historical part of things, and take every part in its order.
After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and that he could understand almost all I said to him,
and speak pretty fluently, though in broken English, to me, I acquainted him with my own history, or at least
so much of it as related to my coming to this place: how I had lived there, and how long; I let him into the
mystery, for such it was to him, of gunpowder and bullet, and taught him how to shoot. I gave him a knife,
CHAPTER XV . FRIDAY'S EDUCATION
Robinson Crusoe
which he was wonderfully delighted with; and I made him a belt, with a frog hanging to it, such as in
England we wear hangers in; and in the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not only as
good a weapon in some cases, but much more useful upon other occasions.
I described to him the country of Europe, particularly England, which I came from; how we lived, how we
worshipped God, how we behaved to one another, and how we traded in ships to all parts of the world. I gave
him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of, and showed him, as near as I could, the place
where she lay; but she was all beaten in pieces before, and gone. I showed him the ruins of our boat, which
we lost when we escaped, and which I could not stir with my whole strength then; but was now fallen almost
all to pieces. Upon seeing this boat, Friday stood, musing a great while, and said nothing. I asked him what it
was he studied upon. At last says he, "Me see such boat like come to place at my nation." I did not understand
him a good while; but at last, when I had examined further into it, I understood by him that a boat, such as
that had been, came on shore upon the country where he lived: that is, as he explained it, was driven thither
by stress of weather. I presently imagined that some European ship must have been cast away upon their
coast, and the boat might get loose and drive ashore; but was so dull that I never once thought of men making
their escape from a wreck thither, much less whence they might come: so I only inquired after a description
of the boat.
Friday described the boat to me well enough; but brought me better to understand him when he added with
some warmth, "We save the white mans from drown." Then I presently asked if there were any white mans,
as he called them, in the boat. "Yes," he said; "the boat full of white mans." I asked him how many. He told
upon his fingers seventeen. I asked him then what became of them. He told me, "They live, they dwell at my
nation."
This put new thoughts into my head; for I presently imagined that these might be the men belonging to the
ship that was cast away in the sight of my island, as I now called it; and who, after the ship was struck on the
rock, and they saw her inevitably lost, had saved themselves in their boat, and were landed upon that wild
shore among the savages. Upon this I inquired of him more critically what was become of them. He assured
me they lived still there; that they had been there about four years; that the savages left them alone, and gave
them victuals to live on. I asked him how it came to pass they did not kill them and eat them. He said, "No,
they make brother with them;" that is, as I understood him, a truce; and then he added, "They no eat mans but
when make the war fight;" that is to say, they never eat any men but such as come to fight with them and are
taken in battle.
It was after this some considerable time, that being upon the top of the hill at the east side of the island, from
whence, as I have said, I had, in a clear day, discovered the main or continent of America, Friday, the weather
being very serene, looks very earnestly towards the mainland, and, in a kind of surprise, falls a jumping and
dancing, and calls out to me, for I was at some distance from him. I asked him what was the matter. "Oh,
joy!" says he; "Oh, glad! there see my country, there my nation!" I observed an extraordinary sense of
pleasure appeared in his face, and his eyes sparkled, and his countenance discovered a strange eagerness, as if
he had a mind to be in his own country again. This observation of mine put a great many thoughts into me,
which made me at first not so easy about my new man Friday as I was before; and I made no doubt but that, if
Friday could get back to his own nation again, he would not only forget all his religion but all his obligation
to me, and would be forward enough to give his countrymen an account of me, and come back, perhaps with
a hundred or two of them, and make a feast upon me, at which he might be as merry as he used to be with
those of his enemies when they were taken in war. But I wronged the poor honest creature very much, for
which I was very sorry afterwards. However, as my jealousy increased, and held some weeks, I was a little
more circumspect, and not so familiar and kind to him as before: in which I was certainly wrong too; the
honest, grateful creature having no thought about it but what consisted with the best principles, both as a
religious Christian and as a grateful friend, as appeared afterwards to my full satisfaction.
CHAPTER XV . FRIDAY'S EDUCATION
Robinson Crusoe
While my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every day pumping him to see if he would discover
any of the new thoughts which I suspected were in him; but I found everything he said was so honest and so
innocent, that I could find nothing to nourish my suspicion; and in spite of all my uneasiness, he made me at
last entirely his own again; nor did he in the least perceive that I was uneasy, and therefore I could not
suspect him of deceit.
One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at sea, so that we could not see the continent, I
called to him, and said, "Friday, do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation?" "Yes," he
said, "I be much O glad to be at my own nation." "What would you do there?" said I. "Would you turn wild
again, eat men's flesh again, and be a savage as you were before?" He looked full of concern, and shaking his
head, said, "No, no, Friday tell them to live good; tell them to pray God; tell them to eat corn.bread, cattle
flesh, milk; no eat man again." "Why, then," said I to him, "they will kill you." He looked grave at that, and
then said, "No, no, they no kill me, they willing love learn." He meant by this, they would be willing to learn.
He added, they learned much of the bearded mans that came in the boat. Then I asked him if he would go
back to them. He smiled at that, and told me that he could not swim so far. I told him I would make a canoe
for him. He told me he would go if I would go with him. "I go!" says I; "why, they will eat me if I come
there." "No, no," says he, "me make they no eat you; me make they much love you." He meant, he would tell
them how I had killed his enemies, and saved his life, and so he would make them love me. Then he told me,
as well as he could, how kind they were to seventeen white men, or bearded men, as he called them who
came on shore there in distress.
