my first; nor, indeed, did I take the pains with any of them that I had done with him. I had also several tame
sea.fowls, whose name I knew not, that I caught upon the shore, and cut their wings; and the little stakes
which I had planted before my castle.wall being now grown up to a good thick grove, these fowls all lived
among these low trees, and bred there, which was very agreeable to me; so that, as I said above, I began to he
very well contented with the life I led, if I could have been secured from the dread of the savages. But it was
otherwise directed; and it may not be amiss for all people who shall meet with my story to make this just
observation from it: How frequently, in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun,
and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our
deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into. I could give many
examples of this in the course of my unaccountable life; but in nothing was it more particularly remarkable
than in the circumstances of my last years of solitary residence in this island.
It was now the month of December, as I said above, in my twenty. third year; and this, being the southern
solstice (for winter I cannot call it), was the particular time of my harvest, and required me to be pretty much
abroad in the fields, when, going out early in the morning, even before it was thorough daylight, I was
surprised with seeing a light of some fire upon the shore, at a distance from me of about two miles, toward
that part of the island where I had observed some savages had been, as before, and not on the other side; but,
to my great affliction, it was on my side of the island.
I was indeed terribly surprised at the sight, and stopped short within my grove, not daring to go out, lest I
might be surprised; and yet I had no more peace within, from the apprehensions I had that if these savages, in
rambling over the island, should find my corn standing or cut, or any of my works or improvements, they
would immediately conclude that there were people in the place, and would then never rest till they had found
me out. In this extremity I went back directly to my castle, pulled up the ladder after me, and made all things
without look as wild and natural as I could.
Then I prepared myself within, putting myself in a posture of defence. I loaded all my cannon, as I called
them . that is to say, my muskets, which were mounted upon my new fortification . and all my pistols, and
resolved to defend myself to the last gasp . not forgetting seriously to commend myself to the Divine
protection, and earnestly to pray to God to deliver me out of the hands of the barbarians. I continued in this
posture about two hours, and began to be impatient for intelligence abroad, for I had no spies to send out.
After sitting a while longer, and musing what I should do in this case, I was not able to bear sitting in
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ignorance longer; so setting up my ladder to the side of the hill, where there was a flat place, as I observed
before, and then pulling the ladder after me, I set it up again and mounted the top of the hill, and pulling out
my perspective glass, which I had taken on purpose, I laid me down flat on my belly on the ground, and
began to look for the place. I presently found there were no less than nine naked savages sitting round a small
fire they had made, not to warm them, for they had no need of that, the weather being extremely hot, but, as I
supposed, to dress some of their barbarous diet of human flesh which they had brought with them, whether
alive or dead I could not tell.
They had two canoes with them, which they had hauled up upon the shore; and as it was then ebb of tide,
they seemed to me to wait for the return of the flood to go away again. It is not easy to imagine what
confusion this sight put me into, especially seeing them come on my side of the island, and so near to me; but
when I considered their coming must be always with the current of the ebb, I began afterwards to be more
sedate in my mind, being satisfied that I might go abroad with safety all the time of the flood of tide, if they
were not on shore before; and having made this observation, I went abroad about my harvest work with the
more composure.
As I expected, so it proved; for as soon as the tide made to the westward I saw them all take boat and row (or
paddle as we call it) away. I should have observed, that for an hour or more before they went off they were
dancing, and I could easily discern their postures and gestures by my glass. I could not perceive, by my nicest
observation, but that they were stark naked, and had not the least covering upon them; but whether they were
men or women I could not distinguish.
As soon as I saw them shipped and gone, I took two guns upon my shoulders, and two pistols in my girdle,
and my great sword by my side without a scabbard, and with all the speed I was able to make went away to
the hill where I had discovered the first appearance of all; and as soon as I get thither, which was not in less
than two hours (for I could not go quickly, being so loaded with arms as I was), I perceived there had been
three canoes more of the savages at that place; and looking out farther, I saw they were all at sea together,
making over for the main. This was a dreadful sight to me, especially as, going down to the shore, I could see
the marks of horror which the dismal work they had been about had left behind it . viz. the blood, the bones,
and part of the flesh of human bodies eaten and devoured by those wretches with merriment and sport. I was
so filled with indignation at the sight, that I now began to premeditate the destruction of the next that I saw
there, let them be whom or how many soever. It seemed evident to me that the visits which they made thus to
this island were not very frequent, for it was above fifteen months before any more of them came on shore
there again . that is to say, I neither saw them nor any footsteps or signals of them in all that time; for as to
the rainy seasons, then they are sure not to come abroad, at least not so far. Yet all this while I lived
uncomfortably, by reason of the constant apprehensions of their coming upon me by surprise: from whence I
observe, that the expectation of evil is more bitter than the suffering, especially if there is no room to shake
off that expectation or those apprehensions.
During all this time I was in a murdering humour, and spent most of my hours, which should have been better
employed, in contriving how to circumvent and fall upon them the very next time I should see them .
especially if they should be divided, as they were the last time, into two parties; nor did I consider at all that if
I killed one party . suppose ten or a dozen . I was still the next day, or week, or month, to kill another, and
so another, even AD INFINITUM, till I should be, at length, no less a murderer than they were in being
man.eaters . and perhaps much more so. I spent my days now in great perplexity and anxiety of mind,
expecting that I should one day or other fall, into the hands of these merciless creatures; and if I did at any
time venture abroad, it was not without looking around me with the greatest care and caution imaginable.
