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Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Section 14 of 41 - Table of Contents
But to return to my Journal.

JUNE 28. - Having been somewhat refreshed with the sleep I had had,
and the fit being entirely off, I got up; and though the fright and
terror of my dream was very great, yet I considered that the fit of
the ague would return again the next day, and now was my time to
get something to refresh and support myself when I should be ill;
and the first thing I did, I filled a large square case-bottle with
water, and set it upon my table, in reach of my bed; and to take
off the chill or aguish disposition of the water, I put about a
quarter of a pint of rum into it, and mixed them together.  Then I
got me a piece of the goat's flesh and broiled it on the coals, but
could eat very little.  I walked about, but was very weak, and
withal very sad and heavy-hearted under a sense of my miserable
condition, dreading, the return of my distemper the next day.  At
night I made my supper of three of the turtle's eggs, which I
roasted in the ashes, and ate, as we call it, in the shell, and
this was the first bit of meat I had ever asked God's blessing to,
that I could remember, in my whole life.  After I had eaten I tried
to walk, but found myself so weak that I could hardly carry a gun,
for I never went out without that; so I went but a little way, and
sat down upon the ground, looking out upon the sea, which was just
before me, and very calm and smooth.  As I sat here some such
thoughts as these occurred to me: What is this earth and sea, of
which I have seen so much?  Whence is it produced?  And what am I,
and all the other creatures wild and tame, human and brutal?
Whence are we?  Sure we are all made by some secret Power, who
formed the earth and sea, the air and sky.  And who is that?  Then
it followed most naturally, it is God that has made all.  Well, but
then it came on strangely, if God has made all these things, He
guides and governs them all, and all things that concern them; for
the Power that could make all things must certainly have power to
guide and direct them.  If so, nothing can happen in the great
circuit of His works, either without His knowledge or appointment.

And if nothing happens without His knowledge, He knows that I am
here, and am in this dreadful condition; and if nothing happens
without His appointment, He has appointed all this to befall me.
Nothing occurred to my thought to contradict any of these
conclusions, and therefore it rested upon me with the greater
force, that it must needs be that God had appointed all this to
befall me; that I was brought into this miserable circumstance by
His direction, He having the sole power, not of me only, but of
everything that happened in the world.  Immediately it followed:
Why has God done this to me?  What have I done to be thus used?  My
conscience presently checked me in that inquiry, as if I had
blasphemed, and methought it spoke to me like a voice: "Wretch!
dost THOU ask what thou hast done?  Look back upon a dreadful
misspent life, and ask thyself what thou hast NOT done?  Ask, why
is it that thou wert not long ago destroyed?  Why wert thou not
drowned in Yarmouth Roads; killed in the fight when the ship was
taken by the Sallee man-of-war; devoured by the wild beasts on the
coast of Africa; or drowned HERE, when all the crew perished but
thyself?  Dost THOU ask, what have I done?"  I was struck dumb with
these reflections, as one astonished, and had not a word to say -
no, not to answer to myself, but rose up pensive and sad, walked
back to my retreat, and went up over my wall, as if I had been
going to bed; but my thoughts were sadly disturbed, and I had no
inclination to sleep; so I sat down in my chair, and lighted my
lamp, for it began to be dark.  Now, as the apprehension of the
return of my distemper terrified me very much, it occurred to my
thought that the Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for
almost all distempers, and I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in
one of the chests, which was quite cured, and some also that was
green, and not quite cured.

I went, directed by Heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found a
cure both for soul and body.  I opened the chest, and found what I
looked for, the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay there
too, I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before, and
which to this time I had not found leisure or inclination to look
into.  I say, I took it out, and brought both that and the tobacco
with me to the table.  What use to make of the tobacco I knew not,
in my distemper, or whether it was good for it or no: but I tried
several experiments with it, as if I was resolved it should hit one
way or other.  I first took a piece of leaf, and chewed it in my
mouth, which, indeed, at first almost stupefied my brain, the
tobacco being green and strong, and that I had not been much used
to.  Then I took some and steeped it an hour or two in some rum,
and resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down; and lastly., I
burnt some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose close over the
smoke of it as long as I could bear it, as well for the heat as
almost for suffocation.  In the interval of this operation I took
up the Bible and began to read; but my head was too much disturbed
with the tobacco to bear reading, at least at that time; only,
having opened the book casually, the first words that occurred to
me were these, "Call on Me in the day of trouble, and I will
deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me."  These words were very
apt to my case, and made some impression upon my thoughts at the
time of reading them, though not so much as they did afterwards;
for, as for being DELIVERED, the word had no sound, as I may say,
to me; the thing was so remote, so impossible in my apprehension of
things, that I began to say, as the children of Israel did when
they were promised flesh to eat, "Can God spread a table in the
wilderness?" so I began to say, "Can God Himself deliver me from
this place?"  And as it was not for many years that any hopes
appeared, this prevailed very often upon my thoughts; but, however,
the words made a great impression upon me, and I mused upon them
very often.  It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said,
dozed my head so much that I inclined to sleep; so I left my lamp
burning in the cave, lest I should want anything in the night, and
went to bed.  But before I lay down, I did what I never had done in
all my life - I kneeled down, and prayed to God to fulfil the
promise to me, that if I called upon Him in the day of trouble, He
would deliver me.  After my broken and imperfect prayer was over, I
drank the rum in which I had steeped the tobacco, which was so
strong and rank of the tobacco that I could scarcely get it down;
immediately upon this I went to bed.  I found presently it flew up
into my head violently; but I fell into a sound sleep, and waked no
more till, by the sun, it must necessarily be near three o'clock in
the afternoon the next day - nay, to this hour I am partly of
opinion that I slept all the next day and night, and till almost
three the day after; for otherwise I know not how I should lose a
day out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it appeared
some years after I had done; for if I had lost it by crossing and
recrossing the line, I should have lost more than one day; but
certainly I lost a day in my account, and never knew which way.  Be
that, however, one way or the other, when I awaked I found myself
exceedingly refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful; when I
got up I was stronger than I was the day before, and my stomach
better, for I was hungry; and, in short, I had no fit the next day,
but continued much altered for the better.  This was the 29th.

The 30th was my well day, of course, and I went abroad with my gun,
but did not care to travel too far.  I killed a sea-fowl or two,
something like a brandgoose, and brought them home, but was not
very forward to eat them; so I ate some more of the turtle's eggs,
which were very good.  This evening I renewed the medicine, which I
had supposed did me good the day before - the tobacco steeped in
rum; only I did not take so much as before, nor did I chew any of
the leaf, or hold my head over the smoke; however, I was not so
well the next day, which was the first of July, as I hoped I should
have been; for I had a little spice of the cold fit, but it was not
much.

JULY 2. - I renewed the medicine all the three ways; and dosed
myself with it as at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank.

JULY 3. - I missed the fit for good and all, though I did not
recover my full strength for some weeks after.  While I was thus
gathering strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this
Scripture, "I will deliver thee"; and the impossibility of my
deliverance lay much upon my mind, in bar of my ever expecting it;
but as I was discouraging myself with such thoughts, it occurred to
my mind that I pored so much upon my deliverance from the main
affliction, that I disregarded the deliverance I had received, and
I was as it were made to ask myself such questions as these - viz.
Have I not been delivered, and wonderfully too, from sickness -
from the most distressed condition that could be, and that was so
frightful to me? and what notice had I taken of it?  Had I done my
part?  God had delivered me, but I had not glorified Him - that is
to say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as a
deliverance; and how could I expect greater deliverance?  This
touched my heart very much; and immediately I knelt down and gave
God thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.

JULY 4. - In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the New
Testament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself to
read a while every morning and every night; not tying myself to the
number of chapters, but long as my thoughts should engage me.  It
was not long after I set seriously to this work till I found my
heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my
past life.  The impression of my dream revived; and the words, "All
these things have not brought thee to repentance," ran seriously
through my thoughts.  I was earnestly begging of God to give me
repentance, when it happened providentially, the very day, that,
reading the Scripture, I came to these words: "He is exalted a
Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and to give remission."  I
threw down the book; and with my heart as well as my hands lifted
up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud,
"Jesus, thou son of David!  Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour!
give me repentance!"  This was the first time I could say, in the
true sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I
prayed with a sense of my condition, and a true Scripture view of
hope, founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and from
this time, I may say, I began to hope that God would hear me.

Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, "Call on Me, and
I will deliver thee," in a different sense from what I had ever
done before; for then I had no notion of anything being called
DELIVERANCE, but my being delivered from the captivity I was in;
for though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was
certainly a prison to me, and that in the worse sense in the world.
But now I learned to take it in another sense: now I looked back
upon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared so
dreadful, that my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance from
the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort.  As for my
solitary life, it was nothing.  I did not so much as pray to be
delivered from it or think of it; it was all of no consideration in
comparison to this.  And I add this part here, to hint to whoever
shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things,
they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than
deliverance from affliction.

But, leaving this part, I return to my Journal.

My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my
way of living, yet much easier to my mind: and my thoughts being
directed, by a constant reading the Scripture and praying to God,
to things of a higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within,
which till now I knew nothing of; also, my health and strength
returned, I bestirred myself to furnish myself with everything that
I wanted, and make my way of living as regular as I could.

From the 4th of July to the 14th I was chiefly employed in walking
about with my gun in my hand, a little and a little at a time, as a
man that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness; for
it is hardly to be imagined how low I was, and to what weakness I
was reduced.  The application which I made use of was perfectly
new, and perhaps which had never cured an ague before; neither can
I recommend it to any to practise, by this experiment: and though
it did carry off the fit, yet it rather contributed to weakening
me; for I had frequent convulsions in my nerves and limbs for some
time.  I learned from it also this, in particular, that being
abroad in the rainy season was the most pernicious thing to my
health that could be, especially in those rains which came attended
with storms and hurricanes of wind; for as the rain which came in
the dry season was almost always accompanied with such storms, so I
found that rain was much more dangerous than the rain which fell in
September and October.
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