Daniel Defoe - The True-Born Englishman

It was hard work to get down from the tree. His limbs and back ached from sitting in the tree all night At last he slipped down and fell on the ground. He clasped his hands in prayer and thanked God for keeping him through the night.

Then he got up and tried to walk. He was so weak he could not stand.

He threw himself down on the ground and began to sob and cry, "O Lord, do not let me die! Do not let me die!" As he lay there he heard a queer sound. He listened. It sounded like water running over rocks. He tried to get to the place from which the sound came. He tried to walk. When he fell he crawled on his hands and knees. At last the sound was close by. He dragged himself up on the rocks. Yes, there was a spring of clear, cool, sparkling water bubbling up and trickling over the stones. Robinson was so thirsty he put his face into the water and drank and drank.

Then he sat down, and after a while he drank again and again.

After Robinson had satisfied his thirst and rested awhile, he felt much better. He said, "I must try to walk and see whether I can find something to eat." He found many kinds of fruits and berries all around him, but he was afraid to eat them, as they were strange to him and he feared they might be poisonous.

As he was walking along, all at once he spied a tall plant in the distance which had a familiar look. It looked like corn. He said to himself, "I wonder if it can be corn." At last he came near enough to recognize it. Yes, it was corn. It did not look exactly like the corn that he saw at home, but still he knew it would be safe to eat it. He broke off an ear and eagerly ate the kernels raw. Oh, how good it was! Robinson could not remember anything that tasted half so good.

He ate as much as he wanted and then filled his pockets with ears of corn for his supper. Then he went back to the spring to get another drink.

After his hunger and thirst were satisfied, Robinson thought he would try to find another dwelling place. "My legs are stiff and sore from sitting so uncomfortably last night, and there is so much danger of falling," he said. "I will climb yonder hill and look around and see on which side the houses are. I will find me a stick to help me on my way."

He broke a stick from a dry bush and climbed up the steep sides of the hill. After a half hour's climb he was on top. What a sight met his eyes! There were no houses, no huts to be seen, no smoke arose from the forest, no field could be seen. Nothing but trees and bush, sand and rock.

"I am then upon an island alone, without food, without shelter, without weapons! What will become of me?" he cried. "I am a prisoner. The island is my prison, the waves are the guards which will not allow me to get away. Will no ship ever come to set me free?"

He stretched his gaze out to the sea till his eyes ached, but he saw no ship.

Robinson came down and seated himself on a stone and considered what he should do. It was not yet noon, yet he feared greatly the next night. "I must find me a better bed," was his first clear thought.

Robinson saw at a little distance what seemed to be a cleft or an opening in a huge rock. "If I could only get inside and find room to stay over night. The rock would protect me from rain, from the wind and wild animals better than a tree."

He long sought in vain for a place wide enough to allow him to get into the opening in the rock. He was about to give up, when he seized hold of a branch of a thorn tree growing on the side of the rock. He looked closer and saw that it grew out of the cleft in the rock. He saw, too, that at this point the opening was wider and that he had only to remove the tree in order to get in. "The hole shall be my dwelling," he said. "I must get the thorn tree out so that I can have room."

That was easily said. He had neither axe nor saw, nor knife nor spade. How could he do it? He had nothing but his hands. He tried to pull it out by the roots, but in vain. He wasn't strong enough.

"I must dig it out," said Robinson.

He scratched with his nails, but the earth was too hard. What should he do? He sought a stick with a fork in it and dug in the earth, but it was slow work. Then he found a clamshell. He did better with it, but it was hard work, and Robinson was not used to hard work. The sweat ran down his face and he had often to stop and rest in the shade. The sun burned so hot and the rock so reflected the heat that he was all but overcome. But he worked on. When evening came, he would sleep in the tree and next morning he would go at it again. On the third day the roots were all laid bare.

But the roots were fast in the clefts of the rock and he could not loosen it, try ever so hard. What would he not have given for an axe, or at least a knife. And yet he had never thought of their value when at home. He attempted to cut one root through with his clam-shell, but the shell crumbled and would not cut the hard wood.

He stood for a long time thinking, not knowing what next to do. He made up his mind that he must have something harder than the shell to cut with. Then he tried a stone with a sharp edge, but soon found he needed another one, however. He found one. Then he set the sharp one on the wood and struck it with the heavy one. In this way he slowly cut the roots in two.

On the fifth day there was yet left one big root, bigger than any of the others. Robinson got up early in the morning. He worked the whole day. Finally it gave a crack and it, too, was broken.

Robinson had only now to remove the loose earth inside the cleft. He found the opening could be made large and roomy. It was choked up with dirt. He dug out enough to allow him room enough to make a place to lie down. "In the future," he thought, "I will take out all the dirt and then I shall be comfortable."

It was then dark and the moon shone bright in the heavens. Robinson gathered a heap of dry grass and made himself a safe bed. But as he lay there he saw the moonbeams shining into his cave. He sprang up. "How easy," he thought, "for wild animals to creep in here upon me."

He crawled out and looked around. Not far from the cave he saw a large flat stone. With great trouble he rolled it to the opening of his cave, but before this the morning began to dawn. He went inside the shelter, seized the stone with both hands and rolled it into the opening till it almost closed it. "I have now a closed home. I can again stretch my legs. Wind and rain cannot get at me, nor wild animals."

Refreshed and with renewed strength, Robinson awoke late the next morning, but he had a bad headache. The day before the hot tropic sun had beat down on his bare head, as he worked at his cave. He was so busy that he forgot to go into the shade from time to time in order to shield himself from the scorching sunshine. He felt a new need.

"I must make me a hat," said Robinson to himself. "But how?" He had no straw, no thread and no needle. He looked around for a long time, but found nothing. The sun mounted even higher in the heavens, and shone hotter and hotter. He went to seek shelter at last in the deep shade of a nearby tall plant.

As he stood there he examined the plant more carefully. "Out of these leaves," he said, "I might make a hat." He climbed up the short stem of the plant and saw that it had not only leaves as long as himself, but between the leaves were big bunches of long, thin fruit, as thick as three fingers and similar in shape to a cucumber.

He plucked the leaves and fruit and was about to eat some of the fruit when he heard near him a light stir as of some animal. He rolled the leaves and fruit together and hastened back to the cave.

The bananas, for that is what the fruit proved to be, were sweet and refreshing. After he had eaten enough he set immediately about making his hat. He broke off a couple of reeds. He bent one into a hoop. But the hoop would not hold without thread. Sometimes it was too large and sometimes too small. But it must fit his head. He pulled up grass and bound its ends together, but the grass stalks were not strong enough. He hunted until he found a tree whose inner bark was soft and came out in long fibres. He bound his reed with this. This, too, made the hoop soft so that it did not hurt his head.