Then I wanted a mill to grind it sieves to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into bread, and an oven to bake it;
but all these things I did without, as shall be observed; and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and
advantage to me too. All this, as I said, made everything laborious and tedious to me; but that there was no
help for. Neither was my time so much loss to me, because, as I had divided it, a certain part of it was every
day appointed to these works; and as I had resolved to use none of the corn for bread till I had a greater
quantity by me, I had the next six months to apply myself wholly, by labour and invention, to furnish myself
with utensils proper for the performing all the operations necessary for making the corn, when I had it, fit for
my use.
CHAPTER IX . A BOAT
BUT first I was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough to sow above an acre of ground. Before I
did this, I had a week's work at least to make me a spade, which, when it was done, was but a sorry one
indeed, and very heavy, and required double labour to work with it. However, I got through that, and sowed
my seed in two large flat pieces of ground, as near my house as I could find them to my mind, and fenced
them in with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all cut off that wood which I had set before, and knew it
would grow; so that, in a year's time, I knew I should have a quick or living hedge, that would want but little
repair. This work did not take me up less than three months, because a great part of that time was the wet
season, when I could not go abroad. Within.doors, that is when it rained and I could not go out, I found
employment in the following occupations . always observing, that all the while I was at work I diverted
myself with talking to my parrot, and teaching him to speak; and I quickly taught him to know his own name,
and at last to speak it out pretty loud, "Poll," which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by
any mouth but my own. This, therefore, was not my work, but an assistance to my work; for now, as I said, I
had a great employment upon my hands, as follows: I had long studied to make, by some means or other,
some earthen vessels, which, indeed, I wanted sorely, but knew not where to come at them. However,
considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but if I could find out any clay, I might make some pots
that might, being dried in the sun, be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anything
that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this was necessary in the preparing corn, meal, which was the
thing I was doing, I resolved to make some as large as I could, and fit only to stand like jars, to hold what
should be put into them.
It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward ways I took to raise this
paste; what odd, misshapen, ugly things I made; how many of them fell in and how many fell out, the clay
not being stiff enough to bear its own weight; how many cracked by the over.violent heat of the sun, being
set out too hastily; and how many fell in pieces with only removing, as well before as after they were dried;
and, in a word, how, after having laboured hard to find the clay . to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and
work it . I could not make above two large earthen ugly things (I cannot call them jars) in about two months'
labour.
However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them very gently up, and set them down
again in two great wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break; and as
between the pot and the basket there was a little room to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw;
and these two pots being to stand always dry I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal, when
the corn was bruised.
Though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots, yet I made several smaller things with better
success; such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any things my hand turned to; and the
heat of the sun baked them quite hard.
CHAPTER IX . A BOAT
Robinson Crusoe
But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen pot to hold what was liquid, and bear the
fire, which none of these could do. It happened after some time, making a pretty large fire for cooking my
meat, when I went to put it out after I had done with it, I found a broken piece of one of my earthenware
vessels in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone, and red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it, and said to
myself, that certainly they might be made to burn whole, if they would burn broken.
This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn some pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as
the potters burn in, or of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but I placed three large
pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one upon another, and placed my firewood all round it, with a great
heap of embers under them. I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside and upon the top, till I saw the
pots in the inside red.hot quite through, and observed that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear
red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of them, though it did not crack, did
melt or run; for the sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would have
run into glass if I had gone on; so I slacked my fire gradually till the pots began to abate of the red colour;
and watching them all night, that I might not let the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three very good (I
will not say handsome) pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as hard burnt as could be desired, and one of
them perfectly glazed with the running of the sand.
After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort of earthenware for my use; but I must needs say as
to the shapes of them, they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when I had no way of making
them but as the children make dirt pies, or as a woman would make pies that never learned to raise paste.
No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, when I found I had made an earthen pot that
would bear the fire; and I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one on the fire again with
some water in it to boil me some meat, which it did admirably well; and with a piece of a kid I made some
very good broth, though I wanted oatmeal, and several other ingredients requisite to make it as good as I
would have had it been.
My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn in; for as to the mill, there was no
thought of arriving at that perfection of art with one pair of hands. To supply this want, I was at a great loss;
for, of all the trades in the world, I was as perfectly unqualified for a stone.cutter as for any whatever; neither
had I any tools to go about it with. I spent many a day to find out a great stone big enough to cut hollow, and
make fit for a mortar, and could find none at all, except what was in the solid rock, and which I had no way to
dig or cut out; nor indeed were the rocks in the island of hardness sufficient, but were all of a sandy,
crumbling stone, which neither would bear the weight of a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without
filling it with sand. So, after a great deal of time lost in searching for a stone, I gave it over, and resolved to
look out for a great block of hard wood, which I found, indeed, much easier; and getting one as big as I had
strength to stir, I rounded it, and formed it on the outside with my axe and hatchet, and then with the help of
fire and infinite labour, made a hollow place in it, as the Indians in Brazil make their canoes. After this, I
made a great heavy pestle or beater of the wood called the iron.wood; and this I prepared and laid by against
I had my next crop of corn, which I proposed to myself to grind, or rather pound into meal to make bread.
