by Daniel Defoe
place; and agreat parcel of limes and melons in another place; and, taking a few ofeach with me, I travelled homeward; and resolved to come again, andbring a bag or sack, or what I could make to carry the rest home.Accordingly, having spent three days in this journey, I came home (so Imust now call my tent and my cave:) but before I got thither, the grapeswere spoiled; the richness of the fruits, and the weight of the juice,having broken and bruised them, they were good for little or nothing: asto the limes, they were good, but I could bring only a few.
The next day, being the 19th, I went back, having made me two small bagsto bring home my harvest; but I was surprised, when, coming to my heapof grapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them, I foundthem all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some here,some there, and abundance eaten and devoured. By this I concluded therewere some wild creatures thereabouts which had done this, but what theywere I knew not. However, as I found there was no laying them up inheaps, and no carrying them away in a sack; but that one way they wouldbe destroyed, and the other way they would be crushed with their ownweight; I took another course: I then gathered a large quantity of thegrapes, and hung them upon the out-branches of the trees, that theymight cure and dry in the sun; and as for the limes and lemons, Icarried as many back as I could well stand under.
When I came home from this journey, I contemplated with great pleasurethe fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of the situation;the security from storms on that side; the water and the wood: andconcluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode in, which wasby far the worst part of the country. Upon the whole, I began toconsider of removing my habitation, and to look out for a place equallysafe as where I was now situate; if possible, in that pleasant fruitfulpart of the island.
This thought ran long in my head; and I was exceeding fond of it forsome time, the pleasantness of the place tempting me: but when I came toa nearer view of it, I considered that I was now by the sea-side, whereit was at least possible that something might happen to my advantage,and, by the same ill fate that brought me hither, might bring some otherunhappy wretches to the same place; and though it was scarce probablethat any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among thehills and woods in the centre of the island, was to anticipate mybondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, butimpossible; and that therefore I ought not by any means to remove.However, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spent much of my timethere for the whole remaining part of the month of July; and though,upon second thoughts, I resolved, as above stated, not to remove; yet Ibuilt me a little kind of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance witha strong fence, being a double hedge, as high as I could reach, wellstaked, and filled between with brush-wood. Here I lay very secure,sometimes two or three nights together; always going over it with aladder, as before: so that I fancied now I had my country and mysea-coast house. This work took me up till the beginning of August.
I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labour, whenthe rains came on, and made me stick close to my first habitation: forthough I had made a tent like the other, with a piece of sail, andspread it very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me fromstorms, nor a cave behind me to retreat into when the rains wereextraordinary.
About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower, andbegan to enjoy myself. The 3d of August, I found the grapes I had hungup were perfectly dried, and indeed were excellent good raisins of thesun: so I began to take them down from the trees; and it was very happythat I did so, as the rains which followed would have spoiled them, andI should have lost the best part of my winter food; for I had above twohundred large bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, andcarried most of them home to my cave, but it began to rain: and fromhence, which was the 14th of August, it rained, more or less, every daytill the middle of October; and sometimes so violently, that I could notstir out of my cave for several days.
In this season, I was much surprised with the increase of my family. Ihad been concerned for the loss of one of my cats, who ran away from me,or, as I thought, had been dead; and I heard no more of her, till, to myastonishment, she came home with three kittens. This was the morestrange to me, because, about the end of August, though I had killed awild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought it was quite adifferent kind from our European cats: yet the young cats were the samekind of house-breed as the old one; and both of my cats being females, Ithought it very strange. But from these three, I afterwards came to beso pestered with cats, that I was forced to kill them like vermin, orwild beasts, and to drive them from my house as much as possible.
From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain; so that I could notstir, and was now very careful not to be much wet. In this confinement,I began to be straitened for food; but venturing out twice, I one daykilled a goat, and the last day, which was the 26th, found a very largetortoise, which was a treat to me. My food was now regulated thus: I atea bunch of raisins for my breakfast; a piece of the goat's flesh, or ofthe turtle, broiled, for my dinner (for, to my great misfortune, I hadno vessel to boil or stew any thing;) and two or three of the turtle'seggs for my supper.
During this confinement in my cover by the rain, I worked daily two orthree hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked it on towardsone side, till I came to the outside of the hill; and made a door, orway out, which came beyond my fence or wall: and so I came in and outthis way. But I was not perfectly easy at lying so open: for as I hadmanaged myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure; whereas now, Ithought I lay exposed; and yet I could not perceive that there was anyliving thing to fear, the biggest creature that I had yet seen upon theisland being a goat.
_September_ 30. I was now come to the unhappy anniversary of my landing.I cast up the notches on my post, and found I had been on shore threehundred and sixty-five days. I kept this day as a solemn fast; settingit apart for religious exercise, prostrating myself on the ground withthe most serious humiliation, confessing my sins to God, acknowledginghis righteous judgments upon me, and praying to him to have mercy on methrough Jesus Christ; and having not tasted the least refreshment fortwelve hours, even till the going down of the sun, I then ate a biscuitand a bunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day as I began it.I had all this time observed no sabbath-day; for as at first I had nosense of religion upon my mind, I had, after some time, omitted todistinguish the weeks, by making a longer notch than ordinary for thesabbath-day, and so did not really know what any of the days were: butnow having cast up the days, as above, I found I had been there a year;so I divided it into weeks, and set apart every seventh day for asabbath: though I found, at the end of my account, I had lost a day ortwo in my reckoning. A little after this, my ink beginning to fail me, Icontented myself to use it more sparingly; and to write down only themost remarkable events of my life, without continuing a daily memorandumof other things.
The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear regular to me,and I learned to divide them so as to provide for them accordingly; butI bought all my experience before I had it; and what I am going torelate was one of the most discouraging experiments that I had madeat all.
I have mentioned that I had saved the few ears of barley, and rice,which I had so surprisingly found sprung up, as I thought, ofthemselves. I believe there were about thirty stalks of rice, and abouttwenty of barley; and now I thought it a proper time to sow it after therains; the sun being in its southern position, going from me.Accordingly I dug a piece of ground, as well as I could, with my woodenspade; and dividing it into two parts, I sowed my grain; but, as I wassowing, it casually occurred to my thoughts that I would not sow it allat first, because I did not know when was the proper time for it; so Isowed about two-thirds of the seed, leaving about a handful of each: andit was a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one grainof what I sowed this time came to any thing; for the dry monthfollowing, and the earth having thus had no rain after the seed wassown, it had
no moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at alltill the wet season had come again, and then it grew as if it had beenbut newly sown. Finding my first seed did not grow, which I easilyimagined was from the drought, I sought for a moister piece of ground tomake another trial in; and I dug up a piece of ground near my new bower,and sowed the rest of my seed in February, a little before the vernalequinox. This having the rainy month of March and April to water it,sprung up very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having onlypart of the seed left, and not daring to sow all that I had, I got but asmall quantity at last, my whole crop not amounting to above half a peckof each kind. But by this experiment I was made master of my business,and knew exactly when was the proper time to sow; and that I mightexpect two seed-times, and two harvests, every year.
While this corn was growing, I made a little discovery, which was of useto me afterwards. As soon as the rains were over, and the weather beganto settle, which