Part 3 (1/2)

JUNE 16 - Going down to the seaside, I found a large tortoise or turtle This was the first I had seen, which, it seems, was only my misfortune, not any defect of the place, or scarcity; for had I happened to be on the other side of the island, I ht have had hundreds of them every day, as I found afterwards; but perhaps had paid dear enough for the the turtle I found in her three- score eggs; and her flesh was to me, at that time, the most savoury and pleasant that ever I tasted in oats and fowls, since I landed in this horrid place

JUNE 18 - Rained all day, and I stayed within I thought at this ti chilly; which I kneas not usual in that latitude

JUNE 19 - Very ill, and shi+vering, as if the weather had been cold

JUNE 20 - No rest all night; violent pains in hted almost to death with the apprehensions of my sad condition - to be sick, and no help Prayed to God, for the first time since the storhts being all confused

JUNE 22 - A little better; but under dreadful apprehensions of sickness

JUNE 22 - Very bad again; cold and shi+vering, and then a violent headache

JUNE 24 - Much better

JUNE 25 - An ague very violent; the fit held me seven hours; cold fit and hot, with faint sweats after it

JUNE 26 - Better; and having no victuals to eat, took oat, and with ot it home, and broiled some of it, and ate, I would fain have stewed it, and ue again so violent that I lay a-bed all day, and neither ate nor drank I was ready to perish for thirst; but so weak, I had not strength to stand up, or to get ht-headed; and when I was not, I was so ignorant that I knew not what to say; only I lay and cried, ”Lord, look upon me! Lord, pityelse for two or three hours; till, the fit wearing off, I fell asleep, and did not wake till far in the night When I awoke, I foundthirsty However, as I had no water in , and went to sleep again In this second sleep I had this terrible drearound, on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and that I saw a ht flaht as a flame, so that I could but just bear to look towards him; his countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, iround with his feet, I thought the earth trembled, just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been filled with flashes of fire He was no sooner landed upon the earth, but hespear or weapon in his hand, to kill round, at some distance, he spoke to me - or I heard a voice so terrible that it is impossible to express the terror of it All that I can say I understood was this: ”Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die;” at which words, I thought he lifted up the spear that was in his hand to kill me

No one that shall ever read this account will expect that I should be able to describe the horrors of my soul at this terrible vision I mean, that even while it was a dream, I even dreamed of those horrors Nor is it any more possible to describe the impression that remained upon my mind when I awaked, and found it was but a dreae What I had received by the good instruction of my father was then worn out by an uninterrupted series, for eight years, of seafaring wickedness, and a constant conversation with none but such as were, like ree I do not reht that soupwards towards God, or inwards towards a reflection upon my oays; but a certain stupidity of soul, without desire of good, or conscience of evil, had entirely overwhel, wicked creature a the least sense, either of the fear of God in danger, or of thankfulness to God in deliverance

