The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Volume 1

by Daniel Defoe

handsome,yet they were such as were very handy and convenient for my layingthings up in, or fetching things home. For example, if I killed a goatabroad, I could hang it up in a tree, flay it, dress it, and cut it inpieces, and bring it home in a basket; and the like by a turtle: I couldcut it up, take out the eggs, and a piece or two of the flesh, which wasenough for me, and bring them home in a basket, and leave the restbehind me. Also large deep baskets were the receivers of my corn, whichI always rubbed out as soon as it was dry, and cured, and kept it ingreat baskets.

  I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably; this was a wantwhich it was impossible for me to supply, and I began seriously toconsider what I must do when I should have no more powder; that is tosay, how I should do to kill any goats. I had, as is observed, in thethird year of my being here, kept a young kid, and bred her up tame, andI was in hopes of getting a he-goat: but I could not by any means bringit to pass, till my kid grew an old goat; and as I could never find inmy heart to kill her, she died at last of mere age.

  But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I have said,my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to trap andsnare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of them alive;and particularly, I wanted a she-goat great with young. For thispurpose, I made snares to hamper them; and I do believe they were morethan once taken in them; but my tackle was not good, for I had no wire,and I always found them broken, and my bait devoured. At length Iresolved to try a pitfall: so I dug several large pits in the earth, inplaces where I had observed the goats used to feed, and over those pitsI placed hurdles, of my own making too, with a great weight upon them;and several times I put ears of barley and dry rice, without setting thetrap; and I could easily perceive that the goats had gone in and eatenup the corn, for I could see the marks of their feet. At length I setthree traps in one night, and going the next morning, I found them allstanding, and yet the bait eaten and gone; this was very discouraging.However, I altered my traps; and, not to trouble you with particulars,going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of them a large oldhe-goat, and in one of the others three kids, a male and two females.

  As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him; he was so fierce, Idurst not go into the pit to him; that is to say, to go about to bringhim away alive, which was what I wanted: I could have killed him, butthat was not my business, nor would it answer my end; so I even let himout, and he ran away, as if he had been frightened out of his wits. ButI did not then know what I afterwards learnt, that hunger will tame alion. If I had let him stay there three or four days without food, andthen have carried him some water to drink, and then a little corn, hewould have been as tame as one of the kids; for they are mightysagacious, tractable creatures, where they are well used.

  However, for the present I let him go, knowing no better at that time:then I went to the three kids, and taking them one by one, I tied themwith strings together, and with some difficulty brought them all home.

  It was a good while before they would feed; but throwing them some sweetcorn, it tempted them, and they began to be tame. And now I found thatif I expected to supply myself with goat's flesh when I had no powder orshot left, breeding some up tame was my only way; when, perhaps, I mighthave them about my house like a flock of sheep. But then it occurred tome, that I must keep the tame from the wild, or else they would alwaysrun wild when they grew up: and the only way for this was, to have someenclosed piece of ground, well fenced, either with hedge or pale, tokeep them in so effectually, that those within might not break out, orthose without break in.

  This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands; yet as I saw therewas an absolute necessity for doing it, my first work was to find out aproper piece of ground, where there was likely to be herbage for themto eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep them from the sun.

  Those who understand such enclosures will think I had very littlecontrivance, when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these(being a plain open piece of meadow land, or savannah, as our peoplecall it in the western colonies,) which had two or three little drillsof fresh water in it, and at one end was very woody; I say, they willsmile at my forecast, when I shall tell them, I began my enclosing thispiece of ground in such a manner, that my hedge or pale must have beenat least two miles about. Nor was the madness of it so great as to thecompass, for if it was ten miles about, I was like to have time enoughto do it in; but I did not consider that my goats would be as wild in somuch compass as if they had had the whole island, and I should have somuch room to chase them in, that I should never catch them.

  My hedge was begun and carried on, I believe about fifty yards, whenthis thought occurred to me; so I presently stopped short, and, for thefirst beginning, I resolved to enclose a piece of about 150 yards inlength, and 100 yards in breadth; which, as it would maintain as many asI should have in any reasonable time, so, as my stock increased, I couldadd more ground to my enclosure.

  This was acting with some prudence, and I went to work with courage. Iwas about three months hedging in the first piece; and, till I had doneit, I tethered the three kids in the best part of it, and used them tofeed as near me as possible, to make them familiar; and very often Iwould go and carry them some ears of barley, or a handful of rice, andfeed them out of my hand: so that after my enclosure was finished, and Ilet them loose, they would follow me up and down, bleating after me fora handful of corn.

  This answered my end; and in about a year and a half I had a flock ofabout twelve goats, kids and all; and in two years more, I had three andforty, besides several that I took and killed for my food. After that Ienclosed five several pieces of ground to feed them in, with little pensto drive them into, to take them as I wanted, and gates out of one pieceof ground into another.

  But this was not all; for now I not only had goat's flesh to feed onwhen I pleased, but milk too; a thing which, indeed, in the beginning, Idid not so much as think of, and which, when it came into my thoughts,was really an agreeable surprise: for now I set up my dairy, and hadsometimes a gallon or two of milk in a day. And as nature, who givessupplies of food to every creature, dictates even naturally how to makeuse of it, so I, that had never milked a cow, much less a goat, or seenbutter or cheese made, only when I was a boy, after a great many essaysand miscarriages, made me both butter and cheese at last, and also salt(though I found it partly made to my hand by the heat of the sun uponsome of the rocks of the sea,) and never wanted it afterwards. Howmercifully can our Creator treat his creatures, even in those conditionsin which they seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction! How can hesweeten the bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise him fordungeons and prisons! What a table was here spread for me in awilderness, where I saw nothing, at first, but to perish for hunger!

  It would have made a stoic smile, to have seen me and my little familysit down to dinner: there was my majesty, the prince and lord of thewhole island; I had the lives of all my subjects at my absolute command;I could hang, draw, give liberty, and take it away; and no rebels amongall my subjects. Then to see how like a king I dined too, all alone,attended by my servants! Pol, as if he had been my favourite, was theonly person permitted to talk to me. My dog, who was now grown very oldand crazy, and had found no species to multiply his kind upon, satalways at my right hand; and two cats, one on one side of the table, andone on the other, expecting now and then a bit from my hand, as a markof special favour.

  But these were not the two cats which I brought on shore at first, forthey were both of them dead, and had been interred near my habitation bymy own hand; but one of them having multiplied by I know not what kindof creature, these were two which I had preserved tame; whereas the restrun wild in the woods, and became indeed troublesome to me at last; forthey would often come into my house, and plunder me too, till at last Iwas obliged to shoot them, and did kill a great many; at length theyleft me.--With this attendance, and in this plentiful manner, I lived;neither could I be said to want any thing but society: and of that, somet
ime after this, I was like to have too much.

  I was something impatient, as I have observed, to have the use of myboat, though very loth to run any more hazards; and therefore sometimesI sat contriving ways to get her about the island, and at other times Isat myself down contented enough without her. But I had a strangeuneasiness in my mind to go down to the point of the island, where, as Ihave said, in my last ramble, I went up the hill to see how the shorelay, and how the current set, that I might see what I had to do: thisinclination increased upon me every day, and at length I resolved totravel thither by land, following the edge of the shore. I did so; buthad any one in England been to meet such a man as I was, it must eitherhave frightened him, or raised a great deal of laughter: and as Ifrequently stood still to look at myself, I could not but smile at thenotion of my travelling through Yorkshire, with such an equipage, and insuch a dress. Be pleased to take a sketch of my figure, as follows:

  I had a great high shapeless