flags that bound the poor victim; and loosing his hands and feet, I
lifted him up, and asked him in the Portuguese tongue, what he was. He
answered in Latin, Christianus; but was so weak and faint that he could
scarce stand or speak. I took my bottle out of my pocket, and gave it
him, making signs that he should drink, which he did; and I gave him a
piece of bread, which he eat. Then I asked him what countryman he was:
and he said, Espagniole; and being a little recovered, let me know, by
all the signs he could possibly make, how much he was in my debt for his
deliverance. "Seignior," said I, with as much Spanish as I could make
up, "we will talk afterwards, but we must fight now: if you have any
strength left, take this pistol and sword, and lay about you." He took
them very thankfully; and no sooner had he the arms in his hands, but,
as if they had put new vigour into him, he flew upon his murderers like
a fury, and had cut two of them in pieces in an instant; for the truth
is, as the whole was a surprise to them, so the poor creatures were so
much frightened with the noise of our pieces, that they fell down for
mere amazement and fear, and had no more power to attempt their own
escape, than their flesh had to resist our shot: and that was the case
of those five that Friday shot at in the boat; for as three of them fell
with the hurt they received, so the other two fell with the fright.
I kept my piece in my hand still without firing, being willing to keep
my charge ready, because I had given the Spaniard my pistol and sword:
so I called to Friday, and bade-him run up to the tree from whence we
first fired, and fetch the arms which lay there that had been
discharged, which he did with great swiftness; and then giving him my
musket, I sat down myself to load all the rest again, and bade them come
to me when they wanted. While I was loading these pieces, there happened
a fierce engagement between the Spaniard and one of the savages, who
made at him with one of their great wooden swords, the same-like weapon
that was to have killed him before, if I had not prevented it. The
Spaniard, who was as bold and brave as could be imagined, though weak,
had fought this Indian a good while, and had cut him two great wounds on
his head; but the savage being a stout, lusty fellow, closing in with
him, had thrown him down, being faint, and was wringing my sword out of
his hand; when the Spaniard, though undermost, wisely quitting the
sword, drew the pistol from his girdle, shot the savage through the
body, and killed him upon the spot, before I, who was running to help
him, could come near him.