My next difficulty was to make a sieve or searce, to dress my meal, and to part it from the bran and the husk;
without which I did not see it possible I could have any bread. This was a most difficult thing even to think
on, for to be sure I had nothing like the necessary thing to make it . I mean fine thin canvas or stuff to searce
the meal through. And here I was at a full stop for many months; nor did I really know what to do. Linen I
had none left but what was mere rags; I had goat's hair, but neither knew how to weave it or spin it; and had I
known how, here were no tools to work it with. All the remedy that I found for this was, that at last I did
remember I had, among the seamen's clothes which were saved out of the ship, some neckcloths of calico or
muslin; and with some pieces of these I made three small sieves proper enough for the work; and thus I made
shift for some years: how I did afterwards, I shall show in its place.
CHAPTER IX . A BOAT
Robinson Crusoe
The baking part was the next thing to be considered, and how I should make bread when I came to have corn;
for first, I had no yeast. As to that part, there was no supplying the want, so I did not concern myself much
about it. But for an oven I was indeed in great pain. At length I found out an experiment for that also, which
was this: I made some earthen.vessels very broad but not deep, that is to say, about two feet diameter, and
not above nine inches deep. These I burned in the fire, as I had done the other, and laid them by; and when I
wanted to bake, I made a great fire upon my hearth, which I had paved with some square tiles of my own
baking and burning also; but I should not call them square.
When the firewood was burned pretty much into embers or live coals, I drew them forward upon this hearth,
so as to cover it all over, and there I let them lie till the hearth was very hot. Then sweeping away all the
embers, I set down my loaf or loaves, and whelming down the earthen pot upon them, drew the embers all
round the outside of the pot, to keep in and add to the heat; and thus as well as in the best oven in the world, I
baked my barley.loaves, and became in little time a good pastrycook into the bargain; for I made myself
several cakes and puddings of the rice; but I made no pies, neither had I anything to put into them supposing I
had, except the flesh either of fowls or goats.
It need not be wondered at if all these things took me up most part of the third year of my abode here; for it is
to be observed that in the intervals of these things I had my new harvest and husbandry to manage; for I
reaped my corn in its season, and carried it home as well as I could, and laid it up in the ear, in my large
baskets, till I had time to rub it out, for I had no floor to thrash it on, or instrument to thrash it with.
And now, indeed, my stock of corn increasing, I really wanted to build my barns bigger; I wanted a place to
lay it up in, for the increase of the corn now yielded me so much, that I had of the barley about twenty
bushels, and of the rice as much or more; insomuch that now I resolved to begin to use it freely; for my bread
had been quite gone a great while; also I resolved to see what quantity would be sufficient for me a whole
year, and to sow but once a year.
Upon the whole, I found that the forty bushels of barley and rice were much more than I could consume in a
year; so I resolved to sow just the same quantity every year that I sowed the last, in hopes that such a quantity
would fully provide me with bread,
All the while these things were doing, you may be sure my thoughts ran many times upon the prospect of
land which I had seen from the other side of the island; and I was not without secret wishes that I were on
shore there, fancying that, seeing the mainland, and an inhabited country, I might find some way or other to
convey myself further, and perhaps at last find some means of escape.
But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such an undertaking, and how I might fall into the
hands of savages, and perhaps such as I might have reason to think far worse than the lions and tigers of
Africa: that if I once came in their power, I should run a hazard of more than a thousand to one of being
killed, and perhaps of being eaten; for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coast were cannibals or
man.eaters, and I knew by the latitude that I could not be far from that shore. Then, supposing they were not
cannibals, yet they might kill me, as many Europeans who had fallen into their hands had been served, even
when they had been ten or twenty together . much more I, that was but one, and could make little or no
defence; all these things, I say, which I ought to have considered well; and did come into my thoughts
afterwards, yet gave me no apprehensions at first, and my head ran mightily upon the thought of getting over
to the shore.
Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long.boat with shoulder.of. mutton sail, with which I sailed above
a thousand miles on the coast of Africa; but this was in vain: then I thought I would go and look at our ship's
boat, which, as I have said, was blown up upon the shore a great way, in the storm, when we were first cast
away. She lay almost where she did at first, but not quite; and was turned, by the force of the waves and the
CHAPTER IX . A BOAT
Robinson Crusoe
winds, almost bottom upward, against a high ridge of beachy, rough sand, but no water about her. If I had had
hands to have refitted her, and to have launched her into the water, the boat would have done well enough,
and I might have gone back into the Brazils with her easily enough; but I might have foreseen that I could no
more turn her and set her upright upon her bottom than I could remove the island; however, I went to the
woods, and cut levers and rollers, and brought them to the boat resolving to try what I could do; suggesting to
myself that if I could but turn her down, I might repair the damage she had received, and she would be a very
good boat, and I might go to sea in her very easily.
I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent, I think, three or four weeks about it; at last
finding it impossible to heave it up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the sand, to undermine it,
