The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

to know the meaning of them. I gave him some milk in anearthen pot, and let him see me drink it before him, and sop my bread init; and I gave him a cake of bread to do the like, which he quicklycomplied with, and made signs that it was very good for him.

  I kept there with him all that night; but as soon as it was day, Ibeckoned him to come with me, and let him know I would give him someclothes; at which he seemed very glad, for he was stark-naked. As wewent by the place where he had buried the two men, he pointed exactly tothe spot, and shewed me the marks that he had made to find them again,making signs to me that we should dig them up again, and eat them: atthis I appeared very angry, expressed my abhorrence of it, made as if Iwould vomit at the thoughts of it, and beckoned with my hand to him tocome away, which he did immediately, with great submission. I then ledhim up to the top of the hill, to see if his enemies were gone, andpulling out my glass, I looked, and saw plainly the place where they hadbeen, but no appearance of them, or of their canoes; so that it wasplain that they were gone, and had left their two comrades behind them,without, any search after them.

  But I was not content with this discovery; but having now more courage,and consequently more curiosity, I took my man Friday with me, givinghim the sword in his hand, with the bow and arrows at his back, which Ifound he could use very dexterously, making him carry one gun for me,and I two for myself, and away we marched to the place where thesecreatures had been; for I had a mind now to get some furtherintelligence of them. When I came to the place, my very blood ran chillin my veins, and my heart sunk within me at the horror of the spectacle:indeed it was a dreadful sight, at least it was so to me, though Fridaymade nothing of it: the place was covered with human bones, the grounddyed with the blood, 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 subjects, 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 that had taken them in the flight, 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 on an 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 we 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, andwhich I found in the wreck; and which, with a little alteration, fittedhim very well; then I made him a jerkin of goat's skin as well as myskill would allow, and I was now grown a tolerable good tailor; and Igave him a cap, which I had made of a hare-skin, very convenient, andfashionable enough: and thus he was dressed, for the present, tolerablywell, and mighty well was he pleased to see himself almost as wellclothed as his master. It is true, he went awkwardly in these things atfirst; wearing the drawers was very awkward to him, and the sleeves ofthe waistcoat galled his shoulders and the inside of his arms; but alittle easing them, where he complained they hurt him, and using himselfto them, at length he took to them very well.

  The next day after I came home to my hutch with him, I began toconsider where I should lodge him; and that I might do well for him, andyet be perfectly easy myself, I made a little tent for him in the vacantplace between my two fortifications, in the inside of the last, and inthe outside of the first: and as there was a door or entrance there intomy cave, I made a formal framed door-case, and a door to it of boards,and set it up in the passage, a little within the entrance: and causingthe door to open on the inside, I barred it up in the night, taking inmy ladders too; so that Friday could no way come at me in the inside ofmy innermost wall, without making so much noise in getting over, that itmust needs awaken 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 cross with small sticks instead of laths, andthen 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 trapdoor, which if it had beenattempted on the outside, would not have opened at all, but would havefallen down, and made a great noise; and as to weapons, I took them allin to my side every night.

  But I needed none of all this precaution; for never man had a morefaithful, loving, sincere servant than Friday was to me; withoutpassions, sullenness, or designs; perfectly obliging and engaging; hisvery affections were tied to me, like those of a child to a father; andI dare say, he would have sacrificed his life for the saving mine, uponany occasion whatsoever: the many testimonies he gave me of this put itout of doubt; and soon convinced me, that I needed to use no precautionsas to my safety on his account.

  This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder, that,however 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 oftheir souls, are adapted; yet that he has bestowed upon them the samepowers, the same reason, the same affections, the same sentiments ofkindness and obligation, the same passions and resentments of wrongs,the same sense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the capacitiesof doing good, and receiving good, that he has given to us; and thatwhen he pleases to offer them occasions of exerting these, they are asready, nay more ready, to apply them to the right uses for which theywere bestowed, than we are. And this made me very melancholy sometimes,in reflecting, as the several occasions presented, how mean a use wemake of all these, even though we have these powers enlightened by thegreat lamp of instruction, the Spirit of God, and by the knowledge ofhis word, added to our understanding; and why it has pleased God to hidethe life saving knowledge from so many millions of souls, who, if Imight judge by this poor savage, would make a much better use of itthan 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 do not knowby what light and law these should be condemned; but that as God wasnecessarily, and by the nature of his being, infinitely holy and just,so it could not be, but that 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 are all clayin the hand of the potter, no vessel could say to him, "Why hast thouformed me thus?"

  But to return to my new companion: I was greatly delighted with him, andmade 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 spake: 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. And 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 whileI lived.

  After
I had been two or three days returned to my castle, I thought,that, 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 of Friday:"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 savagehis enemy, but did not know, or 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 had shot at,or perceive I had killed it, but ripped up his waistcoat to feel if hewas not wounded; and, as I found, presently thought I was