In the relating what is already past of my story, this will be the h all the variety of miseries that had to this day befallenthe hand of God, or that it was a just punishainst reat - or so eneral course of my wicked life When I was on the desperate expedition on the desert shores of Africa, I never had so ht of ould becoo, or to keep er which apparently surrounded es But I was htless of a God or a Providence, acted like a mere brute, from the principles of nature, and by the dictates of common sense only, and, indeed, hardly that When I was delivered and taken up at sea by the Portugal captain, well used, and dealt justly and honourably with, as well as charitably, I had not the least thankfulness in ain, I was shi+pwrecked, ruined, and in danger of drowning on this island, I was as far froment I only said to , and born to be always ot on shore first here, and found all my shi+p's crened and myself spared, I was surprised with a kind of ecstasy, and sorace of God assisted, ht have coan, in a lad I was alive, without the least reflection upon the distinguished goodness of the hand which had preserved led me out to be preserved when all the rest were destroyed, or an inquiry why Providence had been thus merciful unto enerally have, after they are got safe ashore from a shi+pwreck, which they drown all in the next bowl of punch, and forget almost as soon as it is over; and all the rest of my life was like it Even when I was afterwards, on due consideration, made sensible of my condition, hoas cast on this dreadful place, out of the reach of human kind, out of all hope of relief, or prospect of rede and that I should not starve and perish for hunger, all the sense of an to be very easy, applied myself to the works proper forafflicted at ainst hts which very seldo up of the corn, as is hinted in my Journal, had at first soan to affectht was removed, all the impression that was raised from it wore off also, as I have noted already Even the earthquake, though nothing could beto the invisible Pohich alone directs such things, yet no sooner was the first fright over, but the impression it had ments - much less of the present affliction offrom His hand - than if I had been in the an to be sick, and a leisurely view of the miseries of death caan to sink under the burden of a strong distemper, and nature was exhausted with the violence of the fever; conscience, that had slept so long, began to awake, and I began to reproach myself with my past life, in which I had so evidently, by uncommon wickedness, provoked the justice of God to lay me under uncommon strokes, and to deal with me in so vindictive a manner These reflections oppressed me for the second or third day of my distemper; and in the violence, as well of the fever as of the dreadful reproaches ofto God, though I cannot say they were either a prayer attended with desires or with hopes: it was rather the voice of hts were confused, the convictions great uponin such a miserable condition raised vapours into my head with the mere apprehensions; and in these hurries of ht express But it was rather exclamation, such as, ”Lord, what a miserable creature am I! If I should be sick, I shall certainly die for want of help; and ill become of me!” Then the tears burst out of ood while In this interval the good advice of my father came to my mind, and presently his prediction, which Iof this story - viz that if I did take this foolish step, God would not blessneglected his counsel when there ht be none to assist in my recovery ”Now,” said I, aloud, ”my dear father's words are come to pass; God's justice has overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me I rejected the voice of Providence, which had mercifully put ht have been happy and easy; but I would neither see itof it from my parents I left them to mourn over my folly, and now I am left to mourn under the consequences of it I abused their help and assistance, ould have liftedeasy to reat for even nature itself to support, and no assistance, no help, no comfort, no advice” Then I cried out, ”Lord, be reat distress” This was the first prayer, if I may call it so, that I had made for many years

But to return tobeen so entirely off, I got up; and though the fright and terror of reat, yet I considered that the fit of the ague would return again the next day, and noasto refresh and supportI did, I filled a large square case-bottle ater, and set it upon uish disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of ruot oat's flesh and broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little I walked about, but was very weak, and withal very sad and heavy-hearted under a sense of , the return of ht I s, which I roasted in the ashes, and ate, as we call it, in the shell, and this was the first bit ofto, that I could remember, in my whole life After I had eaten I tried to walk, but found un, for I never went out without that; so I went but a little way, and sat down upon the ground, looking out upon the sea, which was just before hts as these occurred to me: What is this earth and sea, of which I have seen so much? Whence is it produced? And what am I, and all the other creatures wild and tame, human and brutal? Whence are we? Sure we are all made by some secret Poho formed the earth and sea, the air and sky And who is that? Then it followed most naturally, it is God that has ely, if God has overns thes that concern thes uide and direct thereat circuit of His works, either without His knowledge or appointe, He knows that I a happens without His appoint occurred to ht to contradict any of these conclusions, and therefore it rested upon reater force, that it must needs be that God had appointed all this to befall ht into thisthe sole power, not ofthat happened in the world Immediately it followed: Why has God done this to me? What have I done to be thus used? My conscience presently checked ht it spoke to me like a voice: ”Wretch! dost THOU ask what thou hast done? Look back upon a dreadful misspent life, and ask thyself what thou hast NOT done? Ask, why is it that thou wert not long ago destroyed? Why wert thou not drowned in Yarht when the shi+p was taken by the Sallee man-of-war; devoured by the wild beasts on the coast of Africa; or drowned HERE, when all the crew perished but thyself? Dost THOU ask, what have I done?” I was struck dumb with these reflections, as one astonished, and had not a word to say - no, not to answer to myself, but rose up pensive and sad, walked back toto bed; but hts were sadly disturbed, and I had no inclination to sleep; so I sat down in an to be dark Now, as the apprehension of the return of ht that the Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for almost all distempers, and I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in one of the chests, which was quite cured, and soreen, and not quite cured

I went, directed by Heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found a cure both for soul and body I opened the chest, and found what I looked for, the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay there too, I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before, and which to this time I had not found leisure or inclination to look into I say, I took it out, and brought both that and the tobacco with me to the table What use to make of the tobacco I knew not, in ood for it or no: but I tried several experiments with it, as if I was resolved it should hit one way or other I first took a piece of leaf, and chewed it in my mouth, which, indeed, at first al, and that I had not been much used to Then I took some and steeped it an hour or two in some rum, and resolved to take a dose of it when I lay down; and lastly, I burnt some upon a pan of coals, and heldas I could bear it, as well for the heat as almost for suffocation In the interval of this operation I took up the Bible and began to read; but my head was too , at least at that ti opened the book casually, the first words that occurred to me were these, ”Call on Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me” These words were very apt to hts at the tih not soDELIVERED, the word had no sound, as Iwas so rean to say, as the children of Israel did when they were promised flesh to eat, ”Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” so I began to say, ”Can God Himself deliver me from this place?” And as it was not for many years that any hopes appeared, this prevailed very often upon reat ire late, and the tobacco had, as I said, dozed my head soin the cave, lest I should want anything in the night, and went to bed But before I lay down, I did what I never had done in all my life - I kneeled down, and prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me, that if I called upon Him in the day of trouble, He would deliver me After my broken and imperfect prayer was over, I drank the ru and rank of the tobacco that I could scarcely get it down; immediately upon this I went to bed I found presently it flew up into my head violently; but I fell into a sound sleep, and waked no more till, by the sun, it must necessarily be near three o'clock in the afternoon the next day - nay, to this hour I aht, and till almost three the day after; for otherwise I know not how I should lose a day out ofin the days of the week, as it appeared so and recrossing the line, I should have lost more than one day; but certainly I lost a day in my account, and never knehich way Be that, however, one way or the other, when I awaked I found ly refreshed, and er than I was the day before, and ry; and, in short, I had no fit the next day, but continued much altered for the better This was the 29th

The 30th was un, but did not care to travel too far I killed a sea-fowl or two, soht them home, but was not very forward to eat theood This evening I renewed the ood the day before - the tobacco steeped in rum; only I did not take so much as before, nor did I chew any of the leaf, or hold my head over the smoke; however, I was not so well the next day, which was the first of July, as I hoped I should have been; for I had a little spice of the cold fit, but it was not much

JULY 2 - I renewed the medicine all the three ways; and dosed myself with it as at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank

JULY 3 - I h I did not recover athering strength, ly upon this Scripture, ”I will deliver thee”; and the impossibility of my deliverance layit; but as I was discouraging hts, it occurred to my mind that I pored so much upon arded the deliverance I had received, and I was as it were made to ask myself such questions as these - viz Have I not been delivered, and wonderfully too, from sickness - from the htful to me? and what notice had I taken of it? Had I done lorified Him - that is to say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as a deliverance; and how could I expect greater deliverance? This touched ave God thanks aloud for my recovery fro I took the Bible; and beginning at the New Testaan seriously to read it, and iht; not tying hts should engageafter I set seriously to this work till I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life The is have not brought thee to repentance,” ran seriously through ive me repentance, when it happened providentially, the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I caive repentance and to give remission” I thren the book; and with my heart as well as my hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud, ”Jesus, thou son of David! Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour! give me repentance!” This was the first time I could say, in the true sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense of my condition, and a true Scripture view of hope, founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and froan to hope that God would hear an to construe the words mentioned above, ”Call on Me, and I will deliver thee,” in a different sense from what I had ever done before; for then I had no notion of anything being called DELIVERANCE, but h I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly a prison to me, and that in the worse sense in the world But now I learned to take it in another sense: now I looked back upon my past life with such horror, andof God but deliverance frouilt that bore down allI did not so much as pray to be delivered from it or think of it; it was all of no consideration in comparison to this And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they cos, they will find deliverance fro than deliverance fro this part, I return to h not less , yetdirected, by a constant reading the Scripture and praying to God, to things of a higher nature, I had a great deal of co of; also, th returned, I bestirredthat I wanted, and ular as I could

From the 4th of July to the 14th I was chiefly eun in athering up his strength after a fit of sickness; for it is hardly to be iined hoas, and to eakness I was reduced The application which I made use of was perfectly new, and perhaps which had never cured an ague before; neither can I recoh it did carry off the fit, yet it rather contributed to weakening me; for I had frequent convulsions in my nerves and limbs for some ti abroad in the rainy season was theto my health that could be, especially in those rains which came attended with storms and hurricanes of wind; for as the rain which came in the dry season was almost always accompanied with such storerous than the rain which fell in September and October

CHAPTER VII

- AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

I HAD now been in this unhappy island above ten months All possibility of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from me; and I firmly believe that no hu now secured reat desire to make a more perfect discovery of the island, and to see what other productions Iof

It was on the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey of the island itself I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I brought my rafts on shore I found after I caher, and that it was no ood; but this being the dry season, there was hardly any water in soh to run in any stream, so as it could be perceived On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs or rass; and on the rising parts of theht be supposed, never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and growing to a great and very strong stalk There were divers other plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that ht, perhaps, have virtues of their ohich I could not find out I searched for the cassava root, which the Indians, in all that clie plants of aloes, but did not understand thear-canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect I contented myself with these discoveries for this tiht take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover, but could bring it to no conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little of the plants in the field; at least, very little that ht serve to any purpose now in my distress

The next day, the sixteenth, I went up the saone the day before, I found the brook and the savannahs cease, and the country become more woody than before In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found rapes upon the trees The vines had spread, indeed, over the trees, and the clusters of grapes were just now in their pri discovery, and I was exceeding glad of thely of the that when I was ashore in Barbary, the eating of grapes killed several of our English them into fluxes and fevers But I found an excellent use for these grapes; and that was, to cure or dry therapes or raisins are kept, which I thought would be, as indeed they were, wholesorapes could be had

I spent all that evening there, and went not back to ht, as I ht, I took ot up in a tree, where I slept well; and the nextnearly fourstill due north, with a ridge of hills on the south and north side ofwhere the country see of fresh water, which issued out of the side of the hill by me, ran the other way, that is, due east; and the country appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishi+ng, everything being in a constant verdure or flourish of spring that it looked like a planted garden I descended a little on the side of that delicious vale, surveying it with a secret kind of pleasure, though hts, to think that this was alland lord of all this country indefensibly, and had a right of possession; and if I could convey it, I ht have it in inheritance as coland I saw here abundance of cocoa trees, orange, and le any fruit, at least not then However, the green liathered were not only pleasant to eat, but very wholesome; and I mixed their juice afterwards ater, whichI found now I had business enough to gather and carry horapes as limes and lemons, to furnishIn order to do this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, a lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of li a few of each witha bag or sack, or what I couldspent three days in this journey, I came hoot thither the grapes were spoiled; the richness of the fruit and the weight of the juice having broken the; as to the li but a few

The next day, being the nineteenth, I went back, havingho to athered theed about, some here, some there, and abundance eaten and devoured By this I concluded there were some wild creatures thereabouts, which had done this; but what they were I knew not However, as I found there was no laying the them away in a sack, but that one way they would be destroyed, and the other way they would be crushed with their oeight, I took another course; for I gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hung theht cure and dry in the sun; and as for the limes and lemons, I carried as many back as I could well stand under

When I careat pleasure the fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of the situation; the security from storms on that side of the water, and the wood: and concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode which was by far the worst part of the country Upon the whole, I began to consider of re out for a place equally safe as where noas situate, if possible, in that pleasant, fruitful part of the island

This thought ran long infond of it for so me; but when I came to a nearer view of it, I considered that I was now by the seaside, where it was at least possible that soe, and, by the sa soh it was scarce probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclosethe hills and woods in the centre of the island was to anticipate e, and to render such an affair not only iht not by any means to remove However, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spentpart of the hts, I resolved not to remove, yet I built me a little kind of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance with a strong fence, being a double hedge, as high as I could reach, well staked and filled betith brushwood; and here I lay very secure, so over it with a ladder; so that I fancied now I had my country house andof August

I had but newly finished an to enjoy my labour, when the rains came on, and h I had made me a tent like the other, with a piece of a sail, and spread it very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me from storms, nor a cave behind me to retreat into when the rains were extraordinary

