by Daniel Defoe
When I had gone through this work, I was extremely delighted with it. The boat was really much bigger than I ever saw a canoe, or periagua, that was made of one tree, in my life. Many a weary stroke it had cost, you may be sure; and there remained nothing but to get it into the water; and had I gotten it into the water, I make no question but I should have began the maddest voyage, and the most unlikely to be perform’d, that ever was undertaken.
But all my devices to get it into the water fail’d me; though they cost me infinite labour too. It lay about one hundred yards from the water, and not more: But the first inconvenience was, it was up hill towards the creek; well, to take away this discouragement, I resolv’d to dig into the surface of the earth, and so make a declivity: This I begun, and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains; but who grutches pains, that have their deliverance in view: But when this was work’d through, and this difficulty manag’d, it was still much at one; for I could no more stir the canoe, than I could the other boat.
Then I measur’d the distance of ground, and resolv’d to cut a dock, or canal, to bring the water up to the canoe, seeing I could not bring the canoe down to the water: Well, I began this work, and when I began to enter into it, and calculate how deep it was to be dug, how broad, how the stuff to be thrown out, I found, that by the number of hands I had, being none but my own, it must have been ten or twelve years before I should have gone through with it; for the shore lay high, so that at the upper end it must have been at least twenty foot deep; so at length, tho’ with great reluctancy, I gave this attempt over also.
This griev’d me heartily, and now I saw, tho’ too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost; and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.
In the middle of this work, I finish’d my fourth year in this place, and kept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as much comfort as ever before; for by a constant study, and serious application of the Word of God, and by the assistance of his grace, I gain’d different knowledge from what I had before. I entertain’d different notions of things. I look’d now upon the world as a thing remote, which I had nothing to do with, no expectation from, and indeed no desires about: In a word, I had nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever like to have; so I thought it look’d as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter,34 viz. as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it; and well might I say, as Father Abraham to Dives, Between me and thee is a great gulph fixed.35
In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the world here: I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life.36 I had nothing to covet; for I had all that I was now capable of enjoying: I was lord of the whole manor; or if I pleas’d, I might call my self king, or emperor over the whole country which I had possession of. There were no rivals. I had no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command with me. I might have rais’d ship loadings of corn; but I had no use for it; so I let as little grow as I thought enough for my occasion. I had tortoise or turtles enough; but now and then one was as much as I could put to any use. I had timber enough to have built a fleet of ships. I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to have cur’d into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when they had been built.
But all I could make use of, was, all that was valuable. I had enough to eat, and to supply my wants, and, what was all the rest to me? If I kill’d more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or the vermin. If I sow’d more corn than I could eat, it must be spoil’d. The trees that I cut down, were lying to rot on the ground. I could make no more use of them than for fewel; and that I had no occasion for, but to dress my food.
In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world, are no farther good to us, than they are for our use; and that whatever we may heap up indeed to give others, we enjoy just as much as we can use, and no more. The most covetous griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness, if he had been in my case; for I possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire, except it was of things which I had not, and they were but trifles, tho’ indeed of great use to me. I had, as I hinted before, a parcel of money, as well gold as silver, about thirty six pounds sterling: Alas! there the nasty sorry useless stuff lay; I had no manner of business for it; and I often thought with myself, that I would have given a handful of it for a gross of tobacco-pipes, or for a hand-mill to grind my corn; nay, I would have given it all for six-penny-worth of turnip and carrot seed out of England, or for a handful of pease and beans, and a bottle of ink: As it was, I had not the least advantage by it, or benefit from it; but there it lay in a drawer, and grew mouldy with the damp of the cave, in the wet season; and if I had had the drawer full of diamonds, it had been the same case; and they had been of no manner of value to me, because of no use.
I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in it self than it was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. I frequently sat down to my meat with thankfulness, and admir’d the hand of God’s Providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learn’d to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side; and to consider what I enjoy’d, rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them; because they see, and covet something that he has not given them: All our discontents about what we want, appeared to me, to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
Another reflection was of great use to me, and doubtless would be so to any one that should fall into such distress as mine was; and this was, to compare my present condition with what I at first expected it should be; nay, with what it would certainly have been, if the good Providence of God had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up nearer to the shore, where I not only could come at her, but could bring what I got out of her to the shore, for my relief and comfort; without which, I had wanted for tools to work, weapons for defence, or gun-powder and shot for getting my food.
I spent whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to myself in the most lively colours, how I must have acted, if I had got nothing out of the ship; how I could not have so much as got any food, except fish and turtles; and that as it was long before I found any of them, I must have perish’d first. That I should have liv’d, if I had not perish’d, like a meer savage. That if I had kill’d a goat, or a fowl, by any contrivance, I had no way to flea or open them, or part the flesh from the skin and the bowels, or to cut it up; but must gnaw it with my teeth, and pull it with my claws like a beast.
These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence to me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardships and misfortunes: And this part also I cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are apt in their misery to say, Is any affliction like mine! Let them consider, how much worse the cases of some people are, and their case might have been, if Providence had thought fit.
