by Daniel Defoe
cap for my head, with the hairon the outside, to shoot off the rain; and this I performed so well,that after this I made me a suit of clothes wholly of the skins, that isto say, a waistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both loose; forthey were rather wanting to keep me cool than warm. I must not omit toacknowledge that they were wretchedly made; for if I was a badcarpenter, I was a worse tailor. However, they were such as I made verygood shift with; and when I was abroad, if it happened to rain, the hairof my waistcoat and cap being uppermost, I was kept very dry.
After this I spent a great deal of time and pains to make me anumbrella: I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind tomake one; I had seen them made in the Brazils, where they were veryuseful in the great heats which are there; and I felt the heats everyjot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the equinox: besides,as I was obliged to be much abroad, it was a most useful thing to me, aswell for the rains as the heats. I took a world of pains at it, and wasa great while before I could make any thing likely to hold; nay, after Ithought I had hit the way, I spoiled two or three before I made one tomy mind; but at last I made one that answered indifferently well; themain difficulty I found was to make it to let down: I could make itspread, but if it did not let down too, and draw in, it was not portablefor me any way but just over my head, which would not do. However, atlast, as I said, I made one to answer, and covered it with skins, thehair upwards, so that it cast off the rain like a pent-house, and keptoff the sun so effectually, that I could walk out in the hottest of theweather with greater advantage than I could before in the coolest; andwhen I had no need of it, could close it, and carry it under my arm.
Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed byresigning to the will of God, and throwing myself wholly upon thedisposal of his providence. This made my life better than sociable; forwhen I began to regret the want of conversation, I would ask myself,whether thus conversing mutually with my own thoughts, and, as I hope Imay say, with even God himself, by ejaculations, was not better than theutmost enjoyment of human society in the world?
I cannot say that after this, for five years, any extraordinary thinghappened to me, but I lived on in the same course, in the same postureand place, just as before; the chief things I was employed in, besidesmy yearly labour of planting my barley and rice, and curing my raisins,of both which I always kept up just enough to have sufficient stock ofone year's provision beforehand; I say, besides this yearly labour, andmy daily pursuit of going out with my gun, I had one labour, to make mea canoe, which at last I finished: so that by digging a canal to it ofsix feet wide, and four feet deep, I brought it into the creek, almosthalf a mile. As for the first, which was so vastly big, as I made itwithout considering beforehand, as I ought to do, how I should be ableto launch it, so, never being able to bring it into the water, or bringthe water to it, I was obliged to let it lie where it was, as amemorandum to teach me to be wiser the next time: indeed, the next time,though I could not get a tree proper for it, and was in a place where Icould not get the water to it at any less distance than, as I have said,near half a mile, yet as I saw it was practicable at last, I never gaveit over: and though I was near two years about it, yet I never grudgedmy labour, in hopes of having a boat to go off to sea at last.
However, though my little periagua was finished, yet the size of it wasnot at all answerable to the design which I had in view when I made thefirst; I mean, of venturing over to the _terra firma_, where it wasabove forty miles broad; accordingly, the smallness of my boat assistedto put an end to that design, and now I thought no more of it. As I hada boat, my next design was to make a cruise round the island; for as Ihad been on the other side in one place, crossing, as I have alreadydescribed it, over the land, so the discoveries I made in that littlejourney made me very eager to see other parts of the coast; and now Ihad a boat, I thought of nothing but sailing round the island.
For this purpose, that I might do every thing with discretion andconsideration, I fitted up a little mast in my boat, and made a sail toit out of some of the pieces of the ship's sails which lay in store, andof which I had a great stock by me. Having fitted my mast and sail, andtried the boat, I found she would sail very well: then I made littlelockers, or boxes, at each end of my boat, to put provisions,necessaries, ammunition, &c. into, to be kept dry, either from rain orthe spray of the sea; and a little long hollow place I cut in the insideof the boat, where I could lay my gun, making a flap to hang down overit, to keep it dry.
