by Daniel Defoe
made himself a forge, with apair of wooden bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal forhis work, and he formed out of one of the iron crows a middling goodanvil to hammer upon; in this manner he made many things, but especiallyhooks, staples and spikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the house:after he pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked it up betweenthe rafters with basket-work, so firm, and thatched that over again soingeniously with rice-straw, and over that a large leaf of a tree, whichcovered the top, that his house was as dry as if it had been tiled orslated. Indeed he owned that the savages made the basket-work for him.
The outer circuit was covered, as a lean-to, all round his inner,apartment, and long rafters lay from the thirty two angles to the topposts of the inner house, being about twenty feet distant; so that therewas a space like a walk within the outer wicker wall, and without theinner, near twenty feet wide.
The inner place he partitioned off with the same wicker work, but muchfairer, and divided into six apartments, for that he had six rooms on afloor, and out of every one of these there was a door: first, into theentry, or coming into the main tent; and another door into the space orwalk that was round it; so that this walk was also divided into sixequal parts, which served not only for a retreat, but to store up anynecessaries which the family had occasion for. These six spaces nottaking up the whole circumference, what other apartments the outercircle had, were thus ordered: as soon as you were in at the door of theouter circle, you had a short passage straight before you to the door ofthe inner house; but on either side was a wicker partition, and a doorin it, by which you went first into a large room or storehouse, twentyfeet wide, and about thirty feet long, and through that into anothernot quite so long: so that in the outer circle were ten handsome rooms,six of which were only to be come at through the apartments of the innertent, and served as closets or retired rooms to the respective chambersof the inner circle; and four large warehouses or barns, or what youplease to call them, which went in through one another, two on eitherhand of the passage that led through the outer door to the inner tent.
Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never seen in the world; noran house or tent so neatly contrived, much less so built. In this greatbeehive lived the three families; that is to say, Will Atkins and hiscompanions; the third was killed, but his wife remained with threechildren; for she was, it seems, big with child when he died, and theother two were not at all backward to give the widow her full share ofevery thing, I mean as to their corn, milk, grapes, &c. and when theykilled a kid, or found a turtle on the shore; so that they all livedwell enough, though it was true, they were not so industrious as theother two, as has been observed already.
One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz. that, as for religion, Idon't know that there was any thing of that kind among them; they prettyoften indeed put one another in mind that there was a God, by the verycommon method of seamen, viz. swearing by his name; nor were their poor,ignorant, savage wives much the better for having been married toChristians as we must call them; for as they knew very little of Godthemselves, so they were utterly incapable of entering into anydiscourse with their wives about a God or to talk any thing to themconcerning religion.
The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives had madefrom them, was, that they had taught them to speak English pretty well;and all the children they had, which were near twenty in all were taughtto speak English too, from their first learning to speak, though they atfirst spoke it in a very broken manner, like their mothers. There werenone of those children above six years old when I came thither; for itwas not much above seven years that they had fetched these five savageladies over, but they had all been pretty fruitful, for they had allchildren, more or less: I think the cook's mate's wife was big of hersixth child; and the mothers were all a good sort of well-governed,quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to one another,mighty observant and subject to their masters, I cannot call themhusbands; and wanted nothing but to be well instructed in the Christianreligion, and to be legally married; both which were happily broughtabout afterwards by my means, or at least by the consequence of mycoming among them.
Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and pretty muchof my five runagate Englishmen, I must say something of the Spaniards,who were the main body of the family, and in whose story there are someincidents also remarkable enough.
I had a great many discourses with them about their circumstances whenthey were among the savages; they told me readily, that they had noinstances to give of their application or ingenuity in that country;that they were a poor, miserable, dejected handful of people; that ifmeans had been put into their hands, they had yet so abandonedthemselves to despair, and so sunk under the weight of theirmisfortunes, that they thought of nothing but starving. One of them, agrave and very sensible man, told me he was convinced they were in thewrong; that it was not the part of wise men to give up themselves totheir misery, but always to take hold of the helps which reason offered,as well for present support, as for future deliverance; he told me thatgrief was the most senseless insignificant passion in the world, forthat it regarded only things past, which were generally impossible to berecalled or to be remedied, but had no view to things to come, and hadno share in any thing that looked like deliverance, but rather added tothe affliction than proposed a remedy; and upon this he repeated aSpanish proverb, which though I cannot repeat in just the same wordsthat he spoke it, yet I remember I made it into an English proverb of myown, thus;
In trouble to be troubled, Is to have your trouble doubled.
He then ran on in remarks upon all the little improvements I had made inmy solitude; my unwearied application, as he called it, and how I hadmade a condition, which in its circumstances was at first much worsethan theirs, a thousand times more happy than theirs was, even now whenthey were all together. He told me it was remarkable that Englishmen hada greater presence of mind in their distress than any people that everhe met with; that their unhappy nation, and the Portuguese, were theworst men in the world to struggle with misfortunes; for that theirfirst step in dangers, after common efforts are over, was always todespair, lie down under it and die, without rousing their thoughts up toproper remedies for escape.
I told him their case and mine differed exceedingly; that they were castupon the shore without necessaries, without supply of food, or ofpresent sustenance, till they could provide it; that it is true, I hadthis disadvantage and discomfort, that I was alone; but then thesupplies I had providentially thrown into my hands, by the unexpecteddriving of the ship on shore, was such a help as would have encouragedany creature in the world to have applied himself as I had done."Seignior," says the Spaniard, "had we poor Spaniards been in your casewe should never have gotten half those things out of the ship as youdid." "Nay," says he, "we should never have found means to have gotten araft to carry them, or to have gotten a raft on shore without boat orsail; and how much less should we have done," said he, "if any of us hadbeen alone!" Well, I desired him to abate his compliment, and go onwith the history of their coming on shore, where they landed. He told methey unhappily landed at a place where there were people withoutprovisions; whereas, had they had the common sense to have put off tosea again, and gone to another island a little farther, they had foundprovisions though without people; there being an island that way, asthey had been told, where there were provisions though no people; thatis to say, that the Spaniards of Trinidad had frequently been there, andfilled the island with goats and hogs at several times, where they havebred in such multitudes, and where turtle and sea-fowls were in suchplenty, that they could have been in no want of flesh though they hadfound no bread; whereas here they were only sustained with a few rootsand herbs, which they understood not, and which had no substance inthem, and which the inhabitants gave them sparingly enough, and whocould treat them no better unless they would turn cannibals, and eatmen's flesh, which was the great dainty of the country.
They gave me an acco
unt how many ways they strove to civilize thesavages they were with, and to teach them rational customs in theordinary way of living, but in vain; and how they retorted it upon themas unjust, that they, who came thither for assistance and support,should attempt to set up for instructors of those that gave them bread;intimating, it seems, that none should set up for the instructors ofothers but those who could live without them.
They gave me dismal accounts of the extremities they were driven to; howsometimes they were many days without any food at all, the island theywere upon being inhabited by a sort of savages that lived more indolent,and for that reason were less supplied with the necessaries of life thanthey had reason to believe others were in the same part of the world;and yet they found that these savages were less ravenous and voraciousthan those who had better supplies of food.
Also they added, that they could not but see with what
