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.
CHAPTER VI . ILL AND CONSCIENCE.STRICKEN
Robinson Crusoe
CHAPTER VII . AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE
I HAD now been in this unhappy island above ten months. All possibility of deliverance from this condition
seemed to be entirely taken from me; and I firmly believe that no human shape had ever set foot upon that
place. Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my mind, I had a great desire to make a more
perfect discovery of the island, and to see what other productions I might find, which I yet knew nothing of.
It was on the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey of the island itself. I went up the creek
first, where, as I hinted, I brought my rafts on shore. I found after I came about two miles up, that the tide did
not flow any higher, and that it was no more than a little brook of running water, very fresh and good; but this
being the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it . at least not enough to run in any
stream, so as it could be perceived. On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs or meadows,
plain, smooth, and covered with grass; and on the rising parts of them, next to the higher grounds, where the
water, as might be supposed, never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and growing to a great
and very strong stalk. There were divers other plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that
might, perhaps, have virtues of their own, which I could not find out. I searched for the cassava root, which
the Indians, in all that climate, make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of aloes, but did
not understand them. I saw several sugar.canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented
myself with these discoveries for this time, and came back, musing with myself what course I might take to
know the virtue and goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover, but could bring it to no
conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little of the
plants in the field; at least, very little that might serve to any purpose now in my distress.
The next day, the sixteenth, I went up the same way again; and after going something further than I had gone
the day before, I found the brook and the savannahs cease, and the country become more woody than before.
In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found melons upon the ground, in great abundance, and
grapes upon the trees. The vines had spread, indeed, over the trees, and the clusters of grapes were just now
in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a surprising discovery, and I was exceeding glad of them; but I
was warned by my experience to eat sparingly of them; remembering that when I was ashore in Barbary, the
eating of grapes killed several of our Englishmen, who were slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes and
fevers. But I found an excellent use for these grapes; and that was, to cure or dry them in the sun, and keep
them as dried grapes or raisins are kept, which I thought would be, as indeed they were, wholesome and
agreeable to eat when no grapes could be had.
I spent all that evening there, and went not back to my habitation; which, by the way, was the first night, as I
might say, I had lain from home. In the night, I took my first contrivance, and got up in a tree, where I slept
well; and the next morning proceeded upon my discovery; travelling nearly four miles, as I might judge by
the length of the valley, keeping still due north, with a ridge of hills on the south and north side of me. At the
end of this march I came to an opening where the country seemed to descend to the west; and a little spring of
fresh water, which issued out of the side of the hill by me, ran the other way, that is, due east; and the country
appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishing, everything being in a constant verdure or flourish of spring that it
looked like a planted garden. I descended a little on the side of that delicious vale, surveying it with a secret
kind of pleasure, though mixed with my other afflicting thoughts, to think that this was all my own; that I was
king and lord of all this country indefensibly, and had a right of possession; and if I could convey it, I might
have it in inheritance as completely as any lord of a manor in England. I saw here abundance of cocoa trees,
orange, and lemon, and citron trees; but all wild, and very few bearing any fruit, at least not then. However,
the green limes that I gathered were not only pleasant to eat, but very wholesome; and I mixed their juice
afterwards with water, which made it very wholesome, and very cool and refreshing. I found now I had
business enough to gather and carry home; and I resolved to lay up a store as well of grapes as limes and
lemons, to furnish myself for the wet season, which I knew was approaching. In order to do this, I gathered a
CHAPTER VII . AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE
Robinson Crusoe
great heap of grapes in one place, a lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of limes and lemons in
another place; and taking a few of each with me, I travelled homewards; resolving to come again, and bring a
bag or sack, or what I could make, to carry the rest home. Accordingly, having spent three days in this
journey, I came home (so I must now call my tent and my cave); but before I got thither the grapes were
spoiled; the richness of the fruit and the weight of the juice having broken them and bruised them, they were
good for little or nothing; as to the limes, they were good, but I could bring but a few.
The next day, being the nineteenth, I went back, having made me two small bags to bring home my harvest;
but I was surprised, when coming to my heap of grapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them, to
find them all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some here, some there, and abundance eaten
and devoured. By this I concluded there were some wild creatures thereabouts, which had done this; but what
they were I knew not. However, as I found there was no laying them up on heaps, and no carrying them away
in a sack, but that one way they would be destroyed, and the other way they would be crushed with their own
weight, I took another course; for I gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hung them trees, that they
might cure and dry in the sun; and as for the limes and lemons, I carried as many back as I could well stand
under.
When I came home from this journey, I contemplated with great pleasure the fruitfulness of that valley, and
the pleasantness of the situation; the security from storms on that side of the water, and the wood: and
concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode which was by far the worst part of the country.
