http://www.arcamax.com/fiction/b-1103-41
Robinson Crusoe
But here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the entrance
where the horse came out, we found the carcasses of another horse and
of two men, devoured by the ravenous creatures; and one of the men was
no doubt the same whom we heard fire the gun, for there lay a gun just
by him fired off; but as to the man, his head and the upper part of
his body was eaten up. This filled us with horror, and we knew not
what course to take; but the creatures resolved us soon, for they
gathered about us presently, in hopes of prey; and I verily believe
there were three hundred of them. It happened, very much to our
advantage, that at the entrance into the wood, but a little way from
it, there lay some large timber-trees, which had been cut down the
summer before, and I suppose lay there for carriage. I drew my little
troop in among those trees, and placing ourselves in a line behind one
long tree, I advised them all to alight, and keeping that tree before
us for a breastwork, to stand in a triangle, or three fronts,
enclosing our horses in the centre. We did so, and it was well we
did; for never was a more furious charge than the creatures made upon
us in this place. They came on with a growling kind of noise, and
mounted the piece of timber, which, as I said, was our breastwork, as
if they were only rushing upon their prey; and this fury of theirs, it
seems, was principally occasioned by their seeing our horses behind
us. I ordered our men to fire as before, every other man; and they
took their aim so sure that they killed several of the wolves at the
first volley; but there was a necessity to keep a continual firing,
for they came on like devils, those behind pushing on those before.
When we had fired a second volley of our fusees, we thought they
stopped a little, and I hoped they would have gone off, but it was but
a moment, for others came forward again; so we fired two volleys of
our pistols; and I believe in these four firings we had killed
seventeen or eighteen of them, and lamed twice as many, yet they came
on again. I was loth to spend our shot too hastily; so I called my
servant, not my man Friday, for he was better employed, for, with the
greatest dexterity imaginable, he had charged my fusee and his own
while we were engaged - but, as I said, I called my other man, and
giving him a horn of powder, I had him lay a train all along the piece
of timber, and let it be a large train. He did so, and had but just
time to get away, when the wolves came up to it, and some got upon it,
when I, snapping an unchanged pistol close to the powder, set it on
fire; those that were upon the timber were scorched with it, and six
or seven of them fell; or rather jumped in among us with the force and
fright of the fire; we despatched these in an instant, and the rest
were so frightened with the light, which the night - for it was now
very near dark - made more terrible that they drew back a little; upon
which I ordered our last pistols to be fired off in one volley, and
after that we gave a shout; upon this the wolves turned tail, and we
sallied immediately upon near twenty lame ones that we found
struggling on the ground, and fell to cutting them with our swords,
which answered our expectation, for the crying and howling they made
was better understood by their fellows; so that they all fled and left
us.
We had, first and last, killed about threescore of them, and had it
been daylight we had killed many more. The field of battle being thus
cleared, we made forward again, for we had still near a league to go.
We heard the ravenous creatures howl and yell in the woods as we went
several times, and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them; but the
snow dazzling our eyes, we were not certain. In about an hour more we
came to the town where we were to lodge, which we found in a terrible
fright and all in arms; for, it seems, the night before the wolves and
some bears had broken into the village, and put them in such terror
that they were obliged to keep guard night and day, but especially in
the night, to preserve their cattle, and indeed their people.
The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs swelled so much
with the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so
we were obliged to take a new guide here, and go to Toulouse, where we
found a warm climate, a fruitful, pleasant country, and no snow, no
wolves, nor anything like them; but when we told our story at
Toulouse, they told us it was nothing but what was ordinary in the
great forest at the foot of the mountains, especially when the snow
lay on the ground; but they inquired much what kind of guide we had
got who would venture to bring us that way in such a severe season,
and told us it was surprising we were not all devoured. When we told
them how we placed ourselves and the horses in the middle, they blamed
us exceedingly, and told us it was fifty to one but we had been all
destroyed, for it was the sight of the horses which made the wolves so
furious, seeing their prey, and that at other times they are really
afraid of a gun; but being excessively hungry, and raging on that
account, the eagerness to come at the horses had made them senseless
of danger, and that if we had not by the continual fire, and at last
by the stratagem of the train of powder, mastered them, it had been
great odds but that we had been torn to pieces; whereas, had we been
content to have sat still on horseback, and fired as horsemen, they
would not have taken the horses so much for their own, when men were
on their backs, as otherwise; and withal, they told us that at last,
if we had stood altogether, and left our horses, they would have been
so eager to have devoured them, that we might have come off safe,
especially having our firearms in our hands, being so many in number.
For my part, I was never so sensible of danger in my life; for,
seeing above three hundred devils come roaring and open- mouthed to
devour us, and having nothing to shelter us or retreat to, I gave
myself over for lost; and, as it was, I believe I shall never care to
cross those mountains again: I think I would much rather go a thousand
leagues by sea, though I was sure to meet with a storm once a-week.
