The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

my apprehensions at first; and myhead ran mightily upon the thoughts of getting over to that shore.

  Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long-boat, with the shoulder ofmutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast ofAfrica; but this was in vain. Then I thought I would go and look on ourship's boat, which, as I have said, was blown up upon the shore a greatway in the storm, when we were first cast away. She lay almost where shedid at first, but not quite; and was turned by the force of the wavesand the winds almost bottom upwards, against the high ridge of a beachyrough sand, but no water about her as before.

  If I had had hands to have refitted her, and have launched her into thewater, the boat would have done well enough, and I might have gone backinto the Brasils with her easy enough; but I might have easily foreseen,that I could no more turn her, and set her upright upon her bottom, thanI could remove the island. However, I went to the wood, and cut leversand rollers, and brought them to the boat, resolving to try what I coulddo; suggesting to myself, that if I could but turn her down, I mighteasily repair the damage she had received, and she would be a very goodboat, and I might go to sea in her very easily.

  I spared no pains indeed in this piece of fruitless toil, and spent, Ithink, three or four weeks about it; at last finding it impossible toheave it up with my little strength, I fell to digging away the sand toundermine it; and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of wood tothrust and guide it right in the fall.

  But when I had done this, I was unable to stir it up again, or to getunder it, much less to move it forwards towards the water; so I wasforced to give it over: and yet, though I gave over the hopes of theboat, my desire to venture over for the main increased, rather thandecreased, as the means for it seemed impossible.

  This at length set me upon thinking whether it was not possible to makemyself a canoe or periagua, such as the natives of those climates make,even without tools, or, as I might say, without hands, viz. of the trunkof a great tree. This I not only thought possible, but easy: and pleasedmyself extremely with my thoughts of making it, and with my having muchmore convenience for it than any of the Negroes or Indians; but not atall considering the particular inconveniences which I lay under morethan the Indians did, viz. want of hands to move it into the water, whenit was made; a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than all theconsequences of want of tools could be to them: for what was it to me,that when I had chosen a vast tree in the woods, I might with greattrouble cut it down, if after I might be able with my tools to hew anddub the outside into a proper shape of a boat, and burn or cut out theinside to make it hollow, so to make a boat of it, if, after all this, Imust leave it just there where I found it, and was not able to launch itinto the water?

  One would have thought I could not have had the least reflection upon mymind of this circumstance, while I was making this boat, but I shouldhave immediately thought how I should get it into the sea; but mythoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it, that I neveronce considered how I should get it off the land; and it was really inits own nature more easy for me to guide it over forty-five miles ofsea, than about forty-five fathoms of land, where it lay, to set itafloat in the water.

  I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man did,who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design,without determining whether I was ever able to undertake it; not butthat the difficulty of launching my boat came often into my head; but Iput a stop to my own inquiries into it by this foolish answer, which Igave myself; Let me first make it, I'll warrant I'll find some way orother to get it along, when it is done.

  This was a most preposterous method; but the eagerness of my fancyprevailed, and to work I went, and felled a cedar-tree: I question muchwhether Solomon ever had such an one for the building the temple atJerusalem; it was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part nextthe stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-twofeet, after which it lessened for a while, and then parted intobranches. It was not without infinite labour that I felled this tree: Iwas twenty days hacking and hewing at it at the bottom; I was fourteenmore getting the branches and limbs, and the vast spreading head of it,cut off, which I hacked and hewed through with my axe and hatchet, withinexpressible labour: after this it cost me a month to shape it, and dubit to a proportion, and to something like the bottom of a boat, that itmight swim upright as it ought to do. It cost me near three months moreto clear the inside, and work it out so as to make an exact boat of it:this I did indeed without fire, by mere mallet and chissel, and by thedint of hard labour; till I had brought it to be a very handsomeperiagua, and big enough to have carried six-and-twenty men, andconsequently big enough to have carried me and all my cargo.

  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, for there remained nothing but to get it into thewater; and had I gotten it into the water, I make no question but Ishould have begun the maddest voyage, and the most unlikely to beperformed, that ever was undertaken.

  But all my devices to get it into the water failed me, though they costinfinite labour too; it lay about one hundred yards from the water, andnot more; but the first inconvenience was, it was up hill towards thecreek. Well, to take away this discouragement, I resolved to dig intothe surface of the earth, and so make a declivity; this I began, and itcost me a prodigious deal of pains: but who grudge pains, that havetheir deliverance in view? but when this was worked through, and thisdifficulty managed, it was still much at one; for I could no more stirthe canoe, than I could the other boat.

  Then I measured the distance of ground, and resolved to cut a dock, orcanal, to bring the water up to the canoe, seeing I could not bring thecanoe down to the water: well, I began this work, and when I began toenter into it, and calculated how deep it was to be dug, how broad, howthe 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 Ishould have gone through with it; for the shore lay high, so that at theupper end it must have been at least twenty feet deep: so at length,though with great reluctancy, I gave this attempt over also.

  This grieved me heartily; and now I saw, though too late, the folly ofbeginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge lightlyof our own strength to go through with it.

  In the middle of this work I finished my fourth year in this place, andkept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as much comfort, asever before; for by a constant study, and serious application of theword of God, and by the assistance of his grace, I gained a differentknowledge from what I had before; I entertained different notions ofthings; I looked now upon the world as a thing remote; which I hadnothing to do with, no expectation from, and indeed no desires about: ina word, I had nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever like to have;so I thought it looked as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter; viz. asa place I had lived in, but was come out of it; and well I might say,as father Abraham to Dives, "Between me and thee there is a greatgulf fixed."

  In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the worldhere: I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or thepride of life: I had nothing to covet, for I had all I was now capableof enjoying; I was lord of the whole manor, or, if I pleased, I mightcall myself king or emperor over the whole country which I hadpossession of: there were no rivals: I had no competitor, none todispute sovereignty or command with me; I might have raisedship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it; so I let as little growas I thought enough for my occasion: I had tortoises or turtles enough;but now and then one was as much as I could put to any use: I had timberenough to have built a fleet of ships; I had grapes enough to have madewine, or to have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when theyhad been built.

  But all I could make use of, was all that was valuable: I had enough toeat, and to supply my wants,
and what was all the rest to me? If Ikilled more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or the vermin;if I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled. The treesthat I cut down were lying to rot on the ground, I could make no moreuse of them, than for fuel; and that I had no occasion for, but todress my food.

  In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me upon justreflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther goodto us, than as they are for our use: and that whatever we may heap upindeed to give to others, we enjoy as much as we can use, and no more.The most covetous griping miser in the world would have been cured ofthe vice of covetousness, if he had been in my case; for I possessedinfinitely 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,though indeed of great use to me. I had, as I hinted before, a parcelof money, as well gold as silver, about thirty-six pounds sterling;alas! there the nasty, sorry,