Upon the whole, I began to consider of removing my habitation, and looking out for a place equally safe as
where now I was situate, if possible, in that pleasant, fruitful part of the island.
This thought ran long in my head, and I was exceeding fond of it for some time, the pleasantness of the place
tempting me; but when I came to a nearer view of it, I considered that I was now by the seaside, where it was
at least possible that something might happen to my advantage, and, by the same ill fate that brought me
hither might bring some other unhappy wretches to the same place; and though it was scarce probable that
any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among the hills and woods in the centre of the
island was to anticipate my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, but impossible; and
that therefore I ought not by any means to remove. However, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spent
much of my time there for the whole of the remaining part of the month of July; and though upon second
thoughts, I resolved not to remove, yet I built me a little kind of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance with
a strong fence, being a double hedge, as high as I could reach, well staked and filled between with
brushwood; and here I lay very secure, sometimes two or three nights together; always going over it with a
ladder; so that I fancied now I had my country house and my sea. coast house; and this work took me up to
the beginning of August.
I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labour, when the rains came on, and made me stick
close to my first habitation; for though I had made me a tent like the other, with a piece of a sail, and spread it
very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me from storms, nor a cave behind me to retreat into when
the rains were extraordinary.
About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower, and began to enjoy myself. The 3rd of
August, I found the grapes I had hung up perfectly dried, and, indeed, were excellent good raisins of the sun;
so I began to take them down from the trees, and it was very happy that I did so, for the rains which followed
would have spoiled them, and I had lost the best part of my winter food; for I had above two hundred large
bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, and carried the most of them home to my cave, than it
began to rain; and from hence, which was the 14th of August, it rained, more or less, every day till the middle
of October; and sometimes so violently, that I could not stir out of my cave for several days.
CHAPTER VII . AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE
Robinson Crusoe
In this season I was much surprised with the increase of my family; I had been concerned for the loss of one
of my cats, who ran away from me, or, as I thought, had been dead, and I heard no more tidings of her till, to
my astonishment, she came home about the end of August with three kittens. This was the more strange to
me because, though I had killed a wild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought it was quite a different
kind from our European cats; but the young cats were the same kind of house.breed as the old one; and both
my cats being females, I thought it very strange. But from these three cats I afterwards came to be so pestered
with cats that I was forced to kill them like vermin or wild beasts, and to drive them from my house as much
as possible.
From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain, so that I could not stir, and was now very careful not to
be much wet. In this confinement, I began to be straitened for food: but venturing out twice, I one day killed a
goat; and the last day, which was the 26th, found a very large tortoise, which was a treat to me, and my food
was regulated thus: I ate a bunch of raisins for my breakfast; a piece of the goat's flesh, or of the turtle, for my
dinner, broiled . for, to my great misfortune, I had no vessel to boil or stew anything; and two or three of the
turtle's eggs for my supper.
During this confinement in my cover by the rain, I worked daily two or three hours at enlarging my cave, and
by degrees worked it on towards one side, till I came to the outside of the hill, and made a door or way out,
which came beyond my fence or wall; and so I came in and out this way. But I was not perfectly easy at lying
so open; for, as I had managed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure; whereas now I thought I lay
exposed, and open for anything to come in upon me; and yet I could not perceive that there was any living
thing to fear, the biggest creature that I had yet seen upon the island being a goat.
SEPT. 30. . I was now come to the unhappy anniversary of my landing. I cast up the notches on my post, and
found I had been on shore three hundred and sixty.five days. I kept this day as a solemn fast, setting it apart
for religious exercise, prostrating myself on the ground with the most serious humiliation, confessing my sins
to God, acknowledging His righteous judgments upon me, and praying to Him to have mercy on me through
Jesus Christ; and not having tasted the least refreshment for twelve hours, even till the going down of the sun,
I then ate a biscuit.cake and a bunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day as I began it. I had all this
time observed no Sabbath day; for as at first I had no sense of religion upon my mind, I had, after some time,
omitted to distinguish the weeks, by making a longer notch than ordinary for the Sabbath day, and so did not
really know what any of the days were; but now, having cast up the days as above, I found I had been there a
year; so I divided it into weeks, and set apart every seventh day for a Sabbath; though I found at the end of
my account I had lost a day or two in my reckoning. A little after this, my ink began to fail me, and so I
contented myself to use it more sparingly, and to write down only the most remarkable events of my life,
without continuing a daily memorandum of other things.
The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear regular to me, and I learned to divide them so as to
provide for them accordingly; but I bought all my experience before I had it, and this I am going to relate was
one of the most discouraging experiments that I made.
I have mentioned that I had saved the few ears of barley and rice, which I had so surprisingly found spring
