Elijah by ravens, nay, by a long series of miracles; and that I could hardly have named a place in the
uninhabitable part of the world where I could have been cast more to my advantage; a place where, as I had
no society, which was my affliction on one hand, so I found no ravenous beasts, no furious wolves or tigers,
to threaten my life; no venomous creatures, or poisons, which I might feed on to my hurt; no savages to
murder and devour me. In a word, as my life was a life of sorrow one way, so it was a life of mercy another;
and I wanted nothing to make it a life of comfort but to be able to make my sense of God's goodness to me,
and care over me in this condition, be my daily consolation; and after I did make a just improvement on these
things, I went away, and was no more sad. I had now been here so long that many things which I had brought
on shore for my help were either quite gone, or very much wasted and near spent.
My ink, as I observed, had been gone some time, all but a very little, which I eked out with water, a little and
a little, till it was so pale, it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long as it lasted I made use
of it to minute down the days of the month on which any remarkable thing happened to me; and first, by
casting up times past, I remembered that there was a strange concurrence of days in the various providences
which befell me, and which, if I had been superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I
might have had reason to have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity.
First, I had observed that the same day that I broke away from my father and friends and ran away to Hull, in
order to go to sea, the same day afterwards I was taken by the Sallee man.of.war, and made a slave; the
same day of the year that I escaped out of the wreck of that ship in Yarmouth Roads, that same day.year
afterwards I made my escape from Sallee in a boat; the same day of the year I was born on . viz. the 30th of
September, that same day I had my life so miraculously saved twenty.six years after, when I was cast on
shore in this island; so that my wicked life and my solitary life began both on a day.
The next thing to my ink being wasted was that of my bread . I mean the biscuit which I brought out of the
ship; this I had husbanded to the last degree, allowing myself but one cake of bread a.day for above a year;
and yet I was quite without bread for near a year before I got any corn of my own, and great reason I had to
be thankful that I had any at all, the getting it being, as has been already observed, next to miraculous.
My clothes, too, began to decay; as to linen, I had had none a good while, except some chequered shirts
which I found in the chests of the other seamen, and which I carefully preserved; because many times I could
bear no other clothes on but a shirt; and it was a very great help to me that I had, among all the men's clothes
of the ship, almost three dozen of shirts. There were also, indeed, several thick watch.coats of the seamen's
which were left, but they were too hot to wear; and though it is true that the weather was so violently hot that
there was no need of clothes, yet I could not go quite naked . no, though I had been inclined to it, which I
was not . nor could I abide the thought of it, though I was alone. The reason why I could not go naked was, I
CHAPTER IX . A BOAT
Robinson Crusoe
could not bear the heat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on; nay, the very heat
frequently blistered my skin: whereas, with a shirt on, the air itself made some motion, and whistling under
the shirt, was twofold cooler than without it. No more could I ever bring myself to go out in the heat of the
sun without a cap or a hat; the heat of the sun, beating with such violence as it does in that place, would give
me the headache presently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap or hat on, so that I could not bear
it; whereas, if I put on my hat it would presently go away.
Upon these views I began to consider about putting the few rags I had, which I called clothes, into some
order; I had worn out all the waistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not make jackets out
of the great watch.coats which I had by me, and with such other materials as I had; so I set to work, tailoring,
or rather, indeed, botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift to make two or three
new waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a great while: as for breeches or drawers, I made but a very
sorry shift indeed till afterwards.
I have mentioned that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I killed, I mean four.footed ones, and I had
them hung up, stretched out with sticks in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and hard that
they were fit for little, but others were very useful. The first thing I made of these was a great cap for my
head, with the hair on the outside, to shoot off the rain; and this I performed so well, that after I made me a
suit of clothes wholly of these skins . that is to say, a waistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both
loose, for they were rather wanting to keep me cool than to keep me warm. I must not omit to acknowledge
that they were wretchedly made; for if I was a bad carpenter, I was a worse tailor. However, they were such
as I made very good shift with, and when I was out, if it happened to rain, the hair of my waistcoat and cap
being outermost, I was kept very dry.
After this, I spent a great deal of time and pains to make an umbrella; I was, indeed, in great want of one, and
had a great mind to make one; I had seen them made in the Brazils, where they are very useful in the great
heats there, and I felt the heats every jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the equinox; besides, as I
was obliged to be much abroad, it was a most useful thing to me, as well for the rains as the heats. I took a
world of pains with it, and was a great while before I could make anything likely to hold: nay, after I had
thought I had hit the way, I spoiled two or three before I made one to my mind: but at last I made one that
answered indifferently well: the main difficulty I found was to make it let down. I could make it spread, but if
it did not let down too, and draw in, it was not portable for me any way but just over my head, which would
not do. However, at last, as I said, I made one to answer, and covered it with skins, the hair upwards, so that it
cast off the rain like a pent.house, and kept off the sun so effectually, that I could walk out in the hottest of
the weather with greater advantage than I could before in the coolest, and when I had no need of it could
close it, and carry it under my arm
Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed by resigning myself to the will of God,
and throwing myself wholly upon the disposal of His providence. This made my life better than sociable, for
when I began to regret the want of conversation I would ask myself, whether thus conversing mutually with
my own thoughts, and (as I hope I may say) with even God Himself, by ejaculations, was not better than the
utmost enjoyment of human society in the world?
