 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California, winter 2006. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Chapter 8 Surveys his position. I mentioned before that I had a great mind to see all the island, and that I had traveled up the brook, and so on to where I built my bower, and where I had an opening quite to the sea on the other side of the island. I now resolved to travel quite across to the seashore on that side, so taking my gun, a hatchet, and my dog, and a larger quantity of powder and shot than usual, with two biscuit cakes and a great bunch of raisins in my pouch for my store, I began my journey. When I had passed the veil where my bower stood, as above, I came within view of the sea to the west, and it being a very clear day, I fairly described land, whether an island or a continent, I could not tell, but it lay very high, extending from the west to the west-southwest at a very great distance, by my guess. It could not be less than 15 or 20 leagues off. I could not tell what part of the world this might be, otherwise, than that I knew it must be part of America, and as I concluded by all my observations must be near the Spanish dominions, and perhaps was all inhabited by savages, where, if I had landed, I had been in a worse condition than I was now. Therefore, I acquiesced in the dispositions of Providence, which I began now to own and to believe ordered everything for the best. I say, therefore, I quieted my mind with this, and left off afflicting myself with fruitless wishes of being there. Besides, after some thought upon this affair, I considered that if this land was the Spanish coast, I should certainly one time or other see some vessel pass or repass one way or other. But if not, then it was the savage coast between the Spanish country and Brazil's, where are found the worst of savages, for they are cannibals, or men-eaters, and fail not to murder and devour all the human bodies that fall into their hands. With these considerations, I walked very leisurely forward. I found that side of the island, where I now was, was much pleasanter than mine. The open savannah or fields were sweet, adorned with flowers and grass, and full of very fine woods. I saw abundance of parrots, and feign I would have caught one, if possible, to have kept it to be tame, and taught it to speak to me. I did, after some painstaking, catch a young parrot, for I knocked it down with a stick, and having recovered it, I brought it home. But it was some years before I could make him speak. However, at last I taught him to call me by name very familiarly. But the accident that followed, though it be a trifle, will be very diverting in its place. I was exceedingly diverted with this journey. I found in the low grounds hairs, as I thought them to be, and foxes, but they differed greatly from all the other kinds that I had met, nor could I satisfy myself to eat them, though I killed several. But I had no need to be venturous, for I had no want of food. And of that, which was very good, too, especially these three sorts, that is goats, pigeons, and turtle, or tortoise, which added to my grapes, let in-hall market could not have furnished a table better than I, in proportion to the company. And though my case was deplorable enough, yet I had great cause for thankfulness that I was not driven to any extremities for food, but had rather plenty, even to dainties. I never traveled in this journey above two miles outright in a day, or thereabouts, but I took so many turns and returns to see what discoveries I could make that I came weary enough to the place where I resolved to sit down all night, and then I either reposed myself in a tree or surrounded myself with a row of stakes set upright in the ground, and either from one tree to another, or so as no wild creature could come at me without waking me. As soon as I came to the seashore, I was surprised to see that I had taken up my lot on the worst side of the island. For here, indeed, the shore was covered with innumerable turtles, whereas on the other side I had found but three in a year and a half. Here were also an infinite number of fowls of many kinds, some of which I had seen and some which I had not seen before, and many of them very good meat, but such as I knew not the names of, except those called penguins. I could have shot as many as I pleased, but was very sparing of my powder and shot, and therefore had more mind to kill a she-goat, if I could, which I could better feed on. And though there were many goats here, more than on my side of the island, yet it was with much more difficulty that I could come near them, the country being flat and even, and they saw me much sooner than when I was on the hills. I confess this side of the country was much pleasanter than mine, but yet I had not the least inclination to remove for as I was fixed in my habitation it became natural to me, and I seemed all the while I was here to be as it were upon a journey and from home. However, I traveled along the shore of the sea towards the east, about 12 miles, and then, setting up a great pole upon the shore for a mark, I concluded I would go home again and that the next journey I took should be on the other side of the island, east from my dwelling, and so around till I came to my post again. I took another way to come back then that I went, thinking I could easily keep all the island so much in my view that I could not miss finding my first dwelling by viewing the country, but I found myself to be mistaken. For being come about 2 or 3 miles, I found myself descended into a very large valley, but so surrounded with hills and those hills covered with wood that I could not see which was my way by any direction but that of the sun, nor even then unless I knew very well the sun at that time of the day. It happened to my further misfortune that the weather proved hazy for 3 or 4 days while I was in the valley and not able to see the sun. I wandered about very uncomfortably and at last was obliged to find the sea side looking for my post and come back the same way I went. And then by easy journeys I turned homeward, the weather being exceeding hot and my gun, ammunition, hatchet, and other things very heavy. In this journey my dog surprised a young kid and seized upon it and I, running in to take hold of it, caught it and saved it alive from the dog. I had a great mind to bring it home if I could for I had often been musing whether it might not be possible to get a kid or two and so raise a breed of tame goats and supply me when my powder and shot should be all spent. I made a collar for this little creature and with a string which I made of some rope yam which I always carried about me I led him along though it was some difficulty till I came to my bower and there I enclosed him and left him for I was very impatient to be at home from whence I had been absent above a month. I cannot express what a satisfaction it was to me to come into my old hutch and lie down in my hammock bed. This little wandering journey without settled place of the boat had been so unpleasant to me that my own house, as I called it to myself was a perfect settlement to me compared to that and it rendered everything about me so comfortable that I resolved I would never go a great way from it again while it should be my lot to stay on the island. I reposed myself here a week to rest and regale myself after my long journey during which most of the time was taken up in the weighty affair of making a cage for my paw who began now to be a mere domestic and to be well acquainted with me then I began to think of the poor kid that I had penned in within my little circle and resolved to go and fetch it home or give it some food. Accordingly I went and found it where I had left it for indeed it could not get out but was almost starved for one of food. I went and cut boughs of trees and branches of some shrubs as I could find and threw it over and having fed it I tied it as I did before to lead it away but it was so tame with being hungry that I had no need to have tied it for it followed me like a dog and as I continually fed it the creature became so loving so gentle and so fond that it became from that time one of my domestics also and would never leave me afterwards. The rainy season of the autumnal equinox now come and I kept the 30th of September in the same solemn manner as before being the anniversary of my landing on the island having now been there two years and no more prospect of being delivered than the first day I came there. I spent the whole day in humble and thankful acknowledgments of the many wonderful mercies which my solitary condition was attended with and without which it might have been infinitely more miserable. I gave humble and hearty thanks that God had been pleased to discover to me that it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary condition than I should have been in the liberty of society and in all the pleasures of the world that he could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state and the want of human society by his presence and the communications of his grace to my soul supporting, comforting and encouraging me to depend upon his providence here and hope for his eternal presence hereafter. It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now lead