Chapter 8
I had now been here so long that many things which I brought on shore for my help had either quite gone or very much been wasted and near spent.
My ink, as I observed, had been gone for some time, all but a very little, which I eked out with water 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 remember that there was a strange occurrence 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 my 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—years afterwards—I made my escape from Sallee in the boat.
The same day of the year I was born on—namely the 30th of September—the same day I had my life so miraculously saved twenty-six years after, when I was cast on shore on this island, so that my wicked life and my solitary life began both on a day.
The next thing to after being was 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 began to decay too mightily. As to linen, I had none a good while, except some checkered 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 several thick watchcoats of the seamen’s, which were left indeed, 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 not abide the thoughts of it, though I was all alone.
The reason why I could not go quite naked was, I 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 that 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 those 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 the work of 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 afterward.
I saved the skins of all the creatures that I killed—I mean four-footed ones—and I had hung them 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 it seemed 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 this I made me a suit of clothes wholly of skins—that is to say, a waistcoat and breeches open at 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 abroad, 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 me an umbrella. I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to make one. I had seen them made in Brazil, where they are very useful in the great heats which are 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 at it, and was a great while before I could make any—thing likely to hold; nay, after I 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 to let down. I could make it to 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 rains like a penthouse, 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.
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, just 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 labour of going out with my gun, I had one labour to make me a canoe, which at last I finished; so that, by digging a canal to it of six feet wide and four feet deep, I brought it into the creek, almost half a mile.
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. But as I had a boat, my next design was to make a tour 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 to my boat, to put provisions, necessaries, ammunition, etc 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 a step at the stern, like a mast, to stand over my head, and keep the beat 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, not far from the little creek. But at last, being eager to view the circumference of my little kingdom, I resolved upon my tour, and accordingly I victualled my ship for the voyage, putting in two dozen of my loaves (cakes I should rather call them) of barley bread, an earthen pot full of parched rice—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 above two leagues into the water, some above the sea, 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 first I 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 me a kind of an anchor with a piece of a broken grapling, which I got out of the ship.
Having secured my boat, I took my gun and went on shore, climbing up upon 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 up 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 farther distance. And I saw there was a strong eddy under the shore; so I had nothing to do but to get in 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 east-south-east, and that being just contrary to the said 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 was a warning piece again to all rash and ignorant pilots; for no sooner had I come to the pint, when even I was not 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 paddlers signified nothing. And now I began to give myself over for lost; for as the current was on both sides 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 for 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 the most miserable condition mankind could be in, worse. Now I looked back upon my desolate solitary island as the most pleasant place in the world, and all the happiness my heart could wish for was to be but there again.
Just as I had set my mast and sail, and the boat began to stretch away, I saw even by the clearness of the water some alteration of the current was near; for where the current was so strong, the water was foul; but perceiving the water clear, I found the current abate, and presently I found to the east, at about half a mile, a breach of the sea upon some rocks. These rocks, I found, caused the current to part again, and as the main stress of it ran away more southerly, leaving the rocks to the north-east, so the other returned by the repulse of the rocks, and made a strong eddy, which ran back again to the north-west, with a very sharp stream.
This eddy carried me about a league in my way back again directly towards the island, about two leagues more to the northward than the current which carried me away at first; so that when I came near the island, I found myself open to the northern shore of it—that is to say, the other end of the island opposite to that which I went out from.
When I had made something more than a league of way by the help of this current or eddy, I found it was spent, and served me no farther. However, I found that being between the two great currents, namely, that on the south side, which had hurried me away, and that on the north, which lay about a league on the other side: I say, between these two, in the wake of the island, I found the water at least still and running no way; and having still a breeze of wind fair for me, I kept on steering directly for the island, though not making such fresh way as I did before.
About four o’clock in the evening, being then within about a league of the island, I found the point of the rocks which occasioned this disaster stretching out, as is described before, to the southward, and casting off the current more southwardly had of course made another eddy to the north, and this I found very strong, not directly setting the way my course lay, which was due west, but almost full north. However, having a fresh gale, I stretched across this eddy slanting north-west, and in about an hour came within about a mile of the shore, where, it being smooth water, I soon got to land. When I was on shore, I fell on my knees and gave God thanks for my deliverance, resolving to lay aside all thoughts of my deliverance by my boat; and refreshed myself with such things as I had. I brought my boat close to the shore in a little cove that I had spied under some trees, and laid me down to sleep, being quite spent with the labour and fatigue of the voyage.
I was now at a great loss which way to get home with my boat. I had run so much hazard, and knew too much the case, to think of attempting it by the way I went out; and what might be at the other side (I mean the west side) I knew not, nor had I any mind to run any more ventures; so I only resolved in the morning to make my way westward along the shore, and to see if there was no creek where I might lay up my frigate in safety, so as to have her again when I wanted her. In about three miles or thereabouts, coasting the shore, I came to a very good inlet or bay about a mile over, which narrowed till it came to a very little rivulet or brook, where I found a very convenient harbour for my boat, and where she lay as if she had been in a little dock made on purpose for her. Here I put in, and having stowed my boat very safe, I went on shore to look about me and see where I was.
I soon found I had but a little passed by the place where I had been before, when I travelled on foot to that shore; so taking out nothing of my boat but my gun and my umbrella, for it was exceeding hot, I began my march. The way was comfortable enough after such a voyage as I had been upon, and I reached my old bower in the evening, where I found everything standing as I left it; for I always kept it in good order, being, as I said before, my country house.
I got over the fence, and laid me down in the shade to rest my limbs, for I was very weary, and fell asleep. But judge you, if you can, that read my story, what a surprise I must be in, when I was awakened out of my sleep by a voice calling me by my name several times, “Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe; poor Robin Crusoe! Where are you, Robin Crusoe? Where are you? ‘Where have you been?”