And now I found, to my great comfort, how happy it was that I had provided a tame flock or herd of goats,
for I durst not upon any account fire my gun, especially near that side of the island where they usually came,
lest I should alarm the savages; and if they had fled from me now, I was sure to have them come again with
perhaps two or three hundred canoes with them in a few days, and then I knew what to expect. However, I
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wore out a year and three months more before I ever saw any more of the savages, and then I found them
again, as I shall soon observe. It is true they might have been there once or twice; but either they made no
stay, or at least I did not see them; but in the month of May, as near as I could calculate, and in my
four.and.twentieth year, I had a very strange encounter with them; of which in its place.
The perturbation of my mind during this fifteen or sixteen months' interval was very great; I slept unquietly,
dreamed always frightful dreams, and often started out of my sleep in the night. In the day great troubles
overwhelmed my mind; and in the night I dreamed often of killing the savages and of the reasons why I
might justify doing it.
But to waive all this for a while. It was in the middle of May, on the sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor
wooden calendar would reckon, for I marked all upon the post still; I say, it was on the sixteenth of May that
it blew a very great storm of wind all day, with a great deal of lightning and thunder, and; a very foul night it
was after it. I knew not what was the particular occasion of it, but as I was reading in the Bible, and taken up
with very serious thoughts about my present condition, I was surprised with the noise of a gun, as I thought,
fired at sea. This was, to be sure, a surprise quite of a different nature from any I had met with before; for the
notions this put into my thoughts were quite of another kind. I started up in the greatest haste imaginable;
and, in a trice, clapped my ladder to the middle place of the rock, and pulled it after me; and mounting it the
second time, got to the top of the hill the very moment that a flash of fire bid me listen for a second gun,
which, accordingly, in about half a minute I heard; and by the sound, knew that it was from that part of the
sea where I was driven down the current in my boat. I immediately considered that this must be some ship in
distress, and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these for signals of
distress, and to obtain help. I had the presence of mind at that minute to think, that though I could not help
them, it might be that they might help me; so I brought together all the dry wood I could get at hand, and
making a good handsome pile, I set it on fire upon the hill. The wood was dry, and blazed freely; and, though
the wind blew very hard, yet it burned fairly out; so that I was certain, if there was any such thing as a ship,
they must needs see it. And no doubt they did; for as soon as ever my fire blazed up, I heard another gun, and
after that several others, all from the same quarter. I plied my fire all night long, till daybreak: and when it
was broad day, and the air cleared up, I saw something at a great distance at sea, full east of the island,
whether a sail or a hull I could not distinguish . no, not with my glass: the distance was so great, and the
weather still something hazy also; at least, it was so out at sea.
I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived that it did not move; so I presently concluded that it
was a ship at anchor; and being eager, you may be sure, to be satisfied, I took my gun in my hand, and ran
towards the south side of the island to the rocks where I had formerly been carried away by the current; and
getting up there, the weather by this time being perfectly clear, I could plainly see, to my great sorrow, the
wreck of a ship, cast away in the night upon those concealed rocks which I found when I was out in my boat;
and which rocks, as they checked the violence of the stream, and made a kind of counter.stream, or eddy,
were the occasion of my recovering from the most desperate, hopeless condition that ever I had been in in all
my life. Thus, what is one man's safety is another man's destruction; for it seems these men, whoever they
were, being out of their knowledge, and the rocks being wholly under water, had been driven upon them in
the night, the wind blowing hard at ENE. Had they seen the island, as I must necessarily suppose they did
not, they must, as I thought, have endeavoured to have saved themselves on shore by the help of their boat;
but their firing off guns for help, especially when they saw, as I imagined, my fire, filled me with many
thoughts. First, I imagined that upon seeing my light they might have put themselves into their boat, and
endeavoured to make the shore: but that the sea running very high, they might have been cast away. Other
times I imagined that they might have lost their boat before, as might be the case many ways; particularly by
the breaking of the sea upon their ship, which many times obliged men to stave, or take in pieces, their boat,
and sometimes to throw it overboard with their own hands. Other times I imagined they had some other ship
or ships in company, who, upon the signals of distress they made, had taken them up, and carried them off.
Other times I fancied they were all gone off to sea in their boat, and being hurried away by the current that I
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had been formerly in, were carried out into the great ocean, where there was nothing but misery and
perishing: and that, perhaps, they might by this time think of starving, and of being in a condition to eat one
another.
As all these were but conjectures at best, so, in the condition I was in, I could do no more than look on upon
the misery of the poor men, and pity them; which had still this good effect upon my side, that it gave me
more and more cause to give thanks to God, who had so happily and comfortably provided for me in my
desolate condition; and that of two ships' companies, who were now cast away upon this part of the world,
not one life should be spared but mine. I learned here again to observe, that it is very rare that the providence
of God casts us into any condition so low, or any misery so great, but we may see something or other to be
thankful for, and may see others in worse circumstances than our own. Such certainly was the case of these
men, of whom I could not so much as see room to suppose any were saved; nothing could make it rational so
much as to wish or expect that they did not all perish there, except the possibility only of their being taken up
by another ship in company; and this was but mere possibility indeed, for I saw not the least sign or