From this time, I confess, I had a mind to venture over, and see if I could possibly join with those bearded
men, who I made no doubt were Spaniards and Portuguese; not doubting but, if I could, we might find some
method to escape from thence, being upon the continent, and a good company together, better than I could
from an island forty miles off the shore, alone and without help. So, after some days, I took Friday to work
again by way of discourse, and told him I would give him a boat to go back to his own nation; and,
accordingly, I carried him to my frigate, which lay on the other side of the island, and having cleared it of
water (for I always kept it sunk in water), I brought it out, showed it him, and we both went into it. I found he
was a most dexterous fellow at managing it, and would make it go almost as swift again as I could. So when
he was in, I said to him, "Well, now, Friday, shall we go to your nation?" He looked very dull at my saying
so; which it seems was because he thought the boat was too small to go so far. I then told him I had a bigger;
so the next day I went to the place where the first boat lay which I had made, but which I could not get into
the water. He said that was big enough; but then, as I had taken no care of it, and it had lain two or three and
twenty years there, the sun had so split and dried it, that it was rotten. Friday told me such a boat would do
very well, and would carry "much enough vittle, drink, bread;" this was his way of talking.
CHAPTER XVI . RESCUE OF PRISONERS FROM CANNIBALS
UPON the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going over with him to the continent that I
told him we would go and make one as big as that, and he should go home in it. He answered not one word,
but looked very grave and sad. I asked him what was the matter with him. He asked me again, "Why you
angry mad with Friday? . what me done?" I asked him what he meant. I told him I was not angry with him at
all. "No angry!" says he, repeating the words several times; "why send Friday home away to my nation?"
"Why," says I, "Friday, did not you say you wished you were there?" "Yes, yes," says he, "wish we both
there; no wish Friday there, no master there." In a word, he would not think of going there without me. "I go
there, Friday?" says I; "what shall I do there?" He turned very quick upon me at this. "You do great deal
much good," says he; "you teach wild mans be good, sober, tame mans; you tell them know God, pray God,
and live new life." "Alas, Friday!" says I, "thou knowest not what thou sayest; I am but an ignorant man
myself." "Yes, yes," says he, "you teachee me good, you teachee them good." "No, no, Friday," says I, "you
shall go without me; leave me here to live by myself, as I did before." He looked confused again at that word;
CHAPTER XVI . RESCUE OF PRISONERS FROM CANNIBALS
Robinson Crusoe
and running to one of the hatchets which he used to wear, he takes it up hastily, and gives it to me. "What
must I do with this?" says I to him. "You take kill Friday," says he. "What must kill you for?" said I again. He
returns very quick . "What you send Friday away for? Take kill Friday, no send Friday away." This he spoke
so earnestly that I saw tears stand in his eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered the utmost affection in him to
me, and a firm resolution in him, that I told him then and often after, that I would never send him away from
me if he was willing to stay with me.
Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse a settled affection to me, and that nothing could part him from
me, so I found all the foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent affection to the
people, and his hopes of my doing them good; a thing which, as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the
least thought or intention, or desire of undertaking it. But still I found a strong inclination to attempting my
escape, founded on the supposition gathered from the discourse, that there were seventeen bearded men there;
and therefore, without any more delay, I went to work with Friday to find out a great tree proper to fell, and
make a large periagua, or canoe, to undertake the voyage. There were trees enough in the island to have built
a little fleet, not of periaguas or canoes, but even of good, large vessels; but the main thing I looked at was, to
get one so near the water that we might launch it when it was made, to avoid the mistake I committed at first.
At last Friday pitched upon a tree; for I found he knew much better than I what kind of wood was fittest for it;
nor can I tell to this day what wood to call the tree we cut down, except that it was very like the tree we call
fustic, or between that and the Nicaragua wood, for it was much of the same colour and smell. Friday wished
to burn the hollow or cavity of this tree out, to make it for a boat, but I showed him how to cut it with tools;
which, after I had showed him how to use, he did very handily; and in about a month's hard labour we
finished it and made it very handsome; especially when, with our axes, which I showed him how to handle,
we cut and hewed the outside into the true shape of a boat. After this, however, it cost us near a fortnight's
time to get her along, as it were inch by inch, upon great rollers into the water; but when she was in, she
would have carried twenty men with great ease.
When she was in the water, though she was so big, it amazed me to see with what dexterity and how swift my
man Friday could manage her, turn her, and paddle her along. So I asked him if he would, and if we might
venture over in her. "Yes," he said, "we venture over in her very well, though great blow wind." However I
had a further design that he knew nothing of, and that was, to make a mast and a sail, and to fit her with an
anchor and cable. As to a mast, that was easy enough to get; so I pitched upon a straight young cedar.tree,
which I found near the place, and which there were great plenty of in the island, and I set Friday to work to
cut it down, and gave him directions how to shape and order it. But as to the sail, that was my particular care.
I knew I had old sails, or rather pieces of old sails, enough; but as I had had them now six.and.twenty years
by me, and had not been very careful to preserve them, not imagining that I should ever have this kind of use
for them, I did not doubt but they were all rotten; and, indeed, most of them were so. However, I found two
pieces which appeared pretty good, and with these I went to work; and with a great deal of pains, and
awkward stitching, you may be sure, for want of needles, I at length made a three.cornered ugly thing, like
what we call in England a shoulder.of.mutton sail, to go with a boom at bottom, and a little short sprit at the