CHAPTER X . TAMES GOATS
I CANNOT say that after this, for five years, any extraordinary thing happened to me, but I lived on in the
same course, in the same posture and place, as before; the chief things I was employed in, besides my yearly
labour of planting my barley and rice, and curing my raisins, of both which I always kept up just enough to
have sufficient stock of one year's provisions beforehand; I say, besides this yearly labour, and my daily
pursuit of going out with my gun, I had one labour, to make a canoe, which at last I finished: so that, by
CHAPTER X . TAMES GOATS
Robinson Crusoe
digging a canal to it of six feet wide and four feet deep, I brought it into the creek, almost half a mile. As for
the first, which was so vastly big, for I made it without considering beforehand, as I ought to have done, how
I should be able to launch it, so, never being able to bring it into the water, or bring the water to it, I was
obliged to let it lie where it was as a memorandum to teach me to be wiser the next time: indeed, the next
time, though I could not get a tree proper for it, and was in a place where I could not get the water to it at any
less distance than, as I have said, near half a mile, yet, as I saw it was practicable at last, I never gave it over;
and though I was near two years about it, yet I never grudged my labour, in hopes of having a boat to go off
to sea at last.
However, though my little periagua was finished, yet the size of it was not at all answerable to the design
which I had in view when I made the first; I mean of venturing over to the TERRA FIRMA, where it was
above forty miles broad; accordingly, the smallness of my boat assisted to put an end to that design, and now
I thought no more of it. As I had a boat, my next design was to make a cruise round the island; for as I had
been on the other side in one place, crossing, as I have already described it, over the land, so the discoveries I
made in that little journey made me very eager to see other parts of the coast; and now I had a boat, I thought
of nothing but sailing round the island.
For this purpose, that I might do everything with discretion and consideration, I fitted up a little mast in my
boat, and made a sail too out of some of the pieces of the ship's sails which lay in store, and of which I had a
great stock by me. Having fitted my mast and sail, and tried the boat, I found she would sail very well; then I
made little lockers or boxes at each end of my boat, to put provisions, necessaries, ammunition, into, to be
kept dry, either from rain or the spray of the sea; and a little, long, hollow place I cut in the inside of the boat,
where I could lay my gun, making a flap to hang down over it to keep it dry.
I fixed my umbrella also in the step at the stern, like a mast, to stand over my head, and keep the heat of the
sun off me, like an awning; and thus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but never went
far out, nor far from the little creek. At last, being eager to view the circumference of my little kingdom, I
resolved upon my cruise; and accordingly I victualled my ship for the voyage, putting in two dozen of loaves
(cakes I should call them) of barley.bread, an earthen pot full of parched rice (a food I ate a good deal of), a
little bottle of rum, half a goat, and powder and shot for killing more, and two large watch.coats, of those
which, as I mentioned before, I had saved out of the seamen's chests; these I took, one to lie upon, and the
other to cover me in the night.
It was the 6th of November, in the sixth year of my reign . or my captivity, which you please . that I set out
on this voyage, and I found it much longer than I expected; for though the island itself was not very large, yet
when I came to the east side of it, I found a great ledge of rocks lie out about two leagues into the sea, some
above water, some under it; and beyond that a shoal of sand, lying dry half a league more, so that I was
obliged to go a great way out to sea to double the point.
When I first discovered them, I was going to give over my enterprise, and come back again, not knowing how
far it might oblige me to go out to sea; and above all, doubting how I should get back again: so I came to an
anchor; for I had made a kind of an anchor with a piece of a broken grappling which I got out of the ship.
Having secured my boat, I took my gun and went on shore, climbing up a hill, which seemed to overlook that
point where I saw the full extent of it, and resolved to venture.
In my viewing the sea from that hill where I stood, I perceived a strong, and indeed a most furious current,
which ran to the east, and even came close to the point; and I took the more notice of it because I saw there
might be some danger that when I came into it I might be carried out to sea by the strength of it, and not be
able to make the island again; and indeed, had I not got first upon this hill, I believe it would have been so;
for there was the same current on the other side the island, only that it set off at a further distance, and I saw
CHAPTER X . TAMES GOATS
Robinson Crusoe
there was a strong eddy under the shore; so I had nothing to do but to get out of the first current, and I should
presently be in an eddy.
I lay here, however, two days, because the wind blowing pretty fresh at ESE., and that being just contrary to
the current, made a great breach of the sea upon the point: so that it was not safe for me to keep too close to
the shore for the breach, nor to go too far off, because of the stream.
The third day, in the morning, the wind having abated overnight, the sea was calm, and I ventured: but I am a
warning to all rash and ignorant pilots; for no sooner was I come to the point, when I was not even my boat's
length from the shore, but I found myself in a great depth of water, and a current like the sluice of a mill; it
carried my boat along with it with such violence that all I could do could not keep her so much as on the edge
of it; but I found it hurried me farther and farther out from the eddy, which was on my left hand. There was
no wind stirring to help me, and all I could do with my paddles signified nothing: and now I began to give
myself over for lost; for as the current was on both sides of the island, I knew in a few leagues distance they
must join again, and then I was irrecoverably gone; nor did I see any possibility of avoiding it; so that I had
no prospect before me but of perishing, not by the sea, for that was calm enough, but of starving from hunger.
I had, indeed, found a tortoise on the shore, as big almost as I could lift, and had tossed it into the boat; and I
had a great jar of fresh water, that is to say, one of my earthen pots; but what was all this to being driven into
the vast ocean, where, to be sure, there was no shore, no mainland or island, for a thousand leagues at least?
And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make even the most miserable condition of
mankind worse. Now I looked back upon my desolate, solitary island as the most pleasant place in the world
