Даниэль Дефо: Робинзон Крузо / Robinson Crusoe

During the next thirteen days I had been eleven times on board the ship. I think that if the weather had remained calm I would have brought the whole ship away piece by piece. Every day I went aboard the ship and brought a lot of good things to the shore. Finally, there was nothing more to take out of the ship. And I began to take pieces of the ship itself. I carried to the shore everything I could: such as pieces of iron, rope, nail.

I had been now thirteen days on shore, working all the day very hard. The most part of the day I spent in the sea, aboard the ship, or ashore, trying to pack all the goods and to system them. To protect all the things, especially ammunition and arms (all the powder I had) from the water, I built something like tent or hovel, with the biggest pieces of linen and some tarpaulin.

My thoughts were now wholly employed about securing myself against either savages, if any should appear, or wild beasts, if any were in the island; and I had many thoughts of the method how to do this, and what kind of dwelling to make – whether I should make me a cave in the earth, or a tent upon the earth; and, in short, I resolved upon both.

First of all I resolved to find a more healthy and more convenient spot of ground, because I soon found the place I was in was not fit for my settlement, because it was upon a low, moorish ground, near the sea, and more particularly because there was no fresh water near it.

I consulted several things in my situation, which I found would he proper for me: first, health and fresh water, I just now mentioned; secondly, shelter from the heat of the sun; thirdly, security from ravenous creatures, whether man or beast; fourthly, a view to the sea, that if God sent any ship in sight, I might not lose any advantage for my deliverance, of which I was not willing to banish all my expectation yet. In search of a place proper for this, I found a little plain on the side of a rising hill, whose front towards this little plain was steep as a house-side, so that nothing could come down upon me from the top. On the one side of the rock there was a hollow place, worn a little way in, like the entrance or door of a cave but there was not really any cave or way into the rock at all.

First of all I built a high fence round the plain, where I was going to settle. In this half-circle I pitched two rows of strong stakes, driving them into the ground. This cost me a great deal of time and labour, especially to cut the piles in the woods, bring them to the place, and drive them into the earth. The entrance into this place I made to be, not by a door, but by a short ladder to go over the top; which ladder, when I was in, I lifted over after me. After that I felt myself completely safe.

The next step was to built a strong tent to protect myself and all the goods from the ship. So, I made a large tent, which to preserve me from the rains that in one part of the year are very violent there, and from the scorching rays of the sun; I made double – one smaller tent within, and one larger tent above it; and covered the uppermost with a large tarpaulin, which I had saved among the sails. Into this fence or fortress, with infinite labour, I carried all my riches, all my provisions, ammunition, and stores.

And now I lay no more for a while in the bed which I had brought on shore, but in a hammock, which was indeed a very good one, and belonged to the mate of the ship. Into this tent I brought all my provisions, and everything that would spoil by the wet.

When I had done this, I began to work my way into the rock, and, in a week, I made a big cave, which called – kitchen, where I’ve kept all the food from the ship I had – biscuits, jerked flesh, barrels of rum, a few sugar and tobacco. But I must observe, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, which, as they lay in no order, so they took up all my place; I had no room to turn myself: so I set myself to enlarge my cave, and work farther into the earth. For it was a loose sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I worked sideways, so I made a through hole in the hill, in that way, that there were the door to my kitchen on the other side of the hill. This gave me not only egress and regress, as it was a back way to my tent and to my storehouse, but gave me room to store my goods.

In the interval of time while this was doing, I went out once at least every day with my gun, as well to divert myself as to see if I could kill anything fit for food. The first time I went out, I presently discovered that there were goats in the island, which was a great satisfaction to me, but they were so shy, so subtle, and so swift of foot, that it was the most difficult thing in the world to come at them.

After I had been about ten or twelve days on the Island, it came into my thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books, and pen and ink, and should even forget the Sabbath days; but to prevent this, I cut with my knife upon a large post, in capital letters – and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the shore where I first landed – “I came on shore here on the 30th September 1659.” Upon the sides of this square post I cut every day a notch with my knife, and every seventh notch was as long again as the rest, and every first day of the month as long again as that long one; and thus I kept my calendar, or weekly, monthly, and yearly reckoning of time.

Having now brought my mind a little to relish my condition, and given over looking out to sea, to see if I could spy a ship – I say, giving over these things, I begun to apply myself to arrange my way of living, and to make things as easy to me as I could. So I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I found I most wanted, particularly a chair and a table; for without these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world; I could not write or eat, or do several things, with so much pleasure without a table: so I went to work.

And here I must needs observe, that every man may be, in time, become a master of every mechanic art. I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet, in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools. I think, that such things like a table, a chair or shelves in buffet, were never made that way before, and that with infinite labour. For example, if I wanted a board, I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I brought it to be thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze. It is true, by this method I could make but one board out of a whole tree.

However, I made me a table and a chair, and after that I made large shelves, of the breadth of a foot and a half, one over another all along one side of my cave, to lay all my tools, nails and ironwork on; and, in a word, to separate everything at large into their places, that I might come easily at them. I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock to hang my guns and all things that would hang up; so that, had my cave been to be seen, it looked like a general magazine of all necessary things; and had everything so ready at my hand, that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order, and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great.

I thought about my situation a lot. In the storm our ship was shipwrecked hundreds of miles away from the European trading routes. So, I thought it was Providence willing, that I should spend the rest of my life on this miserable island. I seemed hardly rational to be thankful for such a life, being separated from the other people and civilization by the ocean and maybe hundreds of miles; for many times I asked myself why God chose to ruin his creatures. However, one day, I was walking across the coast line with my gun, when I thought at the first time: “Certainly, I am miserable, but what happened to the others? I alone was fortunate enough to survive. Is it better to be on this inhabited island, or at the bottom of the sea?” After such a thinks I thought how well-equipped I was to survive on the island. What would have happened to me if the ship had not been blown closer to shore? That gave me a chance to take all the provision, ammunition, army, tools from the ship. How would I have lived without all of them? All this thoughts made my mind turned into the thankful behavior. In this way, thanking and blessing God, I spent the first year on the island, working very hard, and preying a lot. I forgot to mention before that among the things I took from the ship were some Catholic prayer books and three Bibles. Moreover, in the captain’s cabin I found a big bottle of ink, about ten pens, a lot of paper for maps and observations that miraculously stayed dry, and two logbooks. So, after a year of living on an island, staying all the time alone, without communication, I decided to keep a diary. I allowed myself to write not rather, than once a week, to save the ink and paper, recording only the significant events or discoveries. Here are some examples of my writings.