was with all its miserable circumstances then the wicked, cursed and abominable life I had led the past part of my days and now I changed both my sorrows and my joys my very desires altered my affections changed their gusts and my delights were perfectly new from what they were at my first coming or indeed for the two years past. Before, as I walked about either on my hunting or for viewing the country the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a sudden and my very heart would die within me to think of the woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in and how I was a prisoner locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean in an uninhabited wilderness without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composure of mind this would break out upon me like a storm and make me wring my hands and weep like a child sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work and I would immediately sit down and sigh and look upon the ground for an hour or two together and this was still worse to me for if I could burst out into tears or vent myself by words it would go off and the grief having exhausted itself would abate but now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts I daily read the Word of God and applied all the comforts of it to my present state one morning being very sad I opened the Bible upon these words I will never, never leave thee nor forsake thee immediately it occurred that these words were to me why else should they be directed in such a manner just at the moment when I was mourning over my condition as one forsaken of God and man well then said I if God does not forsake me of what ills consequence can it be or what matters it though the world should all forsake me seeing on the other hand if I had all the world and should lose the favor and blessing of God there would be no comparison in the loss from this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken solitary condition than it was probable I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place I know not what it was but something shocked my mind at that thought and I durst not speak the words how can't thou become such a hypocrite even audibly to pretend to be thankful for a condition which however thou mayest endeavor to be contented with thou wouldst rather pray heartily to be delivered from so I stopped there but though I could not say I thanked God for being there yet I sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes by whatever afflicting providences to see the former condition of my life and to mourn for my wickedness and repent I never opened the Bible or shut it but my very soul within me blessed God for directing my friend in England without any order of mine to pack it up among my goods and for assisting me afterwards to save it out of the wreck of the ship thus and in this disposition of mind I began my third year and though I have not given the reader the trouble of so particular an account of my works this year as the first yet in general it may be observed that I was very seldom idle but having regularly divided my time according to the several daily employments that were before me as first my duty to God and the reading the scriptures which I constantly set apart sometime for thrice every day secondly the going abroad with my gun for food which generally took me up three hours and every morning when it did not rain thirdly the ordering, cutting, preserving and cooking what I had killed or caught for my supply these took up great part of the day also it is to be considered that in the middle of the day when the sun was in the zenith the violence of the heat was too great to stir out so that about four hours in the evening was all the time I could be supposed to work in with this exception that sometimes I changed my hours of hunting and working and went to work in the morning and abroad with my gun to this short time allowed for labor I desire maybe added the exceeding laboriousness of my work the many hours which for one of tools one of help and one of skill everything I did took up out of my time for example I was full two and forty days in making a board for a long shelf which I wanted in my cave whereas two sawyers with their tools and a saw pit would have cut six of them out of the same tree in half a day my case was this it was to be a large tree which was to be cut down because my board was to be a broad one this tree I was three days and cutting down and two more cutting off the bows and reducing it to a log or piece of timber with inexpressible hacking and hewing I reduced both the sides of it into chips till it began to be light enough to move then I turned it and made one side of it smooth and flat as a board from end to end then turning that side downward cut the other side till I brought the plank to be about three inches thick and smooth on both sides anyone may judge the labor of my hands in such a piece of work but labor and patience carried me through that and many other things I can only observe this in particular to show the reason why so much of my time went away with so little work that is that what might be a little to be done with help and tools was a vast labor and required a prodigious time to do alone and by hand but notwithstanding this with patience and labor I got through everything that my circumstances may necessary to me to do as will appear by what follows I was now in the months of November and December expecting my crop of barley and rice the ground I had manured and dug up for them was not great I observed my seed was of each not above the quantity of half a pick and for I had lost one whole crop by sowing in the dry season but now my crop promised very well when on a sudden I found I was in danger of losing it all again by enemies of several sorts which it was scarcely possible to keep from it as first the goats and wild creatures which I called hairs who tasting the sweetness of the blade lay in it night and day as soon as it came up and ate it so close that it could get no time to shoot up into stock this I saw no remedy for but by making an enclosure about it with the hedge which I did with a great deal of toil and the more because it required speed however as my arable land was but small suited to my crop I got it totally well fenced in about three weeks time and shooting some of the creatures in the daytime I set my dog to guard it in the night tying him up to a stake at the gate where he would stand and bark all night long the enemies forsook the place and the corn grew well and strong and began to ripen a pace but as the beasts ruined me before while my corn was in the blade so the birds were as likely to ruin me now when it was in the ear for going along by the place to see how it throwed I saw my little crop surrounded with fowls of I know not how many sorts who stood as it were watching till I should be gone I immediately let fly among them for I always had my gun with me I had no sooner shot but there rose up a little cloud of fowls which I had not seen at all from among the corn itself this touched me sensibly for I foresaw that in a very few days I would devour all my hopes that I should be starved and never be able to raise a crop at all and what to do I could not tell however I resolved not to lose my corn if possible though I should watch it night and day in the first place I went among it to see what damage was already done and found they had spoiled a good deal of it but that as it was yet too green the loss was not so great but that the remainder was likely to be a good crop if it could be saved I stayed by it to load my gun and then coming away I could easily see the thieves sitting upon all the trees about me as if they only waited till I was gone away and the event proved it to be so for as I walked off as if I was gone I was no sooner out of their sight then they dropped down one by one into the corn again I was so provoked that I could not have patience to stay till more came on knowing that every grain that they ate now was as it might be said easily a peckloaf to me in the consequences but coming up to the hedge I fired again and killed three of them this was what I wished for so I took them up and served them as we serve notorious thieves in England hang them in chains for a terror of them it is impossible to imagine that this should have had such an effect as it did for the Fowls would not only not come at the corn but in short they forsook all that part of the island and I could never see a bird near the place as long as my scarecrows on there this I was very glad of as you may be sure and about the latter end of December which was our second harvest of the year I reaped my corn I was sadly put for a scythe or sickle to cut it down and all I could do was to make one as well as I could with broadswords or cutlasses which I saved among the arms out of the ship however as my first crop was but small I had no great difficulty to cut it down in short I reaped it in my way for I cut nothing off but the ears and carried it away in a great basket which I had made and so rubbed it out with my hands and at the end of the harvesting I found that out of my half-peck of seed I had near two bushels of rice and about two bushels and a half of barley that is to say by my guess for I had no measure at that time