I had another reflection which assisted me also to comfort my mind with hopes; and this was, comparing my present condition with what I had deserv’d, and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence. I had liv’d a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the knowledge and fear of God. I had been well instructed by father and mother; neither had they been wanting to me in their early endeavours, to infuse a religious awe of God into my mind, a sense of my duty, and of what the nature and end of my being requir’d of me. But alas! falling early into the sea-faring life, which of all the lives is the most destitute of the fear of God, tho’ his terrors are always before them; I say, falling early into the sea-faring life, and into sea-faring company, all that little sense of religion which I had entertain’d, was laugh’d out of me by my mess mates, by a harden’d despising of dangers, and the views o
f death, which grew habitual to me, by my long absence from all manner of opportunities to converse with any thing but what was like myself, or to hear any thing that was good, or tended towards it.
So void was I of every thing that was good, or of the least sense of what I was, or was to be, that in the greatest deliverances I enjoy’d, such as my escape from Sallee; my being taken up by the Portuguese Master of the ship, my being planted so well in the Brasils; my receiving the cargo from England, and the like; I never had once the word Thank God, so much as on my mind, or in my mouth; nor in the greatest distress, had I so much as a thought to pray to him, or so much as to say, Lord have mercy upon me; no nor to mention the name of God, unless it was to swear by, and blaspheme it.
I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months, as I have already observ’d, on the account of my wicked and hardned life past; and when I look’d about me, and consider’d what particular Providences37 had attended me since my coming into this place, and how God had dealt bountifully with me; had not only punish’d me less than my iniquity had deserv’d, but had so plentifully provided for me; this gave me great hopes that my repentance was accepted, and that God had yet mercy in store for me.
With these reflections I work’d my mind up, not only to resignation to the will of God in the present disposition of my circumstances; but even to a sincere thankfulness for my condition, and that I who was yet a living man, ought not to complain, seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins; that I enjoy’d so many mercies which I had no reason to have expected in that place; that I ought never more to repine at my condition, but to rejoyce, and to give daily thanks for that daily bread, which nothing but a croud of wonders could have brought. That I ought to consider I had been fed even by miracle, even as great as that of feeding Elijah by ravens;38 nay, by a long series of miracles, and that I could hardly have nam’d a place in the unhabitable 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 tygers to threaten my life, no venomous creatures or poisonous, which I might feed on to my hurt, no savages to murther 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 sence 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 of these things, I went away and was no more sad.
I had now been here so long, that many things which I brought on shore for my help, were either quite gone, or very much wasted and near spent.
My ink, as I observ’d, had been gone for some time, all but a very little, which I eek’d 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 minuite down the days of the month on which any remarkable thing happen’d to me, and first by casting up times past: I remember that there was a strange concurrence of days, in the various Providences which befel me; and which, if I had been superstitiously inclin’d to observe days as fatal or fortunate, I might have had reason to have look’d upon with a great deal of curiosity.
First I had observ’d, that the same day that I broke away from my father and my friends, and run 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 the boat.
The same day of the year I was born on, (viz.) the 30th of September, the same day I had my life so miraculously saved 26 years after,39 when I was cast on shore in this island; so that my wicked life and my solitary life begun both on a day.
The next thing to my ink’s being wasted, was that of my bread, I mean the bisket 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 linnen, I had had none a good while, except some checquer’d shirts which I found in the chests of the other seamen, and which I carefully preserv’d, 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 watch-coats of the seamen, which were left indeed, but they were too hot to wear; and tho’ it is true, that the weather was so violent hot that there was no need of clothes, yet I could not go quite naked; no, tho’ I had been inclined to it, which I was not, nor could not abide the thoughts of it, tho’ 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 blister’d 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 head-ach presently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap or a 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 wast-coats 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 a taylering, or rather indeed a botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift to make two or three new wast-coats, 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 have mentioned, that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I kill’d, I mean four-footed ones, and I had hung them up stretch’d 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 seems were very useful. The first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the hair on the outside to shoor40 off the rain; and this I perform’d so well, that after this I made me a suit of clothes wholly of these skins, that is to say, a wast-coat 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 tayler. However, they were such as I made very good shift with; and when I was abroad, if it happen’d to rain, the hair of my wast-coat 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 the Brasils, 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 spoil’d 2 or 3 before I made one to my mind; but at last I made one that answer’d 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 wou’d not do. However, at last, as I said, I made one to answer, and cover’d 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 nee
d of it, cou’d close it and carry it under my arm.
Thus I liv’d mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed by resigning 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.
I cannot say that after this, for five years, any extraordinary thing happen’d to me, but I liv’d on in the same course, in the same posture and place, just as before; the chief things I was employ’d 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 foot wide, and four foot deep, I brought it into the creek, almost half a mile. As for the first, which was so vastly big, as I made it without considering before-hand, as I ought to do, how I should be able to launch it; so never being able to bring it to the water, or bring the water to it, I was oblig’d to let it lye where it was, as a memorandum to teach me to be wiser next time: Indeed, the next time, tho’ I could not get a tree proper for it, and 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 grutch’d my labour, in hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last.