I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through France
- nothing but what other travellers have given an account of with much
more advantage than I can. I travelled from Toulouse to Paris, and
without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover
the 14th of January, after having had a severe cold season to travel
in.
I was now come to the centre of my travels, and had in a little time
all my new-discovered estate safe about me, the bills of exchange
which I brought with me having been currently paid.
My principal guide and privy-counsellor was my good ancient widow,
who, in gratitude for the money I had sent her, thought no pains too
much nor care too great to employ for me; and I trusted her so
entirely that I was perfectly easy as to the security of my effects;
and, indeed, I was very happy from the beginning, and now to the end,
in the unspotted integrity of this good gentlewoman.
And now, having resolved to dispose of my plantation in the Brazils, I
wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who, having offered it to the two
merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brazils,
they accepted the offer, and remitted thirty-three thousand pieces of
eight to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon to pay for it.
In return, I signed the instrument of sale in the form which they sent
from Lisbon, and sent it to my old man, who sent me the bills of
exchange for thirty-two thousand eight hundred pieces of eight for the
estate, reserving the payment of one hundred moidores a year to him
(the old man) during his life, and fifty moidores afterwards to his
son for his life, which I had promised them, and which the plantation
was to make good as a rent-charge. And thus I have given the first
part of a life of fortune and adventure - a life of Providence's
chequer-work, and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to
show the like of; beginning foolishly, but closing much more happily
than any part of it ever gave me leave so much as to hope for.
Any one would think that in this state of complicated good fortune I
was past running any more hazards - and so, indeed, I had been, if
other circumstances had concurred; but I was inured to a wandering
life, had no family, nor many relations; nor, however rich, had I
contracted fresh acquaintance; and though I had sold my estate in the
Brazils, yet I could not keep that country out of my head, and had a
great mind to be upon the wing again; especially I could not resist
the strong inclination I had to see my island, and to know if the poor
Spaniards were in being there. My true friend, the widow, earnestly
dissuaded me from it, and so far prevailed with me, that for almost
seven years she prevented my running abroad, during which time I took
my two nephews, the children of one of my brothers, into my care; the
eldest, having something of his own, I bred up as a gentleman, and
gave him a settlement of some addition to his estate after my decease.
The other I placed with the captain of a ship; and after five years,
finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising young fellow, I put him
into a good ship, and sent him to sea; and this young fellow
afterwards drew me in, as old as I was, to further adventures myself.
In the meantime, I in part settled myself here; for, first of all, I
married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction,
and had three children, two sons and one daughter; but my wife dying,
and my nephew coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my
inclination to go abroad, and his importunity, prevailed, and engaged
me to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies; this was
in the year 1694.
In this voyage I visited my new colony in the island, saw my
successors the Spaniards, had the old story of their lives and of the
villains I left there; how at first they insulted the poor Spaniards,
how they afterwards agreed, disagreed, united, separated, and how at
last the Spaniards were obliged to use violence with them; how they
were subjected to the Spaniards, how honestly the Spaniards used them
- a history, if it were entered into, as full of variety and wonderful
accidents as my own part - particularly, also, as to their battles
with the Caribbeans, who landed several times upon the island, and as
to the improvement they made upon the island itself, and how five of
them made an attempt upon the mainland, and brought away eleven men
and five women prisoners, by which, at my coming, I found about twenty
young children on the island.
Here I stayed about twenty days, left them supplies of all necessary
things, and particularly of arms, powder, shot, clothes, tools, and
two workmen, which I had brought from England with me, viz. a
carpenter and a smith.
Besides this, I shared the lands into parts with them, reserved to
myself the property of the whole, but gave them such parts
respectively as they agreed on; and having settled all things with
them, and engaged them not to leave the place, I left them there.
From thence I touched at the Brazils, from whence I sent a bark, which
I bought there, with more people to the island; and in it, besides
other supplies, I sent seven women, being such as I found proper for
service, or for wives to such as would take them. As to the
Englishmen, I promised to send them some women from England, with a
good cargo of necessaries, if they would apply themselves to planting
- which I afterwards could not perform. The fellows proved very
honest and diligent after they were mastered and had their properties
set apart for them. I sent them, also, from the Brazils, five cows,
three of them being big with calf, some sheep, and some hogs, which
when I came again were considerably increased.
But all these things, with an account how three hundred Caribbees came
and invaded them, and ruined their plantations, and how they fought
with that whole number twice, and were at first defeated, and one of
them killed; but at last, a storm destroying their enemies' canoes,
they famished or destroyed almost all the rest, and renewed and
recovered the possession of their plantation, and still lived upon the
island.
All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new
adventures of my own, for ten years more, I shall give a farther
account of in the Second Part of my Story.