Даниэль Дефо - Робинзон Крузо / Robinson Crusoe

I sewed some clothes with the leather of killed goats. I had a great high shapeless cap, made of a goat’s skin, with a flap [146]hanging down behind, as well to keep the sun from me as to shoot the rain off from running into my neck, nothing being so hurtful in these climates as the rain upon the flesh under the clothes. I had a short jacket of goat’s skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of the thighs, and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same; the breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side that, like pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs; stockings and shoes I had none, but had made me a pair of somethings, I scarce knew what to call them, like buskins, to flap over my legs, and lace on either side like spatter dashes, but of a most barbarous shape, as indeed were all the rest of my clothes.

My living on an island became very comfortable and unchangeable. My activities depended on seasons and weather. I had two small plantations of corn, rice and barley; five cotes with goats; the main “castle”, as I called my tent with the fence round of it, and the summer cottage, a small building next to my plantations, where I spent sometimes two or three nights, when I had a lot of agriculture works and have no time to come back to my castle. The years went by, and in this way I spent fifteen years on island, working a lot and praying to God.

However, one day something happened that changed all my life on the island. It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was surprised with the print of a man’s naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, [147]or as if I had seen an apparition. [148]I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see anything; I went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one; I could see no other impression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the print of a foot – toes, heel, and every part of a foot.

Nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy.

When I came to my castle, I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went over by the ladder, or went in at the hole in the rock, which I had called a door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I remember the next morning. While these reflections were rolling in my mind, I was very thankful in my thoughts that I was so happy as not to be thereabouts at that time, or that they did not see my boat, by which they would have concluded that some inhabitants had been in the place, and perhaps have searched farther for me. Then terrible thoughts racked my imagination about their having found out my boat, and that there were people here; and that, if so, I should certainly have them come again in greater numbers and devour me.

Now I began to take courage, and to peep abroad again, for I had not stirred out of my castle for three days and nights, so that I began to starve for provisions; for I had little or nothing within doors but some barley-cakes and water; then I knew that my goats wanted to be milked too, which usually was my evening diversion: and the poor creatures were in great pain and inconvenience for want of it; and, indeed, it almost spoiled some of them, and almost dried up their milk. Encouraging myself, therefore, with the belief that this was nothing but the print of one of my own feet, and that I might be truly said to start at my own shadow, I began to go abroad again, and went to my country house to milk my flock: but to see with what fear I went forward, how often I looked behind me, how I was ready every now and then to lay down my basket and run for my life, it would have made any one have thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or that I had been lately most terribly frightened.

One day, when I was come down the hill to the shore, as I said above, being the south west point of the island, I was perfectly confounded and amazed; nor is it possible for me to express the horror of my mind at seeing the shore spread with skulls, hands, feet, and other bones of human bodies; and particularly I observed a place where there had been a fire made, and a circle dug in the earth, like a cockpit, where I supposed the savage wretches had sat down to their human feastings [149]upon the bodies of their fellow-creatures.

I turned away from this terrible sight. I felt sick and vomited, [150]then I ran back to my house. With a flood of tears in my eyes I thanked God that I had been born a civilized man, quite different from these savages. I thanked Him for the comforts He had sent me in my distress.

Since that day I began to make my tour every morning to the top of the hill, which was from my castle, as I called it, about three miles or more, to see if I could observe any boats upon the sea, coming near the island, or standing over towards it; but I began to tire of this hard duty, after I had for two or three months constantly kept my watch, but came always back without any discovery.

Since then I started a very prudent and cautious lifestyle: I tried to shoot a gun rarely; I burnt the fire to make a goat-flesh and barley-bread for supper only after the darkness came. For the next two years, I lived quietly on the island. Yet all that time I was imagining ways to escape. I realized that my only way to go about to attempt an escape was, to get a savage into my possession: and, if possible, it should be one of their prisoners, whom they had condemned to be eaten, and should bring hither to kill. But these thoughts still were attended with this difficulty: that it was impossible to effect this without attacking a whole caravan of them, and killing them all. However, my desire to escape was so strong, that finally I decided to continue to watch out for the savages’ canoes. I set myself upon the scout as often as possible, and indeed so often that I was heartily tired of it; for it was above a year and a half that I waited; and for great part of that time went out to the west end, and to the south-west corner of the island almost every day, to look for canoes, but none appeared.

At once I was surprised in the morning by seeing no less than five canoes all on shore together on my side the island, and the people who belonged to them all landed and out of my sight. The number of them broke all my measures; for seeing so many, and knowing that they always came four or six, or sometimes more in a boat, I could not tell what to think of it, or how to take my measures to attack twenty or thirty men single-handed; so lay still in my castle, perplexed and discomforted. [151]However, I put myself into the same position for an attack that I had formerly provided, and was just ready for action, if anything had presented. Having waited a good while, listening to hear if they made any noise, at length, being very impatient, I set my guns at the foot of my ladder, and clambered up to the top of the hill, by my two stages, as usual; standing so, however, that my head did not appear above the hill, so that they could not perceive me by any means. Here I observed, by the help of my perspective glass, that they were no less than thirty in number. In the next time, as I watched, they brought two prisoners from the boats to be killed. I perceived one of them immediately fall; being knocked down, I suppose, with a club or wooden sword, [152]for that was their way; and two or three others were at work immediately, cutting him open for their cookery, while the other victim was left standing by himself, till they should be ready for him. In that very moment this poor wretch, seeing himself a little at liberty and unbound, and he started away from them, and ran with incredible swiftness along the sands, directly towards me; I mean towards that part of the coast where my habitation was.