I fixed my umbrella also in a step at the stern, like a mast, to standover my head, and keep the heat of the sun off me, like an awning; andthus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but neverwent far out, nor far from the little creek. At last, being eager toview the circumference of my little kingdom, I resolved upon my cruise;and accordingly I victualled my ship for the voyage, putting in twodozen of loaves (cakes I should rather call them) of barley bread, anearthen pot full of parched rice (a food I ate a great deal of,) alittle bottle of rum, half a goat, and powder and shot for killing more,and two large watch-coats, of those which, as I mentioned before, I hadsaved out of the seamen's chests; these I took, one to lie upon, and theother to cover me in the night.
It was the 6th of November, in the sixth year of my reign, or mycaptivity, which you please, that I set out on this voyage, and I foundit much longer than I expected; for though the island itself was notvery large, yet when I came to the east side of it, I found a greatledge of rocks lie out about two leagues into the sea, some above water,some under it; and beyond that a shoal of sand, lying dry half a leaguemore, so that I was obliged to go a great way out to sea to doublethe point.
When first I discovered them, I was going to give over my enterprise,and come back again, not knowing how far it might oblige me to go out tosea, and, above all, doubting how I should get back again; so I came toan anchor; for I had made me a kind of an anchor with a piece of abroken grappling which I got out of the ship.
Having secured my boat, I took my gun and went on shore, climbing up ona hill, which seemed to overlook that point, where I saw the full extentof it, and resolved to venture.
In my viewing the sea from that hill where I stood, I perceived astrong, and indeed a most furious current, which ran to the east, andeven came close to the point; and I took the more notice of it, becauseI saw there might be some danger, that when I came into it, I might becarried out to sea by the strength of it, and not be able to make theisland again: and, indeed, had I not got first upon this hill, I believeit would have been so; for there was the same current on the other sidethe island, only that it set off at a farther distance, and I saw therewas a strong eddy under the shore; so I had nothing to do but to get outof the first current, and I should presently be in an eddy.
I lay here, however, two days, because the wind blowing pretty fresh atE.S.E. and that being just contrary to the said current, made a greatbreach of the sea upon the point; so that it was not safe for me to keeptoo close to the shore for the breach, nor to go too far off because ofthe stream.
The third day, in the morning, the wind having abated over-night, thesea was calm, and I ventured: but I am a warning piece again to allrash and ignorant pilots; for no sooner was I come to the point, when Iwas not even my boat's length from the shore, but I found myself in agreat depth of water, and a current like the sluice of a mill; itcarried my boat along with it with such violence, that all I could docould not keep her so much as on the edge of it; but I found it hurriedme farther and farther out from the eddy, which was on my left hand.There was no wind stirring to help me, and all I could do with mypaddles signified nothing: and now I began to give myself over for lost;for as the current was on both sides of the island, I knew in a fewleagues distance they must join again, and then I was irrecoverablygone; nor did I see any possibility of avoiding it; so that I had noprospect before me but of perishing, not by the sea, for that was calmenough, but of starving for hunger. I had indeed found a tortoise on theshore, as big almost as I co
uld lift, and had tossed it into the boat;and I had a great jar of fresh water, that is to say, one of my earthenpots; but what was all this to being driven into the vast ocean, where,to be sure, there was no shore, no main land or island, for a thousandleagues at least?
And now I saw how easy it was for the providence of God to make even themost miserable condition of mankind worse. Now I looked back upon mydesolate solitary island, as the most pleasant place in the world; andall the happiness my heart could wish for was to be but there again. Istretched out my hands to it, with eager wishes: "O happy desert!" saidI, "I shall never see thee more. O miserable creature! whither am Igoing!" Then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper, and how Ihad repined at my solitary condition; and now what would I give to be onshore there again! Thus we never see the true state of our conditiontill it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to valuewhat we enjoy, but by the want of it. It is scarce