however this was a great encouragement to me and I foresaw that in time it would please God to supply me with bread and yet here I was perplexed again for I neither knew how to grind or to make meal of my corn or indeed how to clean it and part it nor if made into meal how to make bread of it and if how to make it yet I knew not how to bake it these things being added to my desire of having a good quantity of store and to secure a constant supply I resolved not to taste any of this crop but to preserve it all and to feed against the next season in the meantime to employ all my study and hours of working to accomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread it might be truly said that now I worked for my bread I believe few people have thought much upon this strange multitude of little things necessary to providing, producing curing dressing, making and finishing this one article of bread I that was reduced to a mere state of nature found this to my daily discouragement and was made more sensible of it every hour even after I had got the first handful of seed corn which as I have said expectedly and indeed to a surprise first I had no plow to turn up the earth no spade or shovel to dig it well this I conquered by making a wooden spade as I observed before but this did my work but in a wooden manner and though it cost me a great many days to make it yet for want of iron it not only wore out soon but made my work the harder and made it be performed much worse however this I bore with and was content to work with it out with patience and bear with the badness of the performance when the corn was sown I had no harrow but was forced to go over it myself and drag a great heavy bow of a tree over it to scratch it rather than rake or harrow it when it was growing and grown I have observed already how many things I wanted defense it, secure it mow or reap it cure and carry it home thrash part it from the chaff and save it then I wanted a mill to grind it, sieves to dress it, yeast to make it into bread and an oven to bake it in but all these things I did without as shall be observed and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and advantage to me too all this as I said made everything laborious and tedious to me but that there was no help for neither was my time so much lost to me because as I divided it a certain part of it was every day appointed to these works and as I had resolved to use none of the corn for bread till I had a greater quantity by me I had the next six months to apply myself wholly by labor and invention to furnish myself with utensils proper for the performing all the operations necessary for making the corn fit for my use end of chapter 8 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California winter 2006 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe chapter 9 a boat but first I was to prepare more land for I had now seen enough to sow above an acre of ground before I did this I had a week's work at least to make me a spade which when it was done was but a sorry one indeed and very heavy and required double labor to work with it I got through that and sowed my seed and two large flat pieces of ground as near my house as I could find them to mine and fenced them in with a good hedge the stakes of which were all cut off that wood which I have set before and knew it would grow so that in a years time I knew I should have a quick or living hedge that would want but little repair this work did not take me up less than three months because a great part of that time was the wet season when I could not go abroad with indoors that is when it rained and I could not go out I found employment in the following occupations always observing that all the while I was at work I diverted myself with talking to my parrot and I quickly taught him to know his own first name and at last to speak it out pretty loud pow which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own this therefore was not my work but an assistance to my work for now as I said I had a great employment upon my hands as follows I had long studied to make by some means or other some earthen vessels which indeed I wanted sorely but knew not where to come at them however considering the heat of the climate I did not doubt but if I could find out any clay I might make some pots that might being dried in the sun be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling and to hold anything that was dry and be kept so and as this was necessary in the preparing of corn, meal, etc which was the thing I was doing I resolved to make some as large as I could and fit only to stand like jars to hold what should be put into them it would make the reader pity me or rather laugh at me to tell how many awkward ways I took to raise this paste what odd, misshapen, ugly things I made how many of them fell in and how many fell out the clay not being stiff enough to bear its own weight how many cracked by the overviolent heat of the sun being set out too hastily and how many fell in pieces with only removing as well before as after they were dried and in a word how after having labored hard to find the clay to temper it to bring it home and work it I could not make above too large earthen ugly things I cannot call them jars in about two months labor however as the sun baked these two very hard and dry I lifted them very gently up and set them down again in two great wicker baskets which I had made on purpose for them that they might not break and as between the pot and the basket there was a little room to spare I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw and these two pots being to stand always dry I thought would hold my dry corn and perhaps my meal when the corn was bruised though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots yet I made several smaller things such as little round pots flat dishes pitchers and pipkins and anything my hand turned to and the heat of the sun baked them quite hard but all this would not answer my end which was to get an earthen pot to hold what was liquid and bear the fire which none of these could do it happened after some time making a pretty large fire for cooking my meat when I went to put it out after I was done with it I found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels in the fire burnt as hard as a stone and read as a tile I was agreeably surprised to see it and said to myself that certainly they might be made to burn whole if they would burn broken this set me to study how to order my fire so as to make it burn some pots I had no notion of a kiln such as the potters burn in or of glazing them with lead though I had some lead to do it with but I placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile one upon another and placed my firewood all around it with a great heap of embers under them I applied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside and upon the top till I saw the pots in the inside red hot quite through and observed that they did not crack at all when I saw them clear red I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours till I found one of them though it did not crack did melt or run for the sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat and would have run into glass if I had gone on so I slacked my fire gradually the pots began to abate of the red color and watching them all night that I might not let the fire abate too fast in the morning I had three very good I will not say handsome pipkins and two other earthen pots as hard burnt as could be desired and one of them perfectly glazed with the running of the sand after this experiment I need not say that I wanted no sort of earthenware for my use but I must need say as to the shapes of them they were very indifferent and as anyone may suppose when I had no way of making them but as the children make dirt pies or as a woman who would make pies that never learned to raise paste no joy at a thing of so mean a nature would be equal to mine when I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire and I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one on the fire again with some water in it to boil me some meat which I did admirably well and with a kind of piece of a kid I made some very good broth though I wanted oatmeal and several other ingredients so I could use it to make it as good as I would have had it been my next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn in for as to the mill there was no thought of arriving at that perfection of art with one pair of hands to supply this want I was at a great loss for of all the trades in the world I was as perfectly unqualified for a stone cutter as for any whatever neither had I any tools to go about it with I spent many a day to find a great stone big enough to cut hollow and make fit for a mortar and could find none at all except what was in the solid rock and which I had no way to dig or cut out nor indeed were the rocks in the island of hardness sufficient but were all of a sandy crumbling stone which neither could bear the weight of a heavy pestle nor would break the corn without filling it with sand so after a great deal of time lost in searching for a stone I gave it over and resolved to look out for a great block of hard wood which I found indeed much easier and getting one as big as I had