Robinson Crusoe (6 page)

This was game indeed to us, but this was no food; and I was very sorry to lose three charges of powder and shot upon a creature that was good for nothing to us. However, Xury said he would have some of him; so he comes on board and asked me to give him the hatchet. ‘‘For what, Xury?’’ said I. ‘‘Me cut off his head,’’ said he. However, Xury could not cut off his head, but he cut off a foot and brought it with him, and it was a monstrous great one.

I bethought myself, however, that perhaps the skin of him might one way or other be of some value to us; and I resolved to take off his skin if I could. So Xury and I went to work with him; but Xury was much the better workman at it, for I knew very ill how to do it. Indeed it took us up both the whole day, but at last we got off the hide of him, and spreading it on the top of our cabin, the sun effectually dried it in two days’ time, and it afterwards served me to lie upon.

After this stop, we made on to the southward continually for ten or twelve days, living very sparing on our provisions, which began to abate very much, and going no oftener in to the shore than we were obliged to for fresh water; my design in this was to make the river Gambia or Senegal, that is to say, anywhere about the Cape Verde, where I was in hopes to meet with some European ship, and if I did not, I knew not what course I had to take, but to seek out for the islands, or perish there among the Negroes. I knew that all the ships from Europe which sailed either to the coast of Guinea or to Brazil or to the East Indies made this cape or those islands; and in a word, I put the whole of my fortune upon this single point, either that I must meet with some ship or must perish.

When I had pursued this resolution about ten days longer, as I have said, I began to see that the land was inhabited, and in two or three places, as we sailed by, we saw people stand upon the shore to look at us; we could also perceive they were quite black and stark naked. I was once inclined to have gone on shore to them; but Xury was my better counsellor and said to me, ‘‘No go, no go.’’ However, I hauled in nearer the shore that I might talk to them, and I found they ran along the shore by me a good way. I observed they had no weapons in their hands, except one, who had a long slender stick, which Xury said was a lance, and that they would throw them a great way with good aim; so I kept at a distance, but talked with them by signs as well as I could, and particularly made signs for something to eat. They beckoned to me to stop my boat, and they would fetch me some meat; upon this I lowered the top of my sail and lay by, and two of them ran up into the country, and in less than half an hour came back and brought with them two pieces of dry flesh and some corn,
³
such as is the produce of their country; but we neither knew what the one or the other was; however, we were willing to accept it. But how to come at it was our next dispute; for I was not for venturing on shore to them, and they were as much afraid of us; but they took a safe way for us all, for they brought it to the shore and laid it down, and went and stood a great way off till we fetched it on board, and then came close to us again.

We made signs of thanks to them, for we had nothing to make them amends; but an opportunity offered that very instant to oblige them wonderfully; for while we were lying by the shore, came two mighty creatures, one pursuing the other (as we took it) with great fury from the mountains towards the sea; whether it was the male pursuing the female, or whether they were in sport or in rage, we could not tell, any more than we could tell whether it was usual or strange, but I believe it was the latter; because in the first place, those ravenous creatures seldom appear but in the night; and in the second place, we found the people terribly frighted, especially the women. The man that had the lance or dart did not fly from them, but the rest did; however, as the two creatures ran directly into the water, they did not seem to offer to fall upon any of the Negroes,but plunged themselves into the sea, and swam about as if they had come for their diversion; at last one of them began to come nearer our boat than at first I expected; but I lay ready for him, for I had loaded my gun with all possible expedition, and bade Xury load both the others; as soon as he came fairly within my reach, I fired and shot him directly into the head; immediately he sunk down into the water, but rose instantly and plunged up and down as if he was struggling for life, and so indeed he was; he immediately made to the shore, but between the wound, which was his mortal hurt, and the strangling of the water, he died just before he reached the shore.

It is impossible to express the astonishment of these poor creatures at the noise and the fire of my gun; some of them were even ready to die for fear, and fell down as dead with the very terror. But when they saw the creature dead and sunk in the water, and that I made signs to them to come to the shore, they took heart and came to the shore, and began to search for the creature. I found him by his blood staining the water, and by the help of a rope which I flung round him and gave the Negroes to haul, they dragged him on shore, and found that it was a most curious leopard, spotted and fine to an admirable degree, and the Negroes held up their hands with admiration to think what it was I had killed him with.

The other creature, frighted with the flash of fire and the noise of the gun, swam on shore, and ran up directly to the mountains from whence they came, nor could I at that distance know what it was. I found quickly the Negroes were for eating the flesh of this creature, so I was willing to have them take it as a favour from me, which, when I made signs to them that they might take him, they were very thankful for. Immediately they fell to work with him; and though they had no knife, yet with a sharpened piece of wood they took off his skin as readily and much more readily than we could have done with a knife; they offered me some of the flesh, which I declined, making as if I would give it to them, but made signs for the skin, which they gave me very freely, and brought me a great deal more of their provision, which though I did not understand, yet I accepted; then I made signs to them for some water and held out one of my jars to them, turning it bottom upward, to show that it was empty, and that I wanted to have it filled. They called immediately to some of their friends, and there came two women and brought a great vessel made of earth, and burnt, as I suppose, in the sun; this they set down for me as before, and I sent Xury on shore with my jars and filled them all three. The women were as stark naked as the men.

I was now furnished with roots and corn, such as it was, and water, and leaving my friendly Negroes, I made forward for about eleven days more without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run out at a great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five leagues before me, and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing to make this point; at length, doubling the point at about two leagues from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward; then I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape Verde and those the islands, called from thence Cape Verde Islands. However, they were at a great distance, and I could not well tell what I had best to do; for if I should be taken with a fresh of wind, I might neither reach one or other.

In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the cabin and sat me down, Xury having the helm, when on a sudden the boy cried out, ‘‘Master, master, a ship with a sail!’’ and the foolish boy was frighted out of his wits, thinking it must needs be some of his master’s ships sent to pursue us, when I knew we were gotten far enough out of their reach. I jumped out of the cabin, and immediately saw, not only the ship, but what she was, viz., that it was a Portuguese ship, and, as I thought, was bound to the coast of Guinea for Negroes. But when I observed the course she steered, I was soon convinced they were bound some other way, and did not design to come any nearer to the shore; upon which I stretched out to sea as much as I could, resolving to speak with them if possible.

With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come in their way, but that they would be gone by before I could make any signal to them; but after I had crowded to the utmost and began to despair, they, it seems, saw me by the help of their perspective-glasses, and that it was some European boat, which as they supposed must belong to some ship that was lost; so they shortened sail to let me come up. I was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron’s ancient on board, I made a waft of it to them for a signal of distress, and fired a gun, both which they saw, for they told me they saw the smoke, though they did not hear the gun; upon these signals they very kindly brought to and lay by for me, and in about three hours’ time I came up with them.

They asked me what I was, in Portuguese and in Spanish and in French, but I understood none of them; but at last a Scots sailor who was on board called to me, and I answered him and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors at Sallee; then they bade me come on board and very kindly took me in, and all my goods.

It was an inexpressible joy to me that anyone will believe that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and almost hopeless condition as I was in, and I immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship as a return for my deliverance; but he generously told me he would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me when I came to Brazil. ‘‘For,’’ says he, ‘‘I have saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be saved myself, and it may one time or other be my lot to be taken up in the same condition; besides,’’ said he, ‘‘when I carry you to Brazil, so great a way from your own country, if I should take from you what you have, you will be starved there, and then I only take away that life I have given. No, no, Seignior Inglese,’’ says he [Mr. Englishman] , ‘‘I will carry you thither in charity, and those things will help you to buy your subsistence there and your passage home again.’’

As he was charitable in his proposal, so he was just in the performance to a tittle, for he ordered the seamen that none should offer to touch anything I had; then he took everything into his own possession and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might have them, even so much as my three earthen jars.

As to my boat, it was a very good one, and that he saw, and told me he would buy it of me for the ship’s use and asked me what I would have for it. I told him he had been so generous to me in everything that I could not offer to make any price of the boat but left it entirely to him, upon which he told me he would give me a note of his hand to pay me eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil, and when it came there, if anyone offered to give more, he would make it up; he offered me also sixty pieces of eight more for my boy Xury, which I was loath to take, not that I was not willing to let the captain have him, but I was very loath to sell the poor boy’s liberty who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own. However, when I let him know my reason, he owned it to be just and offered me this medium, that he would give the boy an obligation to set him free in ten years if he turned Christian; upon this, and Xury saying he was willing to go to him, I let the captain have him.

I Become a Brazilian Planter

WE HAD a very good voyage to Brazil and arrived in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or All Saints’ Bay, in about twenty-two days after. And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of all conditions of life, and what to do next with myself I was now to consider.

The generous treatment the captain gave me I can never enough remember; he would take nothing of me for my passage, gave me twenty ducats for the leopard’s skin, and forty for the lion’s skin which I had in my boat, and caused everything I had in the ship to be punctually delivered to me; and what I was willing to sell he bought, such as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of beeswax, for I had made candles of the rest; in a word, I made about 220 pieces of eight of all my cargo, and with this stock I went on shore in Brazil.

I had not been long here, but being recommended to the house of a good honest man like himself, who had an
ingenio,
as they call it, that is, a plantation and a sugarhouse, I lived with him some time and acquainted myself by that means with the manner of their planting and making of sugar; and seeing how well the planters lived and how they grew rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get licence to settle there, I would turn planter among them, resolving in the meantime to find out some way to get my money which I had left in London remitted to me. To this purpose, getting a kind of a letter of naturalization, I purchased as much land that was uncured as my money would reach, and formed a plan for my plantation and settlement, and such a one as might be suitable to the stock which I proposed to myself to receive from England.

I had a neighbour, a Portuguese of Lisbon, but born of English parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such circumstances as I was. I call him neighbour, because his plantation lay next to mine and we went on very sociably together. My stock was but low, as well as his; and we rather planted for food than anything else for about two years. However, we began to increase, and our land began to come into order; so that the third year we planted some tobacco and made each of us a large piece of ground ready for planting canes in the year to come; but we both wanted help, and now I found, more than before, I had done wrong in parting with my boy Xury.

But alas! for me to do wrong that never did right was no great wonder: I had no remedy but to go on; I was gotten into an employment quite remote to my genius and directly contrary to the life I delighted in and for which I forsook my father’s house and broke through all his good advice; nay, I was coming into the very middle station, or upper degree of low life, which my father advised me to before, and which, if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have stayed at home and never have fatigued myself in the world as I had done; and I used often to say to myself, I could have done this as well in England among my friends as have gone five thousand miles off to do it among strangers and savages in a wilderness, and at such a distance as never to hear from any part of the world that had the least knowledge of me.