by Daniel Defoe
apace, and full of men."
I was a little surprised then, indeed, and so was my nephew the captain;for he had heard such terrible stories of them in the island, and havingnever been in those seas before, that he could not tell what to think ofit, but said two or three times, we should all be devoured. I mustconfess, considering we were becalmed, and the current set strongtowards, the shore, I liked it the worse; however, I bade him not beafraid, but bring the ship to an anchor, as soon as we came so near asto know that we must engage them.
The weather continued calm, and they came on apace towards us; so I gaveorders to come to an anchor, and furl all our sails. As for the savages,I told them they had nothing to fear from them but fire; and thereforethey should get their boats out, and fasten them, one close by the head,and the other by the stern, and man them both well, and wait the issuein that posture: this I did, that the men in the boats might be ready,with sheet and buckets, to put out any fire these savages mightendeavour to fix upon the outside of the ship.
In this posture we lay by for them, and in a little while they came upwith us; but never was such a horrid sight seen by Christians; my matewas much mistaken in his calculation of their number, I mean of athousand canoes; the most we could make of them when they came up, beingabout 126; and a great many of them too; for some of them had sixteen orseventeen men in them, some more, and the least six or seven.
When they came nearer to us, they seemed to be struck with wonder andastonishment, as at a sight which they had, doubtless, never seenbefore; nor could they, at first, as we afterwards understood, know whatto make of us. They came boldly up however, very near to us, and seemedto go about to row round us; but we called to our men in the boats notto let them come too near them. This very order brought us to anengagement with them, without our designing it; for five or six of thelarge canoes came so near our long-boat, that our men beckoned withtheir hands to keep them back, which they understood very well, and wentback: but at their retreat about fifty arrows came on board us fromthose boats, and one of our men in the long-boat was very much wounded.However, I called to them not to fire by any means; but we handed downsome deal boards into the boat, and the carpenter presently set up akind of fence, like waste boards, to cover them from the arrows of thesavages, if they should shoot again.
About half-an-hour afterwards they all came up in a body astern of us,and so near that we could easily discern what they were, though we couldnot tell their design; and I easily found they were some of my oldfriends, the same sort of savages that I had been used to engage with.In a short time more they rowed a little farther out to sea, till theycame directly broadside with us, and then rowed down straight upon us,till they came so near that they could hear us speak; upon this, Iordered all my men to keep close, lest they should shoot any morearrows, and made all our guns ready; but being so near as to be withinhearing, I made Friday go out upon the deck, and call out aloud to themin his language, to know what they meant. Whether they understood him ornot, that I knew not; but as soon as he had called to them, six of them,who were in the foremost or nearest boat to us, turned their canoes fromus, and stooping down, showed us their naked backs; whether this was adefiance or challenge we knew not, or whether it was done in merecontempt, or as a signal to the rest; but immediately Friday cried outthey were going to shoot, and, unhappily for him, poor fellow, they letfly about three hundred of their arrows, and to my inexpressible grief,killed poor Friday, no other man being in their sight. The poor fellowwas shot with no less than three arrows, and about three more fell verynear him; such unlucky marksmen they were!
I was so annoyed at the loss of my old trusty servant and companion,that I immediately ordered five guns to be loaded with small shot, andfour with great, and gave them such a broadside as they had never heardin their lives before. They were not above half a cable's length offwhen we fired; and our gunners took their aim so well, that three orfour of their canoes were overset, as we had reason to believe, by oneshot only. The ill manners of turning up their bare backs to us gave usno great offence; neither did I know for certain whether that whichwould pass for the greatest contempt among us might be understood so bythem or not; therefore, in return, I had only resolved to have firedfour or five guns at them with powder only, which I knew would frightenthem sufficiently: but when they shot at us directly with all the furythey were capable of, and especially as they had killed my poor Friday,whom I so entirely loved and valued, and who, indeed, so well deservedit, I thought myself not only justifiable before God and man, but wouldhave been very glad if I could have overset every canoe there, anddrowned every one of them.
I can neither tell how many we killed nor how many we wounded at thisbroadside, but sure such a fright and hurry never were seen among such amultitude; there were thirteen or fourteen of their canoes split andoverset in all, and the men all set a-swimming: the rest, frightened outof their wits, scoured away as fast as they could, taking but littlecare to save those whose boats were split or spoiled with our shot; so Isuppose that many of them were lost; and our men took up one poorfellow swimming for his life; above an hour after they were all gone.
Our small shot from our cannon must needs kill and wound a great many;but, in short, we never knew any thing how it went with them; for theyfled so fast that, in three hours, or thereabouts, we could not seeabove three or four straggling canoes; nor did we ever see the rest anymore; for a breeze of wind springing up the same evening, we weighed andset sail for the Brasils.
We had a prisoner indeed, but the creature was so sullen, that he wouldneither eat nor speak; and we all fancied he would starve himself todeath; but I took a way to cure him; for I made them take him, and turnhim into the long-boat, and make him believe they would toss him intothe sea again, and so leave him where they found him, if he would notspeak: nor would that do, but they really did throw him into the sea,and came away from him; and then he followed them, for he swam like acork, and called to them in his tongue, though they knew not one word ofwhat he said. However, at last, they took him in again, and then hebegan to be more tractable; nor did I ever design they should drown him.
We were now under sail again; but I was the most disconsolate creaturealive, for want of my man Friday, and would have been very glad to havegone back to the island, to have taken one of the rest from thence formy occasion, but it could not be; so we went on. We had one prisoner, asI have said; and it was a long while before we could make him understandany thing; but in time, our men taught him some English, and he began tobe a little tractable: afterwards we inquired what country he came from,but could make nothing of what he said; for his speech was so odd, allgutturals, and spoken in the throat, in such a hollow and odd manner,that we could never form a word from him; and we were all of opinionthat they might speak that language as well if they were gagged, asotherwise; nor could we perceive that they had any occasion either forteeth, tongue, lips, or palate; but formed their words just as ahunting-horn forms a tune, with an open throat: he told us, however,some time after, when we had taught him to speak a little English, thatthey were going, with their kings, to fight a great battle. When he saidkings, we asked him, how many kings? He said, there were five nation (wecould not make him understand the plural _s_,) and that they all joinedto go against two nation. We asked him, What made them come up to us? Hesaid, "To makee te great wonder look."--Where it is to be observed, thatall those natives, as also those of Africa, when they learn English,they always add two _e_'s at the end of the words where we use one, andplace the accent upon the last of them; as _makee, takee_, and the like;and we could not break them of it; nay, I could hardly make Friday leaveit off, though at last he did.
And now I name the poor fellow once more, I must take my last leave ofhim; poor honest Friday! We buried him with all decency and solemnitypossible, by putting him into a coffin, and throwing him into the sea;and I caused them to fire eleven guns for him: and so ended the life ofthe most grateful, faithful, honest, and most affectionate servant thatever man had.
Never did a ship come to this part that had less business than I had;and yet it was with great difficulty that we were admitted to hold theleast correspondence on shore. Not my partner himself, who was alive,and made a great figure among them, not my two merchant trustees, northe fame of my wonderful preservation in the island, could obtain methat favour; but my partner remembering that I had given five hundredmoidores to the prior of the monastery of the Augustines, and threehundred and seventy-two to the poor, went to the monastery, and obligedthe prior that then was, to go to the