strength to stir I rounded it and formed it on the left side with my axe and hatch it and then with the help of fire and infinite labor made a hollow place in it as the Indians in Brazil make their canoes after this I made a great heavy pestle or beater of the wood called the ironwood and this I prepared and laid by against I had my next crop of corn which I proposed to myself either pound into meal to make bread my next difficulty was to make a sieve or sears to dress my meal and to part it from the brand and the husk without which I did not see it possible I could have any bread this was a most difficult thing even to look upon for to be sure I had nothing like the necessary thing to make it I mean fine thin canvas enough to sears the meal through and here I was at a full stop for many months nor did I really know what to do Lenin I had none left but what was mere rags I had goat's hair but neither knew how to weave or to spin it and had I known how here were no tools to work it with all the remedy that I found was this last I did remember I had among the same men's clothes which were saved out of the ship some neck cloths of calico or muslin and with some pieces of these I made three small sips proper enough for the work and thus I made shift for some years how I did afterwards I shall show in its place the baking part was the next thing to be considered and how I should make bread when I came to have corn for first I had no yeast as to that part there was no supplying the want so I did not concern myself much about it but for an oven I was indeed in great pain at length I found out an experiment for that also which was this I made some earthen vessels very broad but not deep that is to say 2 feet diameter and not above 9 inches deep these I burned in the fire as I had done the other and laid them by and when I wanted to bake I made a great fire upon my hearth which I had paved with some square tiles of my own baking and burning also but I should not call them square when the firewood was burned pretty much into embers or live coals I drew them forward upon this hearth so as to cover it all over and there I let them lie till the hearth was very hot then sweeping away all the embers I set down my loaves and welling down the earthen pot upon them drew the embers all round the outside of the pot to keep in and add to the heat and thus as well as in the best oven in the world I baked my barley loaves and became in little time a good pastry cook into the bargain for I made myself several cakes in puddings of the rice but I had no pies neither had I anything to put them in supposing I had except the flesh either of fowls or goats it need not be wondered as if all these things took up most of my time of third year of my abode here for it is to be observed that in the interval of these things I had my new harvest and husbandry to manage for I reaped my corn in its season and carried it home as well as I could and laid it up in the ear in my large baskets till I had time to rub it out for I had no floor to thrash it upon or instrument to thrash it with and now indeed my stock of corn increasing I really wanted to build my barns bigger I wanted a place to lay it up in for the increase of the corn now yielded me so much that I had of the barley about 20 bushels of the rice as much or more in so much that now I resolved to begin to use it freely for my bread had been quite gone a great while also I resolved to see what quantity would be sufficient for me a whole year but once a year upon the whole I found that the 40 bushels of barley and rice were much more than I could consume in a year so I resolved to sow just the same quantity every year that I sowed the last in hopes that such a quantity would fully provide me with bread etc all the while these things were doing you may be sure my thoughts ran many times upon the prospect of land which I had seen from the other side of the island and I was not without secret wishes that I were on shore there fancying that seeing the mainland and an inhabited country I might find some way or other to convey myself further and perhaps at last find some means of escape but all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such an undertaking and how I might fall into the hands of savages and perhaps such as I might have reason to think far worse than the lions and tigers of Africa that if I once came here I should run a hazard of more than a thousand to one of being killed and perhaps of being eaten for I had heard that the people of the Caribbean coast were cannibals or man-eaters and I knew by the latitude that I could not be far from that shore then supposing they were not cannibals yet they might kill me as many Europeans who had fallen into their hands had been served even when they had been for twenty together much more I that was but one and couldn't make little or no defense all these things I say which I ought to have considered well and did come into my thoughts afterwards yet gave me no apprehensions at first and my head ran mightily upon the thought of getting over to the shore now I wish for my boy Shuri and the long boat with the shoulder of mutton sail with which I had sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of Africa but this was in vain then I thought I would go and look at our ship's boat which as I have said was blown up upon the shore a great way in the storm when we first cast away she lay almost where she did at first but not quite and was turned by the force of the waves and the winds almost bottom upward against a high ridge of beachy rough sand but no water about her if I had had hands to have refitted her and to have launched her into the water the boat would have done well enough but and I might have gone back into the brazils with her easily enough yet I might have foreseen that I could no more turn her and set her up right upon her bottom than I could remove the island however I went to the woods and cut levers and rollers and brought them to the boat resolving to try what I could do suggesting to myself that if I could turn her down I might repair the damage she had received and she would be a very good boat and I might go to sea in her very easily I spared no pains indeed in this bit of fruitless toil and spent I think three or four weeks about it at last finding it impossible to heave it up with my little strength I fell to digging away the sand to undermine it and so to make it fall down setting pieces of wood to thrust and guide it right in the fall but when I had done this I was unable to stir it up again or to get under it much less to move it forward towards the water so I was forced to give it over and yet though I gave over the hopes of the boat my desire to venture over for the main increased rather than decreased as the means for it seemed impossible this at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible to make myself a canoe or peri-agua such as the natives of those climates make even without tools or as I might say without hands of the trunk of a great tree this I not only thought possible but easy and pleased myself extremely with the thoughts of making it and with my having much more convenience for it than any of the Negroes or Indians but not at all considering the inconveniences which I lay under more than the Indians and that is want of hands to move it when it was made into the water a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than all the consequences of want of tools could be to them for what was it to me when I had chosen a vast tree in the woods and with much trouble cut it down if I had been able to use tools to hue and dub the outside with the proper shape of a boat and burn or cut out the inside to make it hollow so as to make a boat of it if after all this I must leave it just where I had found it and not be able to launch it into the water one would have thought I could not have had the least reflection upon my mind of the circumstances while I was making this boat but I should have immediately now I should get it into the sea but my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it that I never once considered how I should get it off the land and it was really in its own nature more easy for me to guide it over 45 miles of sea than about 45 fathoms of land where it lay to set it afloat in the water I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man did who had any of the senses awake I pleased myself with the design and without determining whether I was ever able to undertake it not but that the difficulty of launching my boat came often into my head but I put a stop to my inquiries into this by this foolish answer which I gave myself let me first make it I warrant I will find some way or other to get it along when it is done this was a most preposterous method but the eagerness of my fancy prevailed and to work I went I found a cedar tree and I questioned much whether Solomon ever had such a one for the building of the temple of Jerusalem it was 5 feet 10 inches diameter at the lower part next to stump and 4 feet 11 inches diameter at the end of 22 feet after which it lessened for a while and then parted into branches it was not without infinite labor that I felt this tree I was 20 days hacking and hewing at it at the bottom I was 14 more getting the branches and limbs and the vast spreading head cut off which I hacked and hewed through with axe and hatchet and inexpressible labor after this it cost me a month to shape it and dub it to a proportion and to something like the bottom of a boat that it might swim upright as it ought to it cost me near 3 months more to clear the inside and work it out so as to make it an exact boat this I did indeed without fire by mere mallet and chisel and by the dent of hard labor till I had brought it to be a very handsome periagua and big enough to have carried 6 and 20 men and consequently 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 ever I saw a canoe or periagua that was made of one tree in my life many a weary stroke it had cost you can be sure and had I gotten it into the water I make no question but I should have begun the maddest voyage and the most unlikely to be performed that ever was undertaken but all my devices to get it into the water failed me though they cost me infinite labor too it lay about 100 yards from the water and not more but the first inconvenience was it was uphill towards the creek well to take away this discouragement I resolved to dig into the surface of the earth and so make a declivity this I began and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains but I had to grudge pains who have their deliverance in view but when this was worked through and this difficulty managed it was still much the same for I could no more stir the canoe than I could the other boat then I ventured the distance of ground and resolved to cut a dock or canal to bring the water up to the canoe seeing I could not bring the canoe well I began this work and when I had begun to enter upon it and calculate how deep it was to be dug how broad how the stuff was to be thrown out I found that by the number of hands I had being none but my own it must have been 10 or 12 years before I could have gone through with it for the shore lay so high that at the upper end it must have been at least 20 feet deep and so at length but with great reluctancy I gave this attempt over also this grieved me heartily and now I saw though 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 finished 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 gained a different knowledge from what I had before I entertained different notions of things I looked now upon the world as a thing remote which I had nothing to do with no expectations from and indeed no desires about in a word I had nothing indeed to do with it nor was ever likely to have so I thought it looked as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter that is this 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 gulf fixed in the first place I was removed from all the wickedness of the world here I had neither the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eye nor the pride of life I had nothing to covet for I had all that I was now capable of enjoying I was lord of the whole manner or if it pleased I might call myself 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 me 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 turtle 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 and I had grapes enough to have made wine or to have cured into raisins to have loaded that fleet when it had been built but all I could make use of was all that was valuable I had enough to eat and supply my wants and what was all the rest to me if I killed more flesh than I could eat the dog must eat it or vermin if I sowed more corn than I could eat it must be spoiled the trees that I cut down were lying to rot on the ground I could make no more use of them but for fuel 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 for our use and that whatever we may heap up to give others we enjoy just as much as we can use and no more the most covetous gripping 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 though 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 sorry useless stuff lay I had no more manner of business for it and often though 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 a six penny worth of turnip and carrot seed out of England or for a handful of peas and beans and a bottle of ink as it was the least advantage by it or benefit from it but there it lay in a drawer and grew moldy with the damp of the cave in the wet seasons and if I had had the drawer full of diamonds it had been the same case 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 itself than it was at first much easier to my mind as well as to my body I frequently sat down to meet with thankfulness and admired the hands of God's providence which had thus spread my table in the wilderness I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition and less upon the dark side and to consider what I enjoyed 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 these discontented people in my 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 anyone that would fall into such distress as mine was and this was to compare my present condition with what I at first expected it would be nay with what it would certainly have been if the good providence of God and 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 defense and gunpowder and shot for getting my food I spent whole hours I may say whole days representing to myself in the most lively colors how I would 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 perished first that I should have lived had not perished like a mere savage that if I had killed a goat or a fowl by any contrivance I had no way to flay or open it or part the flesh from the skin and the bowels or to cut it up but must nay 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 of 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 situation with what I had deserved and had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence I had lived a dreadful life perfectly destitute of the knowledge and fear of God constructed by father and mother neither had they been wanting to me and their early endeavors to infuse a religious awe of God into my mind a sense of my duty and what the nature and end of my being required of me but alas falling early into the seafaring life which of all lives is the most destitute of the fear of God though his terrors are always for them I say falling early into the seafaring life and into seafaring company all that little sense of religion which I had entertained was laughed out of me by my mess mates by a hardened despising of dangers and the views of death which grew habitual to me by my long absence from all manner of opportunities to converse with anything but was like myself or to hear anything that was good or tended towards it so void was I of everything that was good or the least sense of what I was or was to be that in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed such as my escape from Salih my being taken up by the Portuguese master of the ship my being planted so well in the Brazils my receiving the cargo from England and the like I never had once the words 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 nor to mention the name of God no unless it was to swear by and blaspheme it I had terrible reflections upon my mind for many months as I have already observed on account of my wicked and hardened life past and when I looked about me and considered what particular providences had attended me and how God had dealt bountifully with me had not only punished me less than my iniquity had deserved 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 worked my mind up not only to a 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 enjoyed so many mercies which I had no reason to have expected in that place that I ought never more to repine my condition but to rejoice and to give daily thanks for that daily bread which nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought that I ought to consider I had been fed even by a miracle even as great as that of feeding Elijah by ravens made by a long series of miracles that I could hardly have named a place in the uninhabitable part of the world where I could have been cast more to my advantage a place where as I had no society which must was my affliction on one hand so I found no ravenous beasts no furious wolves or tigers to threaten my life no venomous creatures or poisons which I might feed on to my hurt no savages to murder 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 sense 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 had brought on shore for my help were either quite gone or wasted and near spent my ink as I observed had been gone some time all but a very little which I eat out with water a little and a little till it was so pale its scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper as long as it lasted I made use of it to minute down the days of the month on which any remarkable thing and first by casting up times past I remembered that there was a strange concurrence of days in the various providences which befall me in which if I had been superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal or fortunate I might have had reason to have looked upon with a great deal of curiosity first I had observed the same day that I broke away from my father and friends and ran away to Hull in order to go to sea the same day afterwards I was taken by the Salih man of war and made a slave and 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 Salih in a boat the same day of the year I was born in that is the 30th of September that same day I had my life so miraculously saved 26 years later when I was cast on shore in this island so that my wicked life and my solitary life began both on a day the next thing to my ink being wasted was my bread I mean the biscuit 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 too began to decay as to linen I had found none a good while except some checkered shirts which I found in the chests of the other seamen in which I carefully preserved 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 the men's clothes of the ship almost three dozen of shirts there were also indeed several thick watch coats of the seamen's which were left but they were too hot to wear and though it was true that the weather was so violently hot that there was no need of clothes yet I could not go quite naked no though I had been inclined to it not nor could I abide the thought of it though I was alone the reason why I could not go 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 blistered my skin whereas with a shirt on the air itself made some motion and whistling under the shirt was too cooler than without it no more could I ever bring myself to go out in the heat of the sun without a cap on my head or a hat the heat of the sun beating with such violence as it does in that place would give me the headache presently by darting so directly on my head without a cap or hat on so that I could not bear it whereas if I put on my hat it would presently go away upon these views I began to consider about putting the few rags I had which I call clothes into some order I had worn out all the waistcoats I had and my business was now to try if I could make jackets out of the great watch coats which I had of me but such other materials as I had I set to working tailoring or rather indeed botching for I made most piteous work of it however I made shift to make two or three new waistcoats which I hoped would serve me a great while as for breaches and drawers I made but a very sorry shift indeed till afterwards I have mentioned that I saved of all the creatures that I killed I mean four footed ones and I hung them up stretched out with sticks in the sun by which means some of them were so dry and so hard that they were fit for little but others were very useful the first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head with the hair on the outside to shoot off the rain and this I performed so well that after I made me a suit of clothes wholly of these skins that is to say a waistcoat and breaches open at the knees both loose for they were rather wanting to keep me cool than to keep me warm I must not admit to acknowledge that they were wretchedly made for if I was a bad carpenter I was a worse tailor however they were such as I made very good shift with and when I was out, if it happened to rain the hair of my waistcoat and cap being outermost I was kept very dry after this I spent a great deal of time and pains to make 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 Brazils where they are very useful in the great and I felt the heats every jot is great here and greater too being near the equinox besides as I was obliged to be much abroad it was the most useful thing to me as well for the rains as the heats I took a world of pains with it and was a great while before I could make anything likely to hold after I had thought my way I spoiled two or three before I made one to my mind but at last I made one that answered indifferently well the main difficulty I found was to make it let down I could make it spread but if I did not let down to and draw in it was not portable for me anyway but just over my head which would not do however at last as I said I made one to answer and covered it with skins the hair upwards so that it cast off the rain 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 need of it could close it and carry it under my arm thus I lived mighty comfortably my mind being entirely composed by resigning itself to the will of God and throwing myself wholly under 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 most enjoyment of human society in the world end of chapter 9 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California winter 2006 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Chapter 10 Tames Goats I cannot say that after this for five years any extraordinary thing happened to me I lived on in the same course in the same posture and place as before the chief things I was employed in besides my yearly labor 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 labor and my daily pursuit of going out with my gun I had one labor to make a canoe which at last I finished so that by digging a canal to it of six feet wide and four feet deep I brought it into the creek almost half a mile as for the first which was so vastly big for I made it without considering beforehand as I ought to have done how I should be able to launch it and never being able to bring it to the water or bring the water to it I was obliged to let it lie where it was as a memorandum to teach me to be wiser the next time indeed the next time though I could not get a proper tree for it and was 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 possible at last I never gave it over and though I was near two years about it yet I never grudged my labor in hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last however though my little piriagua was finished yet the size of it was not at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I made the first I mean of venturing over to the terra firma where it was above 40 miles broad accordingly the smallest on my boat assisted to put an end to that design and now I thought no more of it as I had a boat my next design was to make a cruise around the island for as I had been on the other side in one place crossing as I have already described it over the land so the discoveries I made made me very eager to see other parts of the coast and now I had a boat I thought of nothing but sailing round the island for this purpose that I might do everything with discretion and consideration I fitted up a little mast in my boat and made a sail too out of some of the pieces of the ship's sails which lay in store and of which I had a great stock by me having fitted my mast and sail and tried the boat I found she would sail very well then I made little lockers or boxes at each end of my boat to put provisions, necessaries ammunition etc into to be kept dry either from rain or the spray of the sea and a little long hollow place I cut at the inside of the boat where I could lay my gun making a flap to hang down over it to keep it dry I fixed my umbrella also in the step at the stern like a mast to stand over my head and keep the heat of the sun off me like an awning and thus I took every now and then a little voyage upon the sea but never went out far not far from the little creek at last being eager to view the circumference of the kingdom I resolved upon my cruise and accordingly I visualed my ship for the voyage putting in two dozen of loaves cakes I should call them of barley bread and earthen pot full of parched rice food I ate a good deal of a little bottle of rum half a goat and powder and shot for killing more and two large watch coats which as I mentioned before I had saved out of the seamen's chests these I took one to lie upon and the other to cover me in the night it was the sixth of November in the sixth year of my reign or my captivity which you please that I set out on this voyage and I found it much longer than I expected for though the island itself was not very large yet when I came to the east side of it I found a great ledge of rocks lie out about two leagues into the sea some above water some under it and beyond that a shoal of sand lying dry half a league more so that I was obliged to go a great way out to sea to double the point when I first discovered them I was going to give over my enterprise come back again not knowing how far it might oblige me to go out to sea and above all doubting how I should get back again so I came to an anchor for I had made a kind of an anchor with a piece of a broken grappling which I got out of the ship having secured my boat I took my gun and went on shore climbing up a hill which seemed to overlook that point where I saw the full extent of it and resolved to venture in my viewing the sea from that hill where I stood I perceived a strong and indeed a most furious current which ran to the east and even came close to the point and I took the more notice of it because I saw there might be some danger that when I came into it I might be carried out to sea by the strength of it and not able to make the island again and indeed had I not got immersed upon this hill I believe it would have been so for there was the same current on the other side of the island only that it set off at a further distance and I saw there was a strong eddy under the shore so I had nothing to do but to get out of the first current and I should presently be in an eddy I lay there however two days because the wind blowing pretty fresh southeast and that being just contrary to the current made a great breach of the sea upon the point so that it was not safe for me to keep too close to the shore for the breach nor to go too far off because of the stream the third day in the morning the wind having abated overnight the sea was calm and I ventured but I am a warning to all rash and ignorant pilots for no sooner was I come to the point when I was not even my boat's length from the shore but I found myself in a great depth of water and a current like the sluice of a mill it carried my boat along with it with such violence that all I could do could not keep her so much as on the edge of it but I found it hurried me farther out from the eddy which was on my left hand there was no wind stirring to help me and all I could do with my paddles signified nothing and now I began to give myself over for lost for as the current was on both sides of the island I knew in a few leaves distance they must join again and then I was irrevocably gone nor did I see any possibility of avoiding it so that I had no prospect before me but of perishing not by the sea where that was calm enough but of starving from hunger I had indeed found a tortoise on the shore as big almost as I could lift and had tossed it into the boat and I had a great jar of fresh water that is to say one of my earthen pots what was all this to being driven into the vast ocean where to be sure there was no shore no mainland or island for a thousand leagues at least and now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make even the most miserable condition of mankind worse now I looked back upon my desolate solitary island as the most pleasant place and all the happiness of my heart could wish for was to be there but once again I stretched out my hands to it with eager wishes oh happy desert said I I shall never see thee more oh miserable creature wither am I going then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper and then I had repined at my solitary condition and now what would I give to be on shore there again thus we shall never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries nor know how to value what we enjoy but by the want of it it is scarcely possible to imagine the consternation I was now in being driven from my beloved island for so it appeared to me now to be into the wide ocean almost two leagues and in the utmost despair of ever recovering it again however I worked hard till indeed my strength was almost exhausted and kept my boat as much as to the northward that is towards the side of the current which the Eddie Leon as possibly I could when about noon as the sun passed the meridian I thought I felt a little breeze of wind in my face springing up from the south southeast this cheered my heart a little and especially in about half an hour more it blew a pretty gentle gale by this time I had got a frightful distance from the island and had the least cloudy or hazy weather intervened I had been undone another way too for I had no compass on board and should never have known how to have steered towards the island if I had but once lost side of it but the weather continuing clear I applied myself to get up my mast again and spread my sail standing away to the north as much as possible to get out of the current just as I had set my mast and sail and the boat to stretch away I saw even by the clearness of the water some alteration of the current was near for where the current was so strong the water was foul but perceiving the water clear I found the current abate and presently I found to the east at about half a mile a breach of the sea upon some rocks these rocks I found caused the current to part again and as the main stress of it ran away more southerly leaving the rocks to the northeast so the other returned by the repulse of the rocks and made a strong eddy which ran back again to the northwest with a very sharp string they who know what it is to have a ray-preve brought to them upon the ladder or to be rescued from thieves just going to murder them or who have been in such extremities may guess what my present surprise of joy was and how gladly I put my boat into the stream of this eddy and the wind also freshening how gladly I spread my sail to it running cheerfully before the wind and with a strong tide or eddy under foot this eddy carried me about a league on my way back again directly towards the island but about two leagues more to the northward than the current which carried me away at first so that when I came near the island I found myself open to the northern shore of it that is to say the other end of the island opposite to that which I went out from when I had made something more than a league of way by the help of this current or eddy I found it was spent and served me no further however I found that being between two great currents that is that on the south side which had hurried me away and that on the north which lay about a league on the other side I say between these two in the wake of the island I found the water at least still and running no way and having still a breeze of wind fair for me I kept on steering directly for the island though not making such fresh way as I did before about four o'clock in the evening being then within a league of the island I found the point of the rocks which occasioned this disaster stretching out as is described before to the southward and casting off the current more southerly head of course made another eddy to the north and this I found very strong but not directly setting the way my course lay which was due west but almost full north however having a fresh gale I stretched across this eddy slanting north west and in about an hour came within about a mile of the shore where it being smooth water I soon got to land when I was on shore I fell on my knees and gave God thanks for my deliverance resolving to lay aside all thoughts of my deliverance by my boat and refreshing myself with such things as I had I brought my boat close to the shore in a little cove that I had spied under some trees and laid me down to sleep being quite spent with the labor and fatigue of the voyage I was now had a great loss which way to get home with my boat I had run so much hazard and knew too much of the case thinking it by the way I went out and what might be at the other side I mean the west side I knew not nor had I any mind to run any more ventures so I resolved on the next morning to make my way westward along the shore and to see if there was no creek where I might lay up my frigate in safety so as to have her again if I wanted her in about three miles or thereabouts coasting the shore I came to a very good inlet or bay about a mile over which narrowed till it came to a very little rivulet or brook where I found a very convenient harbor for my boat and where she lay as if she had been in a little dock made on purpose for her here I put in and stowed my boat very safe I went on shore to look about me and see where I was I soon found I had but a little past by the place where I had been before when I traveled on foot to that shore so taking nothing out of my boat but my gun and umbrella for it was exceedingly hot I began my march the way was comfortable enough after such a voyage as I had been upon and I reached my old bower in the evening where I found everything standing as I left it for I always kept it in good order being as I said before my country house I got over the fence and laid me down in the shade to rest my limbs for I was very weary and fell asleep but judge you if you can that read my story I was awaked out of my sleep by a voice calling me by my name several times Robin Robin Crusoe for Robin Crusoe where are you Robin Crusoe where have you been I was so dead asleep at first being fatigued with rowing or part of the day and with walking the latter part that I did not wake thoroughly my closing thought I dreamed that somebody spoke to me but as the voice continued to be repeat Robin Crusoe Robin Crusoe at last I began to wake more perfectly and was at first dreadfully frightened and started up in the utmost consternation but no sooner were my eyes open but I saw my pal sitting on the top of the hedge and immediately knew that it was he that spoke to me for just in such bemoaning language I had used to talk to him and teach him and he had learned it so perfectly that he could sit upon my finger and lay his bill close to my face and cry boooor Robin Crusoe where are you where have you been how came you here and such things as I had taught him however even though I knew it was the parrot that indeed it could be nobody else it was a good while before I could compose myself first I was amazed how the creature got thither and then how he should just keep about the place and nowhere else but as I was well satisfied it could be nobody but honest pal I got over it and holding out my hand and calling him by his name pal the sociable creature came to me and sat upon my thumb as he used to do and continued talking to me boooor Robin Crusoe and how did I come here and where had I been just as if he had been overjoyed to see me again and so I carried him home along with me I had now had enough of rambling to see for some time and had enough to do for many days to sit still and reflect upon the danger I had been in I would have been very glad to have had again on my side of the