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

by Daniel Defoe

blood, and great pieces of flesh left here and there,half-eaten, mangled, and scorched; and, in short, all the tokens of thetriumphant feast they had been making there, after a victory over theirenemies. I saw three skulls, five hands, and the bones of three or fourlegs and feet, and abundance of other parts of the bodies; and Friday,by his signs, made me understand that they brought over four prisonersto feast upon; that three of them were eaten up, and that he, pointingto himself, was the fourth; that there had been a great battle betweenthem and their next king, whose subject, it seems, he had been one of,and that they had taken a great number of prisoners; all which werecarried to several places by those who had taken them in the fight, inorder to feast upon them, as was done here by these wretches upon thosethey brought hither.

  I caused Friday to gather all the skulls, bones, flesh, and whateverremained, and lay them together in a heap, and make a great fire uponit, and burn them all to ashes. I found Friday had still a hankeringstomach after some of the flesh, and was still a cannibal in his nature;but I discovered so much abhorrence at the very thoughts of it, and atthe least appearance of it, that he durst not discover it: for I had, bysome means, let him know, that I would kill him if he offered it.

  When he had done this, we came back to our castle; and there I fell towork for my man Friday: and, first of all, I gave him a pair of linendrawers, which I had out of the poor gunner's chest I mentioned, which Ifound in the wreck; and which, with a little alteration, fitted him verywell: and then I made him a jerkin of goat's-skin, as well as my skillwould allow (for I was now grown a tolerable good tailor;) and I gavehim a cap, which I made of hare's-skin, very convenient and fashionableenough: and thus he was clothed for the present, tolerably well, and wasmighty well pleased to see himself almost as well clothed as his master.It is true, he went awkwardly in these clothes at first; wearing thedrawers was very awkward to him; and the sleeves of the waistcoatgalled his shoulders, and the inside of his arms; but a little easingthem where he complained they hurt him, and using himself to them, hetook to them at length very well.

  The next day after I came home to my hutch with him, I began to considerwhere I should lodge him; and that I might do well for him, and yet beperfectly easy myself, I made a little tent for him in the vacant placebetween my two fortifications, in the inside of the last and in theoutside of the first. As there was a door or entrance there into mycave, I made a formal framed door case, and a door to it of boards, andset it up in the passage, a little within the entrance; and causing thedoor to open in the inside, I barred it up in the night, taking in myladders too; so that Friday could no way come at me in the inside of myinnermost wall, without making so much noise in getting over that itmust needs waken me; for my first wall had now a complete roof over itof long poles, covering all my tent, and leaning up to the side of thehill; which was again laid across with smaller sticks, instead of laths,and then thatched over a great thickness with the rice-straw, which wasstrong, like reeds; and at the hole or place which was left to go in orout by the ladder, I had placed a kind of trap-door, which, if it hadbeen attempted on the outside, would not have opened at all, but wouldhave fallen down, and make a great noise: as to weapons, I took them allinto my side every night. But I needed none of all this precaution; fornever man had a more faithful, loving, sincere servant, than Friday wasto me; without passions, sullenness, or designs, perfectly obliged andengaged; his very affections were tied to me, like those of a child to afather; and I dare say, he would have sacrificed his life for the savingmine, upon any occasion whatsoever: the many testimonies he gave me ofthis put it out of doubt, and soon convinced me that I needed to use noprecautions, as to my safety on his account.

