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Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Section 39 of 41 - Table of Contents
I was now master, all on a sudden, of above five thousand pounds
sterling in money, and had an estate, as I might well call it, in
the Brazils, of above a thousand pounds a year, as sure as an
estate of lands in England: and, in a word, I was in a condition
which I scarce knew how to understand, or how to compose myself for
the enjoyment of it.  The first thing I did was to recompense my
original benefactor, my good old captain, who had been first
charitable to me in my distress, kind to me in my beginning, and
honest to me at the end.  I showed him all that was sent to me; I
told him that, next to the providence of Heaven, which disposed all
things, it was owing to him; and that it now lay on me to reward
him, which I would do a hundred-fold: so I first returned to him
the hundred moidores I had received of him; then I sent for a
notary, and caused him to draw up a general release or discharge
from the four hundred and seventy moidores, which he had
acknowledged he owed me, in the fullest and firmest manner
possible.  After which I caused a procuration to be drawn,
empowering him to be the receiver of the annual profits of my
plantation: and appointing my partner to account with him, and make
the returns, by the usual fleets, to him in my name; and by a
clause in the end, made a grant of one hundred moidores a year to
him during his life, out of the effects, and fifty moidores a year
to his son after him, for his life: and thus I requited my old man.

I had now to consider which way to steer my course next, and what
to do with the estate that Providence had thus put into my hands;
and, indeed, I had more care upon my head now than I had in my
state of life in the island where I wanted nothing but what I had,
and had nothing but what I wanted; whereas I had now a great charge
upon me, and my business was how to secure it.  I had not a cave
now to hide my money in, or a place where it might lie without lock
or key, till it grew mouldy and tarnished before anybody would
meddle with it; on the contrary, I knew not where to put it, or
whom to trust with it.  My old patron, the captain, indeed, was
honest, and that was the only refuge I had.  In the next place, my
interest in the Brazils seemed to summon me thither; but now I
could not tell how to think of going thither till I had settled my
affairs, and left my effects in some safe hands behind me.  At
first I thought of my old friend the widow, who I knew was honest,
and would be just to me; but then she was in years, and but poor,
and, for aught I knew, might be in debt: so that, in a word, I had
no way but to go back to England myself and take my effects with
me.

It was some months, however, before I resolved upon this; and,
therefore, as I had rewarded the old captain fully, and to his
satisfaction, who had been my former benefactor, so I began to
think of the poor widow, whose husband had been my first
benefactor, and she, while it was in her power, my faithful steward
and instructor.  So, the first thing I did, I got a merchant in
Lisbon to write to his correspondent in London, not only to pay a
bill, but to go find her out, and carry her, in money, a hundred
pounds from me, and to talk with her, and comfort her in her
poverty, by telling her she should, if I lived, have a further
supply: at the same time I sent my two sisters in the country a
hundred pounds each, they being, though not in want, yet not in
very good circumstances; one having been married and left a widow;
and the other having a husband not so kind to her as he should be.
But among all my relations or acquaintances I could not yet pitch
upon one to whom I durst commit the gross of my stock, that I might
go away to the Brazils, and leave things safe behind me; and this
greatly perplexed me.

I had once a mind to have gone to the Brazils and have settled
myself there, for I was, as it were, naturalised to the place; but
I had some little scruple in my mind about religion, which
insensibly drew me back.  However, it was not religion that kept me
from going there for the present; and as I had made no scruple of
being openly of the religion of the country all the while I was
among them, so neither did I yet; only that, now and then, having
of late thought more of it than formerly, when I began to think of
living and dying among them, I began to regret having professed
myself a Papist, and thought it might not be the best religion to
die with.

But, as I have said, this was not the main thing that kept me from
going to the Brazils, but that really I did not know with whom to
leave my effects behind me; so I resolved at last to go to England,
where, if I arrived, I concluded that I should make some
acquaintance, or find some relations, that would be faithful to me;
and, accordingly, I prepared to go to England with all my wealth.

In order to prepare things for my going home, I first (the Brazil
fleet being just going away) resolved to give answers suitable to
the just and faithful account of things I had from thence; and,
first, to the Prior of St. Augustine I wrote a letter full of
thanks for his just dealings, and the offer of the eight hundred
and seventy-two moidores which were undisposed of, which I desired
might be given, five hundred to the monastery, and three hundred
and seventy-two to the poor, as the prior should direct; desiring
the good padre's prayers for me, and the like.  I wrote next a
letter of thanks to my two trustees, with all the acknowledgment
that so much justice and honesty called for: as for sending them
any present, they were far above having any occasion of it.
Lastly, I wrote to my partner, acknowledging his industry in the
improving the plantation, and his integrity in increasing the stock
of the works; giving him instructions for his future government of
my part, according to the powers I had left with my old patron, to
whom I desired him to send whatever became due to me, till he
should hear from me more particularly; assuring him that it was my
intention not only to come to him, but to settle myself there for
the remainder of my life.  To this I added a very handsome present
of some Italian silks for his wife and two daughters, for such the
captain's son informed me he had; with two pieces of fine English
broadcloth, the best I could get in Lisbon, five pieces of black
baize, and some Flanders lace of a good value.

Having thus settled my affairs, sold my cargo, and turned all my
effects into good bills of exchange, my next difficulty was which
way to go to England: I had been accustomed enough to the sea, and
yet I had a strange aversion to go to England by the sea at that
time, and yet I could give no reason for it, yet the difficulty
increased upon me so much, that though I had once shipped my
baggage in order to go, yet I altered my mind, and that not once
but two or three times.

It is true I had been very unfortunate by sea, and this might be
one of the reasons; but let no man slight the strong impulses of
his own thoughts in cases of such moment: two of the ships which I
had singled out to go in, I mean more particularly singled out than
any other, having put my things on board one of them, and in the
other having agreed with the captain; I say two of these ships
miscarried.  One was taken by the Algerines, and the other was lost
on the Start, near Torbay, and all the people drowned except three;
so that in either of those vessels I had been made miserable.

Having been thus harassed in my thoughts, my old pilot, to whom I
communicated everything, pressed me earnestly not to go by sea, but
either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over the Bay of
Biscay to Rochelle, from whence it was but an easy and safe journey
by land to Paris, and so to Calais and Dover; or to go up to
Madrid, and so all the way by land through France.  In a word, I
was so prepossessed against my going by sea at all, except from
Calais to Dover, that I resolved to travel all the way by land;
which, as I was not in haste, and did not value the charge, was by
much the pleasanter way: and to make it more so, my old captain
brought an English gentleman, the son of a merchant in Lisbon, who
was willing to travel with me; after which we picked up two more
English merchants also, and two young Portuguese gentlemen, the
last going to Paris only; so that in all there were six of us and
five servants; the two merchants and the two Portuguese, contenting
themselves with one servant between two, to save the charge; and as
for me, I got an English sailor to travel with me as a servant,
besides my man Friday, who was too much a stranger to be capable of
supplying the place of a servant on the road.

In this manner I set out from Lisbon; and our company being very
well mounted and armed, we made a little troop, whereof they did me
the honour to call me captain, as well because I was the oldest
man, as because I had two servants, and, indeed, was the origin of
the whole journey.

As I have troubled you with none of my sea journals, so I shall
trouble you now with none of my land journals; but some adventures
that happened to us in this tedious and difficult journey I must
not omit.

When we came to Madrid, we, being all of us strangers to Spain,
were willing to stay some time to see the court of Spain, and what
was worth observing; but it being the latter part of the summer, we
hastened away, and set out from Madrid about the middle of October;
but when we came to the edge of Navarre, we were alarmed, at
several towns on the way, with an account that so much snow was
falling on the French side of the mountains, that several
travellers were obliged to come back to Pampeluna, after having
attempted at an extreme hazard to pass on.

When we came to Pampeluna itself, we found it so indeed; and to me,
that had been always used to a hot climate, and to countries where
I could scarce bear any clothes on, the cold was insufferable; nor,
indeed, was it more painful than surprising to come but ten days
before out of Old Castile, where the weather was not only warm but
very hot, and immediately to feel a wind from the Pyrenean
Mountains so very keen, so severely cold, as to be intolerable and
to endanger benumbing and perishing of our fingers and toes.