island but I knew not how it was practicable to get it about as to the east side of the island which I had gone round I knew well enough there was no venturing that way my very heart would shrink in my very blood run chill but to think of it and as to the other side of the island I did not know how it might be there but supposing the current ran with the same force against the shore the east as it passed by it on the other I might run the same risk of being driven down the stream and carried by the island as I had been before of being carried away from it so with these thoughts I contented myself to be without any boat though I had been the product of so many months labor to make it and of so many more to get it into the sea in this government I remained near a year and lived a very sedate retired life as you may well suppose and my thoughts being very much composed as to my condition and fully comforted in resigning myself to the dispositions of providence I thought I lived really very happily in all things except that of society I improved myself in this time mechanic exercises which my necessities put me upon applying myself to and I believe I should upon occasion have made a very good carpenter especially considering how few tools I had besides this I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my earthenware and contrived well enough to make them with a wheel which I found infinitely easier and better because I made things round and shaped which before were filthy things indeed to look on but I think I was never more vain of my own performance or more joyful for anything I found out than for my being able to make a tobacco pipe and though it was a very ugly clumsy thing when it was done and only burned red like other earthenware yet as it was hard and firm and would draw the smoke I was exceedingly comforted with it for I had been always used to smoke and there were pipes in the ship but I forgot them at first not thinking there was tobacco in the island and afterwards when I searched the ship again I could not come at any pipes in my wickerware also I improved much and made abundance of necessary baskets as well as my invention that showed me though not very handsome yet they were such as were very handy and convenient for laying things up or fetching things home for example if I killed a goat abroad I could hang it up in a tree flay it, dress it and cut it in pieces and bring it home in a basket and the like by a turtle I could cut it up, take out the eggs and a piece or two of the flesh and bring them home in a basket and leave the rest behind me also large deep baskets were the receivers of my corn which I always rubbed out as soon as it was dry and cured and kept it in great baskets I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably this was a want which it was impossible for me to supply and I began seriously to consider what I must do when I should have no more powder that is to say how I should kill any goats I had as is observed in my third year of being here kept a kid and bred her up tame and I was in hopes of getting a he goat but I could not by any means bring it to pass till my kid grew an old goat and as I could never find in my heart to kill her she died at last of mere age but being now in the 11th year of my residence and as I have said my ammunition growing low I set myself to study some art to trap and snare the goats to see whether I could not catch some of them alive and particularly I wanted a she goat great with young for this purpose I made snares to hamper them and I do believe they were more than once taken in them but my tackle was not good for I had no wire and I always found them broken and my bait devoured at length I resolved to try a pitfall so I dug several large pits in the earth in places where I had observed the goats used to feed and over these pits I placed hurdles of my own making too with a great weight upon them and several times I put ears of barley and rice without setting the trap I could easily perceive the goats had gone in and eaten up the corn for I could see the marks of their feet at length I set three traps in one night and going the next morning I found them all standing and yet the bait eaten and gone this was very discouraging however I altered my traps and not to trouble you with particulars going one morning to see my traps I found in one of them a large old he goat and in one of the others three kids a male and two females as to the old one I knew not what to do with him he was so fierce I durst not go into the pit to him that is to say to bring him away alive which was what I wanted I could have killed him but that was not my business nor would it answer my end so I even let him out and he ran away as if he had been frightened out of his wits but I did not then know what I afterwards learned that hunger will tame a lion if I had let him stay three or four days without food and then have carried him some water to drink and then a little corn he would have been as tame as one for the kids for they are mighty sagacious tractable creatures where they are well used however for the present I let him go knowing no better at that time then I went to the three kids and taking them one by one I tied them with strings together and with some difficulty brought them all home it was a good while before they would feed but throwing them some sweet corn and they began to be tame and now I found that if I expected to supply myself with goat's flesh when I had no powder or shot left breeding some up tame was my only way when perhaps I might have them about my house like a flock of sheep but then it occurred to me that I must keep the tame from the wild or else they would always run wild when they grew up and the only way for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground well fenced either with hedge or pale to keep them in so effectually that those within might not break out or those without break in this was a great undertaking for one pair of hands yet as I saw there was an absolute necessity for doing it my first work was to find out a proper piece of ground where there was likely to be herbage for them to eat water for them to drink and cover to keep them from the sun those who understand such enclosures will think I had very little contrivance when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these being a plain open piece of metal land or savannah as our people call it in the western colonies which had two or three little drills of fresh water in it and at one end was very woody I say they will smile at my forecast when I shall tell them that I began by enclosing this piece of ground in such a manner that my hedge or pale must have been at least two miles about nor was the madness of it so great as to the compass for if it was ten miles about I was like to have time enough to do it in but I did not consider that my goats would be as wild in so much compass as if they had had the whole island and I should have so much room to chase them in that I should never catch them my hedge was begun and carried on I believe about 50 yards when this thought occurred to me so I presently stopped short and for the beginning I resolved to enclose a piece of about 150 yards in length and 100 yards in breadth which as it would maintain as many as I could have in any reasonable time so as my stock increased I could add more ground to my enclosure this was acting with some prudence and I went to work with courage I was about three months hedging in the first piece and till I had done I tethered the three kids and the best part of it and used them to feed as near me as possible to make them familiar and very often I would go and carry them some ears of barley or a handful of rice and feed them out of my hand so that after my enclosure was finished and I let them loose they would follow me up and down bleeding after me for a handful of corn this answered my end and in about a year and a half I had a flock of about 12 goats kids and all and in 2 years more I had 3 and 40 besides several that I took and killed for my food after that I enclosed several pieces of ground to feed them in with little pens to drive them to take them as I wanted and gates out of one piece of ground but this was not all for now I not only had goats flesh to feed on when I pleased but milk too a thing which indeed in the beginning I did not so much as think of and which when it came into my thoughts was really an agreeable surprise for now I set up my dairy and had sometimes a gallon or two of milk in a day and as nature who gives supplies of food to every creature dictates even naturally how to make use of it so that I had never milked a cow much less a goat or seen butter or cheese made only when I was a boy after a great many essays and miscarriages made both butter and cheese at last also salt though I found it partly made the heat of the sun upon some of the rocks of the sea and never wanted it afterwards how mercifully can our creator treat his creatures even in those conditions in which they seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction how can he sweeten the bitterest providences and give us cause to praise him for dungeons and prisons what a table was here spread for me in the wilderness where I saw nothing at first but to perish for hunger end of chapter 10