The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

considering how fewtools I had.

  Besides this, I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my earthen ware,and contrived well enough to make them with a wheel, which I foundinfinitely easier and better; because I made things round and shapeable,which before were filthy things indeed to look on. But I think I wasnever more vain of my own performance, or more joyful for any thing Ifound out, than for my being able to make a tobacco-pipe. And tho it wasa very ugly clumsy thing, when it was done, and only burnt red likeother earthen ware, yet as it was hard and firm, and would draw thesmoke, I was exceedingly comforted with it, for I had been always usedto smoke, and there were pipes in the ship, but I forgot them at first,not knowing that there was tobacco in the island; and afterwards, when Isearched the ship again, I could not come at any pipes at all.

  In my wicker ware also I improved much, and made abundance of necessarybaskets, as well as my invention shewed me, tho not very handsome, yetthey were such as were very handy and convenient for my laying things upin, or fetching things home in. For example, if I killed a goat abroad,I could hang it up in a tree, flea it, and 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 my receivers for 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, and this was awant which 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 goat. I had, as is observed in thethird year of my being here, kept a young kid, and bred her up tame, andI was in hope of getting a he-goat, but I could not by any means bringit to pass, 'till my kid grew an old goat; and I could never find in myheart to kill her, till she dyed at last of mere age.

  But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I havesaid, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to trapand snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of themalive; and particularly I wanted a she-goat great with young.

  To this purpose I made snares to hamper them; and believe they were morethan once taken in them; but my tackle was not good, for I had no wire,and always found them broken, and my bait devoured.

  At length I resolved to try a pitfall; so I dug several large pits inthe earth, in places where I had observed the goats used to feed, andover these pits I placed hurdles of my own making too, with a greatweight upon them; and several times I put ears of barley, and dry rice,without setting the trap; and I could easily perceive, that the goatshad gone in, and eaten up the corn, that I could see the mark of theirfeet: at length, I set three traps in one night, and going the nextmorning, I found them all standing, and yet the bait eaten and gone.This was very discouraging; however, I altered my trap; and, not totrouble you with particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I foundin one of them a large old he-goat; and, in one of the other, threekids, 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 e'en let himout, and he ran away as if he had been frightened out of his wits; but Idid not then know what I afterwards learnt, that hunger would 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 powderor shot left, breeding some up tame was my only way, when perhaps Imight have them about my house like a flock of sheep.

  But then it presently occurred to me, that I must keep the tame from thewild, or else they would always run wild when they grew up; and the onlyway for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground, well fencedeither with hedge or pale, to keep them up so effectually, that thosewithin might not break out, or those without break in.

  This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands; yet as I saw therewas an absolute necessity of doing it, my first piece of work was tofind out a proper piece of ground; viz. where there was likely to beherbage for them to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep themfrom 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 savanna (as our people callit in the western colonies) which had two or three little drills offresh water in it, and at one end was very woody; I say they will smileat my forecast, when I shall tell them I began my enclosing of 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 inso much compass, as if they had had the whole island; and I should haveso much 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 one hundred andfifty yards in length, and one hundred yards in breadth, which as itwould maintain as many as I should have in any reasonable time, so, asmy flock increased, I could add 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 hadthree-and-forty, besides several that I took and killed for my food; andafter that I enclosed five several pieces of ground to feed them in,with little pens to drive them into, to take them as I wanted them; andgates out of one piece of 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 my beginning I didnot so much as think of, and which, when it came into my thoughts, wasreally 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 never milked a cow, much less a goat, or sawbutter or cheese made, very readily and handily, though after a greatmany essays and miscarriages, made me both butter and cheese at last,and never wanted it afterwards.

  How mercifully can our great Creator treat his creatures, even in thoseconditions in which they seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction! Howcan he sweeten the bitterest providences, and give us cause to praisehim for dungeons 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 absolute command; Icould hang, draw, give life and liberty, and take it away, and no rebelsamong all my subjects.

&nbs
p; Then to see how like a king I dined too, all alone, attended by myservants! Pol, as if he had been my favourite, as the only personpermitted to talk to me; my dog, which was now grown very old and crazy,and found no species to multiply his kind upon, sat always at my righthand; and two cats, one on one side the table, and one on the other,expecting now and then a bit from my hand, as a mark of 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 hands; but one of them having multiplied by I know not what kindof creature, these were two which I preserved tame, whereas the rest ranwild into 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, insome time after this, I was like