About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished ust, I found the grapes I had hung up perfectly dried, and, indeed, were excellent good raisins of the sun; so I began to take them down from the trees, and it was very happy that I did so, for the rains which folloould have spoiled them, and I had lost the best part of e bunches of them No sooner had I taken them all down, and carried the an to rain; and froust, it rained, more or less, every day till the middle of October; and sometimes so violently, that I could not stir out of my cave for several days

In this season I was much surprised with the increase of my family; I had been concerned for the loss of one of ht, had been dead, and I heard no s of her till, to ust with three kittens This was the h I had killed a wild cat, as I called it, with ht it was quite a different kind fro cats were the sa fee But from these three cats I afterwards came to be so pestered with cats that I was forced to kill them like vermin or wild beasts, and to drive them froust to the 26th, incessant rain, so that I could not stir, and was now very careful not to be an to be straitened for food: but venturing out twice, I one day killed a goat; and the last day, which was the 26th, found a very large tortoise, which was a treat to ulated thus: I ate a bunch of raisins for oat's flesh, or of the turtle, for reat ; and two or three of the turtle's eggs forthis confinement in my cover by the rain, I worked daily two or three hours at enlarging rees worked it on towards one side, till I came to the outside of the hill, and made a door or way out, which came beyond my fence or wall; and so I ca so open; for, as I had ed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure; whereas now I thought I lay exposed, and open for anything to come in uponthing to fear, the biggest creature that I had yet seen upon the island being a goat

SEPT 30 - I was now co I cast up the notches on my post, and found I had been on shore three hundred and sixty-five days I kept this day as a sole round with theh Jesus Christ; and not having tasted the least refresh down of the sun, I then ate a biscuit-cake and a bunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishi+ng the day as I began it I had all this time observed no Sabbath day; for as at first I had no sense of religion upon uish the weeks, by er notch than ordinary for the Sabbath day, and so did not really knohat any of the days were; but now, having cast up the days as above, I found I had been there a year; so I divided it into weeks, and set apart every seventh day for a Sabbath; though I found at the end ofA little after this, an to fail ly, and to write down only thea daily s

The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear regular to me, and I learned to divide theht allto relate was one of theexperiments that I made

I have mentioned that I had saved the few ears of barley and rice, which I had so surprisingly found spring up, as I thought, of themselves, and I believe there were about thirty stalks of rice, and about twenty of barley; and now I thought it a proper ti in its southern position, going froround as well as I could with rain; but as I was sowing, it casually occurred to hts that I would not sow it all at first, because I did not knoas the proper ti about a handful of each It was a great corain of what I sowed this ti, the earth having had no rain after the seed was sown, it had no rowth, and never carew as if it had been but newly sown Finding ined was by the drought, I sought for aup a piece of ground near my neer, and sowed the rest of my seed in February, a little before the vernal equinox; and this having the rainyup very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having part of the seed left only, and not daring to sow all that I had, I had but a s to above half a peck of each kind But by this experiment I was made master of my business, and knew exactly when the proper season was to sow, and that I ht expect two seed-times and two harvests every year

While this corn was growing I made a little discovery, which was of use to me afterwards As soon as the rains were over, and the weather began to settle, which was about the month of Noveh I had not been sos just as I left thee that I had made was not only firm and entire, but the stakes which I had cut out of soroith long branches, as much as a -tree usually shoots the first year after lopping its head I could not tell what tree to call it that these stakes were cut from I was surprised, and yet very well pleased, to see the young trees grow; and I pruned therow as much alike as I could; and it is scarce credible how beautiful a figure they grew into in three years; so that though the hedge made a circle of about twenty-five yards in diaht now call them, soon covered it, and it was a coe under all the dry season This e like this, in a se), which I did; and placing the trees or stakes in a double row, at about eight yards distance frorew presently, and were at first a fine cover to my habitation, and afterwards served for a defence also, as I shall observe in its order

I found now that the seasons of the year enerally be divided, not into summer and winter, as in Europe, but into the rainy seasons and the dry seasons, which were generally thus:- The half of February, the whole of March, and the half of April - rainy, the sun being then on or near the equinox