by Daniel Defoe
parcel of limes and lemonsin another place; and taking a few of each with me, I travelledhomeward, and resolved to come again, and bring a bag or sack, or what Icould 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, thegrapes were spoiled; the richness of the fruit, and the weight of thejuice, having broken them, and bruised them, they were good for littleor nothing: as to the limes, they were good, but I could bring buta 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 heap ofgrapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them, I found themall spread abroad, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some here, somethere, and abundance eaten and devoured. By this I concluded there weresome wild creatures thereabouts, which had done this; but what they wereI knew not.
However, as I found there was no laying them up on heaps, and nocarrying them away in a sack, but that one way they would be destroyed,and the other way they would be crushed with their own weight, I tookanother course; for I gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hungthem upon the out branches of the trees, that they might cure and dry inthe sun; and as for the limes and lemons, I carried as many back as Icould well stand under.
When I came home from this journey, I contemplated with great pleasureon the fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of thesituation, the security from storms on that side of the water, and thewood; and concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode,which was by far the worst part of the country. Upon the whole, I beganto consider of removing my habitation, and to look out for a placeequally safe as where I now was situated, if possible, in that pleasantfruitful part 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, and to consider that I was now by the sea-side,where it was at least possible that something might happen to myadvantage, and that the same ill fate that brought me hither might bringsome other unhappy wretches to the same place; and though it was scarceprobable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myselfamong the hills and woods, in the centre of the island, was toanticipate my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable,but impossible; and that therefore I ought not by any means to remove.
However, I was so enamoured with this place, that I spent much of mytime there for the whole remaining part of the month of July; andthough, upon second thoughts, I resolved as above, 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 brushwood; and 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 house, and mysea-coast house: and this work took me up the beginning of August.
I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labour, but therains came on, and made me stick close to my first habitation; forthough I had made me a tent like the other, with a piece of a 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 hung upwere 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; for the rains which followed would have spoiled them, andI had lost the best part of my winter food; for I had above two hundredlarge bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, and carriedmost of them home to my cave, but it began to rain; and from thence,which was the 14th of August, it rained more or less every day, till themiddle of October; and sometimes so violently, that I could not stir outof 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 tale or tidings ofher, till to my astonishment she came home about the end of August, withthree kittens. This was the more strange to me, because though I hadkilled a wild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought it was aquite different kind from our European cats; yet the young cats were thesame kind of house breed like the old one; and both my cats beingfemales, I thought it very strange: but from these three cats Iafterwards came to be so pestered with cats, that I was forced to killthem like vermin, or wild beasts, and to drive them from my house asmuch 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 Ibegan 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, and my food was regulated thus: I atea bunch of raisins for my breakfast, a piece of the goat's flesh, or ofthe turtle, for my dinner, broiled (for, to my great misfortune, I hadno vessel to boil or stew any thing;) and two or three of the turtle'seggs for supper. During this confinement in my cover by the rain, Iworked daily two or three hours at enlarging my cave; and, by degrees,worked it on towards one side, till I came to the outside of the hill,and made a door or way out, which came beyond my fence or wall; and so Icame in and out this way: but I was not perfectly easy at lying so open;for as I had managed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure,whereas now I thought I lay exposed; and yet I could not perceive thatthere was any living thing to fear, the biggest creature that I had seenupon the island being a goat.
September the 30th. I was now come to the unhappy anniversary of mylanding: I cast up the notches on my post, and found I had been on shorethree hundred and sixty-five days. I kept this day as a solemn fast,setting it apart to a religious exercise, prostrating myself to theground with the most serious humiliation, confessing myself to God,acknowledging his righteous judgment upon me, and praying to him to havemercy on me, through Jesus Christ; and having not tasted the leastrefreshment for twelve hours, even till the going down of the sun, Ithen ate a biscuit-cake and 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 before, 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 or twoof my reckoning.
A little after this my ink began to fail me, and so I contented myselfto use it more sparingly, and to write down only the most remarkableevents of my life, without continuing a daily memorandum ofother things.
The rainy season, and the dry season, began now to appear regular tome, and I learnt to divide them so as to provide for them accordingly.But I bought all my experience before I had it; and this I am going torelate, was one of the most discouraging experiments that I made at all.I have mentioned, that I had saved the few ears of barley and rice whichI had so surprisingly found spring up, as I thought, of themselves, andbelieve there were about thirty stalks of rice, and about twenty ofbarley: and now I thought it a proper time to sow it after the rains,the sun being in its southern position going from me.
Accordingly I dug up a piece of ground, as well as I could, with mywooden spade, and dividing it into two parts, I sowed my grain; but as Iwas sowing, it casually occurred to my thought, that I would not sow itall at first, because I did not know when was the proper time for it; soI sowed about two thirds of the seeds, leaving about a handful of each.
It was a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so; for not one grainof that I sowed this time came to any th
ing; for the dry monthsfollowing, the earth having had no rain after the seed was sown, it hadno moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at all, till the wetseason had come again, and then it grew as if it had been newly sown.
Finding my first seed did not grow, which I easily imagined was by thedrought, I sought for a moister piece of ground to make another trialin; and I dug up a piece of ground near my new bower, and sowed the restof my seed in February, a little before the vernal equinox; and this,having the rainy months of March and April to water it, sprung up verypleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having part of the seedleft only, and not daring to sow all that I had yet, I had but a smallquantity at last, my whole crop not amounting to above half a peck ofeach kind.
But by this experience I was made master of my business, and knewexactly when the proper season was to sow; and that I might expect twoseed-times, and two harvests, every year.
While this corn was growing, I made a little discovery, which was