by Daniel Defoe
show the reason why so much of mytime went away with so little work, viz. that what might be a little tobe done with help and tools, was a vast labour, and required aprodigious time to do alone, and by hand. Notwithstanding this, withpatience and labour I went through many things; and, indeed, every thingthat my circumstances made necessary for me to do, as will appear bywhat follows.
I was now in the months of November and December, expecting my crop ofbarley and rice. The ground I had manured or dug up for them was notgreat; for, as I observed, my seed of each was not above the quantity ofhalf a peck, having lost one whole crop by sowing in the dry season: butnow my crop promised very well; when, on a sudden, I found I was indanger of losing it all again by enemies of several sorts, which it wasscarce possible to keep from it; as, first, the goats, and wildcreatures which I called hares, who, tasting the sweetness of the blade,lay in it night and day, as soon as it came up, and ate it so close,that it could get no time to shoot up into stalk.
I saw no remedy for this, but by making an enclosure about it with ahedge, which I did with a great deal of toil; and the more, because itrequired speed. However, as my arable land was but small, suited to mycrop, I got it tolerably well fenced in about three weeks' time; andshooting some of the creatures in the day-time, I set my dog to guard itin the night, tying him up to a stake at the gate, where he would standand bark all night long; so in a little time the enemies forsook theplace, and the corn grew very strong and well, and began to ripen apace.
But as the beasts ruined me before, while my corn was in the blade, sothe birds were as likely to ruin me now, when it was in the ear: forgoing along by the place to see how it throve, I saw my little cropsurrounded with fowls, I know not of how many sorts, who stood, as itwere, watching till I should be gone. I immediately let fly among them(for I always had my gun with me;) I had no sooner shot, but there roseup a little cloud of fowls, which I had not seen at all, from among thecorn itself.
This touched me sensibly, for I foresaw that in a few days they woulddevour all my hopes; that I should be starved, and never be able toraise a crop at all; and what to do I could not tell: however, Iresolved not to lose my corn, if possible, though I should watch itnight and day. In the first place, I went among it, to see what damagewas already done, and found they had spoiled a good deal of it; but thatas it was yet too green for them, the loss was not so great, but thatthe remainder was likely to be a good crop, if it could be saved.
I staid by it to load my gun, and then coming away, I could easily seethe thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they only waitedtill I was gone away; and the event proved it to be so; for as I walkedoff, as if gone, I was no sooner out of their sight, than they droptdown, one by one, into the corn again. I was so provoked, that I couldnot have patience to stay till more came on, knowing that every grainthey eat now was, as it might be said, a peck-loaf to me in theconsequence; so coming up to the hedge, I fired again, and killed threeof them. This was what I wished for; so I took them up, and served themas we serve notorious thieves in England, viz. hanged them in chains,for a terror to others. It is impossible to imagine that this shouldhave such an effect as it had; for the fowls not only never came to thecorn, but, in short, they forsook all that part of the island, and Icould never see a bird near the place as long as my scare-crows hungthere. This I was very glad of, you may be sure; and about the latterend of December, which was our second harvest of the year, I reapedmy corn.
I was sadly put to it for a scythe or sickle to cut it down: and all Icould do was to make one as well as I could, out of one of the broadswords, or cutlasses, which I saved among the arms out of the ship.However, as my first crop was but small, I had no great difficulty tocut it down: in short, I reaped it my way, for I cut nothing off but theears, and carried it away in a great basket which I had made, and sorubbed it out with my hands; and at the end of all my harvesting, Ifound that out of my half peck of seed I had near two bushels of rice,and above two bushels and a half of barley; that is to say, by my guess,for I had no measure.
However, this was great encouragement to me; and I foresaw that, intime, it would please God to supply me with bread; and yet here I wasperplexed again; for I neither knew how to grind, or make meal of mycorn, or indeed how to clean it and part it; nor if made into meal, howto make bread of it; and if how to make it, yet I knew not how to bakeit: these things being added to my desire of having a good quantity forstore, and to secure a constant supply, I resolved not to taste any ofthis crop, but to preserve it all for seed against the next season; and,in the mean tune, to employ all my study and hours of working toaccomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread.
It might be truly said, that now I worked for my bread. It is a littlewonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon, viz.the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing,producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one articleof bread.
I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to my dailydiscouragement, and was made more sensible of it every hour, even afterI had got the first handful of seed-corn which, as I have said, came upunexpectedly, and indeed to a surprise.
First, I had no plough to turn up the earth; no spade or shovel to digit: well, this I conquered by making a wooden spade, as I observedbefore; but this did my work but in a wooden manner; and though it costme a great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not only woreout the sooner, but made my work the harder, and performed it muchworse. However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out withpatience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When the cornwas sown, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, and draga great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch it, as it may becalled, rather than rake or harrow it. When it was growing and grown, Ihave observed already how many things I wanted to fence it, secure it,mow or reap it, cure and carry it home, thrash, part it from the chaff,and save it: then I wanted a mill to grind it, sieves to dress it, yeastand salt to make it into bread, and an oven to bake it; and yet allthese things I did without, as shall be observed; and the corn was aninestimable comfort and advantage to me: all this, as I said, made everything laborious and tedious to me, but that there was no help for;neither was my time so much loss to me, because, as I had divided it, acertain part of it, was every day appointed to these works; and as Iresolved to use none of the corn for bread till I had a greater quantityby me, I had the next six months to apply myself wholly, by labour andinvention, to furnish myself with utensils proper for the performing allthe operations necessary for making corn fit for my use.
But now I was to prepare more land; for I had seed enough to sow abovean acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week's work at least tomake me a spade; which, when it was done, was but a sorry one indeed,and very heavy, and required double labour to work with it: however, Iwent through that, and sowed my seed in two large flat pieces of ground,as near my house as I could find them to my mind, and fenced them inwith a good hedge; the stakes of which were all cut off that wood whichI had set before, and knew it would grow; so that, in one year's time, Iknew I should have a quick or living hedge, that would want but littlerepair. This work took me up full three months; because a great part ofthe time was in the wet season, when I could not go abroad. Withindoors, that is, when it rained, and I could not go out, I foundemployment on the following occasions; always observing, that while Iwas at work, I diverted myself with talking to my parrot, and teachinghim to speak; and I quickly learned him to know his own name, and atlast to speak it out pretty loud, Pol; which was the first word I everheard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own. This, therefore, wasnot my work, but an assistant to my work; for now, as I said, I had agreat employment upon my hands, as follows: I had long studied, by somemeans or other, to make myself some earthen vessels, which indeed Iwanted much, but knew not where to come at them: however, consideringthe heat of the climate, I did not doubt but if I could find out anyclay, I might botch up some such
pot as might, being dried in the sun,be hard and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold any thing thatwas dry, and required to be kept so; and as this was necessary in thepreparing corn, meal, &c. which was the thing I was upon, I resolved tomake some as large as I could, and fit only to stand like jars, to holdwhat should be put into them.
It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell howmany awkward ways I took to raise this pastil; what odd, misshapen, uglythings I made; how many of them fell in, and how many fell out, the claynot being stiff enough to bear its own weight; how many cracked by theover violent heat of the sun, being set out too hastily; and how manyfell in pieces with only removing, as well before as after they weredried: and, in a word, how, after having laboured hard to find theclay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I couldnot make above two large earthen ugly things (I cannot call them jars)in about two months' labour.
However, as the sun