  This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder, thathowever it had pleased God, in his providence, and in the government ofthe works of his hands, to take from so great a part of the world of hiscreatures the best uses to which their faculties and the powers of theirsouls are adapted, yet that he has bestowed upon them the same powers,the same reason, the same affections, the same sentiments of kindnessand obligation, the same passions and resentments of wrongs, the samesense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the capacities of doinggood, and receiving good, that he has given to us; and that when hepleases to offer them occasions of exerting these, they are as ready,nay, more ready, to apply them to the right uses for which they werebestowed, than we are. This made me very melancholy sometimes, inreflecting, as the several occasions presented, how mean a use we makeof all these, even though we have these powers enlightened by the greatlamp of instruction, the Spirit of God, and by the knowledge of his wordadded to our understanding; and why it has pleased God to hide the likesaving knowledge from so many millions of souls, who, if I might judgeby this poor savage, would make a much better use of it than we did.From hence, I sometimes was led too far, to invade the sovereignty ofProvidence, and as it were arraign the justice of so arbitrary adisposition of things, that should hide that light from some, and revealit to others, and yet expect a like duty from both; but I shut it up,and checked my thoughts with this conclusion: first, That we did notknow by what light and law these should be condemned; but that as Godwas necessarily, and, by the nature of his being, infinitely holy andjust, so it could not be, but if these creatures were all sentenced toabsence from himself, it was on account of sinning against that light,which, as the Scripture says, was a law to themselves, and by such rulesas their consciences would acknowledge to be just, though the foundationwas not discovered to us; and, secondly, That still, as we all are theclay in the hand of the potter, no vessel could say to him, "Why hastthou formed me thus?"

  But to return to my new companion:--I was greatly delighted with him,and made it my business to teach him every thing that was proper to makehim useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, andunderstand me when I spoke: and he was the aptest scholar that ever was;and particularly was so merry, so constantly diligent, and so pleasedwhen he could but understand me, or make me understand him, that it wasvery pleasant to me to talk to him. Now my life began to be so easy,that I began to say to myself, that could I but have been safe from moresavages, I cared not if I was never to remove from the place whereI lived.

  After I had been two or three days returned to my castle, I thoughtthat, in order to bring Friday off from his horrid way of feeding, andfrom the relish of a cannibal's stomach, I ought to let him taste otherflesh; so I took him out with me one morning to the woods. I went,indeed, intending to kill a kid out of my own flock, and bring it homeand dress it; but as I was going, I saw a she-goat lying down in theshade, and two young kids sitting by her. I catched hold ofFriday;--Hold, said I; stand still; and made signs to him not to stir:immediately I presented my piece, shot, and killed one of the kids. Thepoor creature, who had, at a distance, indeed, seen me kill the savage,his enemy, but did not know, nor could imagine, how it was done, wassensibly surprised, trembled and shook, and looked so amazed, that Ithought he would have sunk down. He did not see the kid I shot at, orperceive I had killed it, but ripped up his waistcoat, to feel whetherhe was not wounded; and, as I found presently, thought I was resolved tokill him: for he came and kneeled down to me, and embracing my knees,said a great many things I did not understand; but I could easily seethe meaning was, to pray me not to kill him.

  I soon found a way to convince him that I would do him no harm; andtaking him up by the hand, laughed at him, and pointing to the kid whichI had killed, beckoned to him to run and fetch it, which he did: andwhile he was wondering, and looking to see how the creature was killed,I loaded my gun again. By and by, I saw a great fowl, like a hawk,sitting upon a tree, within shot; so, to let Friday understand a littlewhat I would do, I called him to me again, pointed at the fowl, whichwas indeed a parrot, though I thought it had been a hawk; I say,pointing to the parrot, and to my gun, and to the ground under theparrot, to let him see I would make it fall, I made him understand thatI would shoot and kill that bird; accordingly, I fired, and bade himlook,
and immediately he saw the parrot fall. He stood like onefrightened again, notwithstanding all I had said to him; and I found hewas the more amazed, because he did not see me put any thing into thegun, but thought that there must be some wonderful fund of death anddestruction in that thing, able to kill man, beast, bird, or any thingnear or far off; and the astonishment this created in him was such, ascould not wear off for a long time; and I believe, if I would have lethim, he would have worshipped me and my gun. As for the gun itself, hewould not so much as touch it for several days after; but he would speakto it, and talk to it, as if it had answered him, when he was byhimself; which, as I afterwards learned of him, was to desire it not tokill him. Well, after his astonishment was a little over at this, Ipointed to him to run and fetch the bird I had shot, which he did, butstaid some time; for the parrot, not being quite dead, had flutteredaway a good distance from the place where she fell: