by Daniel Defoe
gallons, which I got into my boat with much difficulty. Therewere several muskets in a cabin, and a great powder-horn, with aboutfour pounds of powder in it: as for the muskets, I had no occasion forthem, so I left them, but took the powder-horn. I took a fire-shovel andtongs, which I wanted extremely; as also two little brass kettles, acopper pot to make chocolate, and a gridiron; and with this cargo, andthe dog, I came away, the tide beginning to make home again; and thesame evening, about an hour within night, I reached the island again,weary and fatigued to the last degree.
I reposed that night in the boat, and in the morning I resolved toharbour what I had gotten in my new cave, not to carry it home to mycastle. After refreshing myself, I got all my cargo on shore, and beganto examine the particulars: the cask of liquor I found to be a kind ofrum, but not such as we had at the Brasils; and, in a word, not at allgood; but when I came to open the chests, I found several things which Iwanted: for example, I found in one a fine case of bottles, of anextraordinary kind, and filled with cordial waters, fine, and very good;the bottles held about three pints each, and were tipped with silver: Ifound two pots of very good succades, or sweetmeats, so fastened also onthe top, that the salt water had not hurt them; and two more of thesame, which the water had spoiled: I found some very good shirts, whichwere very welcome to me, and about a dozen and a half of white linenhandkerchiefs and coloured neckcloths; the former were also verywelcome, being exceeding refreshing to wipe my face in a hot day.Besides this, when I came to the till in the chests, I found there threegreat bags of pieces of eight, which held about eleven hundred pieces inall; and in one of them, wrapt up in a paper, six doubloons of gold, andsome small bars or wedges of gold; I suppose they might all weigh neara pound.
The other chest I found had some clothes in it, but of little value; butby the circumstances, it must have belonged to the gunner's mate, asthere was no powder in it, but about two pounds of glazed powder in thethree flasks, kept, I suppose, for charging their fowling-pieces onoccasion. Upon the whole, I got very little by this voyage that was ofmuch use to me; for, as to the money, I had no manner of occasion forit; it was to me as the dirt under my feet; and I would have given itall for three or four pair of English shoes and stockings, which werethings I greatly wanted, but had not had on my feet now for many years:I had, indeed, got two pair of shoes now, which I took off the feet ofthe two drowned men whom I saw in the wreck; and I found two pair morein one of the chests, which were very welcome to me; but they were notlike our English shoes, either for case or service, being rather what wecall pumps than shoes. I found in the seaman's chest about fifty piecesof eight in royals, but no gold: I suppose this belonged to a poorer manthan the other, which seemed to belong to some officer.
Well, however, I lugged the money home to my cave, and laid it up, as Ihad done that before, which I brought from our own ship; but it wasgreat pity, as I said, that the other part of the ship had not come tomy share, for I am satisfied I might have loaded my canoe several timesover with money, which, if I had ever escaped to England, would havelain here safe enough till I might have come again and fetched it.
Having now brought all my things on shore, and secured them, I went backto my boat, and rowed or paddled her along the shore to her oldharbour, where I laid her up, and made the best of my way to my oldhabitation, where I found every thing safe and quiet; so I began torepose myself, live after my old fashion, and take care of my familyaffairs; and for awhile I lived easy enough; only that I was morevigilant than I used to be, looked out oftener, and did not go abroad somuch; and if at any time I did stir with any freedom, it was always tothe east part of the island, where I was pretty well satisfied thesavages never came, and where I could go without so many precautions,and such a load of arms and ammunition as I always carried with me, if Iwent the other way.
I lived in this condition near two years more; but my unlucky head, thatwas always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable, was allthese two years filled with projects and designs, how, if it werepossible, I might get away from this island; for sometimes I was formaking another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me, that therewas nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage; sometimes for aramble one way, sometimes another; and I believe verity, if I had hadthe boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea,bound any where, I knew not whither.
I have been, in all my circumstances, a memento to those who are touchedwith that general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know, one halfof their miseries flow; I mean, that of not being satisfied with thestation wherein God and nature hath placed them; for, not to look backupon my primitive condition, and the excellent advice of my father, theopposition to which was, as I may call it, my original sin, mysubsequent mistakes of the same kind have been the means of my cominginto this miserable condition; for had that Providence, which so happilyhad seated me at the Brasils as a planter, blessed me with confineddesires, and could I have been contented to have gone on gradually, Imight have been by this time, I mean in the time of my being on thisisland, one of the most considerable planters in the Brasils; nay, I ampersuaded, that by the improvements I had made in that little time Ilived there, and the increase I should probably have made if I hadstayed, I might have been worth a hundred thousand moidores; and whatbusiness had I to leave a settled fortune, well-stocked plantation,improving and increasing, to turn supercargo to Guinea, to fetchNegroes, when patience and time would have so increased our stock athome, that we could have bought them at our own doors, from those whosebusiness it was to fetch them? And though it had cost us something more,yet the difference of that price was by no means worth saving at sogreat a hazard.
But as this is ordinarily the fate of young heads, so reflection uponthe folly of it is as ordinarily the exercise of more years, or of thedear-bought experience of time; and so it was with me now; and yet, sodeep had the mistake taken root in my temper, that I could not satisfymyself in my station, but was continually poring upon the means andpossibility of my escape from this place; and that I may, with thegreater pleasure to the reader, bring on the remaining part of my story,it may not be improper to give some account of my first conceptions onthe subject of this foolish scheme for my escape; and how, and upon whatfoundation, I acted.
I am now to be supposed to be retired into my castle, after my latevoyage to the wreck, my frigate laid up, and secured under water asusual, and my condition restored to what it was before: I had morewealth, indeed, than I had before, but was not at all the richer; for Ihad no more use for it than the Indians of Peru had before the Spaniardscame thither.
It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, thefour-and-twentieth year of my first setting foot in this island ofsolitariness, I was lying in my bed or hammock, awake, and very well inhealth, had no pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body, no, nor anyuneasiness of mind more than ordinary, but could by no means close myeyes, that is, so as to sleep; no, not a wink all night long, otherwisethan as follows:
It is as impossible as needless to set down the innumerable crowd ofthoughts that whirled through that great thoroughfare of the brain, thememory, in this night's time: I ran over the whole history of my life inminiature, or by abridgment, as I may call it, to my coming to thisisland; and also of that part of my life since I came to this island; inmy reflections upon the state of my case, since I came on shore on thisisland; I was comparing the happy posture of my affairs, in the firstyears of my habitation here, to that course of anxiety, fear, and care,which I had lived in ever since I had seen the print of a foot in thesand; not that I did not believe the savages had frequented the islandeven all the while, and might have been several hundreds of them attimes on the shore there; but as I had never known it, and was incapableof any apprehensions about it, my satisfaction was perfect, though mydanger was the same; and I was as happy in not knowing my danger, as ifI had never really been exposed to it; this furnished my thoughts withmany very profitable reflections, and particularly this one: Howinfinitely good tha
t Providence is, which has settled in its governmentof mankind such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; andthough he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight ofwhich, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink hisspirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hidfrom his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him.
After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to reflectseriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years in thisvery island; and how I had walked about in the greatest security, andwith all possible tranquillity, even perhaps when nothing but a brow ona hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night, had been betweenme and the worst kind of destruction, viz. that of falling into thehands of cannibals, and savages, who would have seized on me with thesame view, as I did of a goat, or a turtle; and have thought it no morea crime to kill and devour me, than I did of a pigeon, or a curlieu:
