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Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Section 21 of 41 - Table of Contents
I soon found I had but a little passed by the place where I had
been before, when I travelled on foot to that shore; so taking
nothing out of my boat but my gun and umbrella, for it was
exceedingly hot, I began my march.  The way was comfortable enough
after such a voyage as I had been upon, and I reached my old bower
in the evening, where I found everything standing as I left it; for
I always kept it in good order, being, as I said before, my country
house.

I got over the fence, and laid me down in the shade to rest my
limbs, for I was very weary, and fell asleep; but judge you, if you
can, that read my story, what a surprise I must be in when I was
awaked out of my sleep by a voice calling me by my name several
times, "Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe: poor Robin Crusoe!  Where are
you, Robin Crusoe?  Where are you?  Where have you been?"

I was so dead asleep at first, being fatigued with rowing, or part
of the day, and with walking the latter part, that I did not wake
thoroughly; but dozing thought I dreamed that somebody spoke to me;
but as the voice continued to repeat, "Robin Crusoe, Robin Crusoe,"
at last I began to wake more perfectly, and was at first dreadfully
frightened, and started up in the utmost consternation; but no
sooner were my eyes open, but I saw my Poll sitting on the top of
the hedge; and immediately knew that it was he that spoke to me;
for just in such bemoaning language I had used to talk to him and
teach him; and he had learned it so perfectly that he would sit
upon my finger, and lay his bill close to my face and cry, "Poor
Robin Crusoe!  Where are you?  Where have you been?  How came you
here?" and such things as I had taught him.

However, even though I knew it was the parrot, and that indeed it
could be nobody else, it was a good while before I could compose
myself.  First, I was amazed how the creature got thither; and
then, how he should just keep about the place, and nowhere else;
but as I was well satisfied it could be nobody but honest Poll, I
got over it; and holding out my hand, and calling him by his name,
"Poll," the sociable creature came to me, and sat upon my thumb, as
he used to do, and continued talking to me, "Poor Robin Crusoe! and
how did I come here? and where had I been?" just as if he had been
overjoyed to see me again; and so I carried him home along with me.

I had now had enough of rambling to sea for some time, and had
enough to do for many days to sit still and reflect upon the danger
I had been in.  I would have been very glad to have had my boat
again on my side of the island; but I knew not how it was
practicable to get it about.  As to the east side of the island,
which I had gone round, I knew well enough there was no venturing
that way; my very heart would shrink, and my very blood run chill,
but to think of it; and as to the other side of the island, I did
not know how it might be there; but supposing the current ran with
the same force against the shore at the east as it passed by it on
the other, I might run the same risk of being driven down the
stream, and carried by the island, as I had been before of being
carried away from it: so with these thoughts, I contented myself to
be without any boat, though it had been the product of so many
months' labour to make it, and of so many more to get it into the
sea.

In this government of my temper I remained near a year; and lived a
very sedate, retired life, as you may well suppose; and my thoughts
being very much composed as to my condition, and fully comforted in
resigning myself to the dispositions of Providence, I thought I
lived really very happily in all things except that of society.

I improved myself in this time in all the mechanic exercises which
my necessities put me upon applying myself to; and I believe I
should, upon occasion, have made a very good carpenter, especially
considering how few tools I had.

Besides this, I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my
earthenware, and contrived well enough to make them with a wheel,
which I found infinitely easier and better; because I made things
round and shaped, which before were filthy things indeed to look
on.  But I think I was never more vain of my own performance, or
more joyful for anything I found out, than for my being able to
make a tobacco-pipe; and though it was a very ugly, clumsy thing
when it was done, and only burned red, like other earthenware, yet
as it was hard and firm, and would draw the smoke, I was
exceedingly comforted with it, for I had been always used to smoke;
and there were pipes in the ship, but I forgot them at first, not
thinking there was tobacco in the island; and afterwards, when I
searched the ship again, I could not come at any pipes.

In my wicker-ware also I improved much, and made abundance of
necessary baskets, as well as my invention showed me; though not
very handsome, yet they were such as were very handy and convenient
for laying things up in, or fetching things home.  For example, if
I killed a goat abroad, I could hang it up in a tree, flay it,
dress it, and cut it in pieces, and bring it home in a basket; and
the like by a turtle; I could cut it up, take out the eggs and a
piece or two of the flesh, which was enough for me, and bring them
home in a basket, and leave the rest behind me.  Also, large deep
baskets were the receivers of my corn, which I always rubbed out as
soon as it was dry and cured, and kept it in great baskets.

I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably; this was a
want which it was impossible for me to supply, and I began
seriously to consider what I must do when I should have no more
powder; that is to say, how I should kill any goats.  I had, as is
observed in the third year of my being here, kept a young kid, and
bred her up tame, and I was in hopes of getting a he-goat; but I
could not by any means bring it to pass, till my kid grew an old
goat; and as I could never find in my heart to kill her, she died
at last of mere age.

But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I have
said, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to
trap and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of
them alive; and particularly I wanted a she-goat great with young.
For this purpose I made snares to hamper them; and I do believe
they were more than once taken in them; but my tackle was not good,
for I had no wire, and I always found them broken and my bait
devoured.  At length I resolved to try a pitfall; so I dug several
large pits in the earth, in places where I had observed the goats
used to feed, and over those pits I placed hurdles of my own making
too, with a great weight upon them; and several times I put ears of
barley and dry rice without setting the trap; and I could easily
perceive that the goats had gone in and eaten up the corn, for I
could see the marks of their feet.  At length I set three traps in
one night, and going the next morning I found them, all standing,
and yet the bait eaten and gone; this was very discouraging.
However, I altered my traps; and not to trouble you with
particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of
them a large old he-goat; and in one of the others three kids, a
male and two females.

As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him; he was so fierce
I durst not go into the pit to him; that is to say, to bring him
away alive, which was what I wanted.  I could have killed him, but
that was not my business, nor would it answer my end; so I even let
him out, and he ran away as if he had been frightened out of his
wits.  But I did not then know what I afterwards learned, that
hunger will tame a lion.  If I had let him stay three or four days
without food, and then have carried him some water to drink and
then a little corn, he would have been as tame as one of the kids;
for they are mighty sagacious, tractable creatures, where they are
well used.

However, for the present I let him go, knowing no better at that
time: then I went to the three kids, and taking them one by one, I
tied them with strings together, and with some difficulty brought
them all home.

It was a good while before they would feed; but throwing them some
sweet corn, it tempted them, and they began to be tame.  And now I
found that if I expected to supply myself with goats' flesh, when I
had no powder or shot left, breeding some up tame was my only way,
when, perhaps, I might have them about my house like a flock of
sheep.  But then it occurred to me that I must keep the tame from
the wild, or else they would always run wild when they grew up; and
the only way for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground,
well fenced either with hedge or pale, to keep them in so
effectually, that those within might not break out, or those
without break in.

This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands yet, as I saw
there was an absolute necessity for doing it, my first work was to
find out a proper piece of ground, where there was likely to be
herbage for them to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep
them from the sun.

Those who understand such enclosures will think I had very little
contrivance when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these
(being a plain, open piece of meadow land, or savannah, as our
people call it in the western colonies), which had two or three
little drills of fresh water in it, and at one end was very woody -
I say, they will smile at my forecast, when I shall tell them I
began by enclosing this piece of ground in such a manner that, my
hedge or pale must have been at least two miles about.  Nor was the
madness of it so great as to the compass, for if it was ten miles
about, I was like to have time enough to do it in; but I did not
consider that my goats would be as wild in so much compass as if
they had had the whole island, and I should have so much room to
chase them in that I should never catch them.

My hedge was begun and carried on, I believe, about fifty yards
when this thought occurred to me; so I presently stopped short,
and, for the beginning, I resolved to enclose a piece of about one
hundred and fifty yards in length, and one hundred yards in
breadth, which, as it would maintain as many as I should have in
any reasonable time, so, as my stock increased, I could add more
ground to my enclosure.

This was acting with some prudence, and I went to work with
courage.  I was about three months hedging in the first piece; and,
till I had done it, I tethered the three kids in the best part of
it, and used them to feed as near me as possible, to make them
familiar; and very often I would go and carry them some ears of
barley, or a handful of rice, and feed them out of my hand; so that
after my enclosure was finished and I let them loose, they would
follow me up and down, bleating after me for a handful of corn.

This answered my end, and in about a year and a half I had a flock
of about twelve goats, kids and all; and in two years more I had
three-and-forty, besides several that I took and killed for my
food.  After that, I enclosed five several pieces of ground to feed
them in, with little pens to drive them to take them as I wanted,
and gates out of one piece of ground into another.

But this was not all; for now I not only had goat's flesh to feed
on when I pleased, but milk too - a thing which, indeed, in the
beginning, I did not so much as think of, and which, when it came
into my thoughts, was really an agreeable surprise, for now I set
up my dairy, and had sometimes a gallon or two of milk in a day.
And as Nature, who gives supplies of food to every creature,
dictates even naturally how to make use of it, so I, that had never
milked a cow, much less a goat, or seen butter or cheese made only
when I was a boy, after a great many essays and miscarriages, made
both butter and cheese at last, also salt (though I found it partly
made to my hand by the heat of the sun upon some of the rocks of
the sea), and never wanted it afterwards.  How mercifully can our
Creator treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they
seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction!  How can He sweeten the
bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise Him for dungeons
and prisons!  What a table was here spread for me in the
wilderness, where I saw nothing at first but to perish for hunger!
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