Poor Friday was really frightened when he saw the mountains all
covered with snow, and felt cold weather, which he had never seen
or felt before in his life.  To mend the matter, when we came to
Pampeluna it continued snowing with so much violence and so long,
that the people said winter was come before its time; and the
roads, which were difficult before, were now quite impassable; for,
in a word, the snow lay in some places too thick for us to travel,
and being not hard frozen, as is the case in the northern
countries, there was no going without being in danger of being
buried alive every step.  We stayed no less than twenty days at
Pampeluna; when (seeing the winter coming on, and no likelihood of
its being better, for it was the severest winter all over Europe
that had been known in the memory of man) I proposed that we should
go away to Fontarabia, and there take shipping for Bordeaux, which
was a very little voyage.  But, while I was considering this, there
came in four French gentlemen, who, having been stopped on the
French side of the passes, as we were on the Spanish, had found out
a guide, who, traversing the country near the head of Languedoc,
had brought them over the mountains by such ways that they were not
much incommoded with the snow; for where they met with snow in any
quantity, they said it was frozen hard enough to bear them and
their horses.  We sent for this guide, who told us he would
undertake to carry us the same way, with no hazard from the snow,
provided we were armed sufficiently to protect ourselves from wild
beasts; for, he said, in these great snows it was frequent for some
wolves to show themselves at the foot of the mountains, being made
ravenous for want of food, the ground being covered with snow.  We
told him we were well enough prepared for such creatures as they
were, if he would insure us from a kind of two-legged wolves, which
we were told we were in most danger from, especially on the French
side of the mountains.  He satisfied us that there was no danger of
that kind in the way that we were to go; so we readily agreed to
follow him, as did also twelve other gentlemen with their servants,
some French, some Spanish, who, as I said, had attempted to go, and
were obliged to come back again.

Accordingly, we set out from Pampeluna with our guide on the 15th
of November; and indeed I was surprised when, instead of going
forward, he came directly back with us on the same road that we
came from Madrid, about twenty miles; when, having passed two
rivers, and come into the plain country, we found ourselves in a
warm climate again, where the country was pleasant, and no snow to
be seen; but, on a sudden, turning to his left, he approached the
mountains another way; and though it is true the hills and
precipices looked dreadful, yet he made so many tours, such
meanders, and led us by such winding ways, that we insensibly
passed the height of the mountains without being much encumbered
with the snow; and all on a sudden he showed us the pleasant and
fruitful provinces of Languedoc and Gascony, all green and
flourishing, though at a great distance, and we had some rough way
to pass still.

We were a little uneasy, however, when we found it snowed one whole
day and a night so fast that we could not travel; but he bid us be
easy; we should soon be past it all: we found, indeed, that we
began to descend every day, and to come more north than before; and
so, depending upon our guide, we went on.

It was about two hours before night when, our guide being something
before us, and not just in sight, out rushed three monstrous
wolves, and after them a bear, from a hollow way adjoining to a
thick wood; two of the wolves made at the guide, and had he been
far before us, he would have been devoured before we could have
helped him; one of them fastened upon his horse, and the other
attacked the man with such violence, that he had not time, or
presence of mind enough, to draw his pistol, but hallooed and cried
out to us most lustily.  My man Friday being next me, I bade him
ride up and see what was the matter.  As soon as Friday came in
sight of the man, he hallooed out as loud as the other, "O master!
O master!" but like a bold fellow, rode directly up to the poor
man, and with his pistol shot the wolf in the head that attacked
him.

It was happy for the poor man that it was my man Friday; for,
having been used to such creatures in his country, he had no fear
upon him, but went close up to him and shot him; whereas, any other
of us would have fired at a farther distance, and have perhaps
either missed the wolf or endangered shooting the man.

But it was enough to have terrified a bolder man than I; and,
indeed, it alarmed all our company, when, with the noise of
Friday's pistol, we heard on both sides the most dismal howling of
wolves; and the noise, redoubled by the echo of the mountains,
appeared to us as if there had been a prodigious number of them;
and perhaps there was not such a few as that we had no cause of
apprehension: however, as Friday had killed this wolf, the other
that had fastened upon the horse left him immediately, and fled,
without doing him any damage, having happily fastened upon his
head, where the bosses of the bridle had stuck in his teeth.  But
the man was most hurt; for the raging creature had bit him twice,
once in the arm, and the other time a little above his knee; and
though he had made some defence, he was just tumbling down by the
disorder of his horse, when Friday came up and shot the wolf.

It is easy to suppose that at the noise of Friday's pistol we all
mended our pace, and rode up as fast as the way, which was very
difficult, would give us leave, to see what was the matter.  As
soon as we came clear of the trees, which blinded us before, we saw
clearly what had been the case, and how Friday had disengaged the
poor guide, though we did not presently discern what kind of
creature it was he had killed.
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