by Daniel Defoe
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 seethat his 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, and by and by I saw a great fowl, like a hawk,sit upon a tree within shot; so, to let Friday understand a little whatI would do, I called him to me again, pointing at the fowl, which wasindeed a parrot, though I thought it had been a hawk: I say, pointing tothe parrot, and to my gun, and to the ground under the parrot, to lethim see I would make him fall, I made him understand that I would shootand kill that bird; accordingly I fired, and bid him look, andimmediately he saw the parrot fall; he stood like one frighted again,notwithstanding all that I had said to him; and I found he was the moreamazed, because he did not see me put any thing into the gun; butthought there must be some wonderful fund of death and destruction inthat thing, able to kill man, beast, bird, or any thing near or far off;for the astonishment this created in him was such, as could not wear offfor a long time; and I believe, if I would have let him, he would haveworshipped me and my gun; as for the gun itself, he would not so much astouch it for several days over; but would speak to it, and talk to it,as if it had answered him, when he was by himself; which, as Iafterwards learnt of him, was to desire it not to kill him.
Well; after his astonishment was a little over at this, I pointed to himto run and fetch the bird I had shot, which he did, but staid some time;for the parrot, not being quite dead, had fluttered a good way off fromthe place where she fell; however, he found her, took her up, andbrought her to me; and, as I had perceived his ignorance about the gunbefore, I took this advantage to charge the gun again, and not let himsee me do it, that I might be ready for any other mark that mightpresent; but nothing more offered at that time; so I brought home thekid; and the same evening I took the skin off, and cut it out as well asI could, and having a pot for that purpose, I boiled or stewed some ofthe flesh, and made some very good broth; after I had begun to eat some,I gave some to my man, who seemed very glad of it, and liked it verywell; but that which was strangest to him, was, to see me eat salt withit. He made a sign to me that the salt was not good to eat; and puttinga little into his own month, he seemed to nauseate it, and would spitand sputter at it, washing his mouth with fresh water after it. On theother hand, I took some meat in my mouth without salt, and I pretendedto spit and sputter for want of salt, as fast as he had done at thesalt; but it would not do, he would never care for salt with meat, or inhis broth; at least, not a great while, and then but a very little.
Having thus fed him with boiled meat and broth, I was resolved to feasthim the next day with roasting a piece of the kid: this I did by hangingit before the fire in a string, as I had seen many people do in England,setting two poles up, one on each side the fire, and one cross on thetop, and tying the string to the cross stick, letting the meat turncontinually: this Friday admired very much; but when he came to tastethe flesh, he took so many ways to tell me how well he liked it, that Icould not but understand him; and at last he told me he would never eatman's flesh any more, which I was very glad to hear.
The next day I set him to work to beating some corn out, and sifting itin the manner I used to do, as I observed before; and he soon understoodhow to do it as well as I, especially after he had seen what the meaningof it was, and that it was to make bread of; for after that I let himsee me make my bread, and bake it too; and in a little time Friday wasable to do all the work for me, as well as I could do it myself.
I began now to consider, that, having two mouths to feed instead of one,I must provide more ground for my harvest, and plant a larger quantityof corn, than I used to do; so I marked out a larger piece of land, andbegan the fence in the same manner as before, in which Friday not onlyworked very willingly and very hard, but did it very cheerfully; and Itold him what it was for, that it was for corn to make more bread,because he was now with me, and that I might have enough for him andmyself too: he appeared very sensible of that part, and let me know,that he thought I had much more labour upon me on his account, than Ihad for myself, and that he would work the harder for me, if I wouldtell him what to do.
This was the pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place.Friday began to talk pretty well, and understand the names of almostevery thing I had occasion to call for, and of every place I had to sendhim to, and talk a great deal to me; so that, in short, I began now tohave some use for my tongue again, which indeed I had very littleoccasion for before; that is to say, about speech. Besides the pleasureof talking to him, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself;his simple unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day, andI began really to love the creature; and on his side, I believe, heloved me more than it was possible for him ever to love anything before.
I had a mind once to try if he had any hankering inclination to his owncountry again; and having learnt him English so well, that he couldanswer me almost any questions, I asked him, whether the nation that hebelonged to never conquered in battle? At which he smiled, and said,"Yes, yes, we always fight the better;" that is, he meant, always getthe better in fight; and so we began the following discourse. "Youalways fight the better!" said I: "how came you to be taken prisonerthen, Friday?"
_Friday._ My nation beat much for all that.
_Master_. How beat? if your nation beat them, how came you to be taken?
_Friday_. They more than my nation in the place where me was; they takeone, two, three, and me: my nation over-beat them in the yonder place,where me no was; there my nation take one two great thousand.
_Master_. But why did not your side recover you from the hands of yourenemies then?
_Friday_. They run one, two, three, and me, and make go in the canoe; mynation have no canoe that time.
_Master_. Well, Friday, and what does your nation do with the men theytake? Do they carry them away, and eat them as these did?
_Friday._ Yes, my nation eat mans too, eat all up.
_Master_. Where do they carry them?
_Friday_. Go to other place where they think.
_Master_. Do they come hither?
_Friday_. Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.
_Master_. Have you been here with them?
_Friday_. Yes, I been here [points to the N.W. side of the island,which, it seems, was their side.]
By this I understood, that my man Friday had formerly been among thesavages, who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island, onthe said man eating occasions that he was now brought for; and some timeafter, when I took the courage to carry him to that side, being the sameI formerly mentioned, he presently knew the place, and told me, he wasthere once when they ate up twenty men, two women, and one child: hecould not tell twenty in English, but he numbered them by laying so manystones in a row, and pointing to me to tell them over.
I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows; that afterI had had this discourse with him, I asked him, how far it was from ourisland to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost? He toldme there was no danger, no canoes ever lost; but that after a little wayout to sea, there was a current, and a wind always one way in themorning, the other in the afternoon.
This I understand to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out,or coming in; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the greatdraught and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoque; in the mouth of whichriver, as I thought afterwards, our island lay; and that this land,which I perceived to the W. and N.W. was the great island Trinidad, onthe north point of the mouth of the river. I asked Friday a thousandquestions about the country, the inhabitants, the sea, the coast, andwhat nations were near: he told me all he knew with the greatestopenness imaginable. I asked h
im the names of the several nations of hissort of people, but could get no other name than Caribs; from whence Ieasily understood, that these were the Caribees, which our maps place onthat part of America which reaches from the mouth of the river Oroonoqueto Guinea, and onwards to St. Martha. He told me, that up a great waybeyond the moon, that was, beyond the setting of the moon, which must beW. from their country, there dwelt white-bearded men, like me, andpointed to my great whiskers, which I mentioned before; and that theyhad killed much mans, that was his word: by which I understood he meantthe Spaniards, whose cruelties in America had been spread over the wholecountries, and were remembered by all the nations from father to son.
I inquired if he could tell me how I might come from this island, andget among those white men; he told me, Yes, yes, I might go in twocanoe; I could not understand what he meant by two canoe; till at last,with great difficulty, I found he meant, that it must be in a largegreat boat as big as two canoes.
This part of Friday's
