The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

to meet with; and, indeed, that salute clogged their stomachs; forthey immediately halted, stood awhile to consider of it, and, wheelingoff to the left, they gave over the design, and said no more to us forthat time; which was very agreeable to our circumstances, which were butvery indifferent for a battle with such a number.

  Two days after this we came to the city of Naum, or Naunm. We thankedthe governor for his care for us, and collected to the value of onehundred crowns, or thereabouts, which we gave to the soldiers sent toguard us; and here we rested one day. This is a garrison indeed, andthere were nine hundred soldiers kept here; but the reason of it was,that formerly the Muscovite frontiers lay nearer to them than they donow, the Muscovites having abandoned that part of the country (whichlies from the city west, for about two hundred miles) as desolate andunfit for use; and more especially, being so very remote, and sodifficult to send troops hither for its defence; for we had yet abovetwo thousand miles to Muscovy, properly so called.

  After this we passed several great rivers, and two dreadful deserts, oneof which we were sixteen days passing over, and which, as I said, was tobe called No Man's Land; and on the 13th of April we came to thefrontiers of the Muscovite dominions. I think the first city, or town,or fortress, whatever it might be called, that belonged to the czar ofMuscovy, was called Argun, being on the west side of the river Argun.

  I could not but discover an infinite satisfaction; that I was nowarrived in, as I called it, a Christian country; or, at least, in acountry governed by Christians: for though the Muscovites do, in myopinion, but just deserve the name of Christians (yet such they pretendto be, and are very devout in their way:) it would certainly occur toany man who travels the world as I have done, and who had any power ofreflection; I say, it would occur to him, to reflect, what a blessing itis to be brought into the world where the name of God, and of aRedeemer, is known, worshipped, and adored--and not where the people,given up by Heaven to strong delusions, worship the devil, and prostratethemselves to stocks and stones; worship monsters, elements,horrible-shaped animals, and statues, or images of monsters. Not a townor city we passed through but had their pagods, their idols, and theirtemples; and ignorant people worshipping even the works of theirown hands!

  Now we came where, at least, a face of the Christian worship appeared,where the knee was bowed to Jesus; and whether ignorantly or not, yetthe Christian religion was owned, and the name of the true God wascalled upon and adored; and it made the very recesses of my soul rejoiceto see it. I saluted the brave Scotch merchant I mentioned above, withmy first acknowledgment of this; and, taking him by the hand, I said tohim, "Blessed be God, we are once again come among Christians!" Hesmiled, and answered, "Do not rejoice too soon, countryman; theseMuscovites are but an odd sort of Christians; and but for the name ofit, you may see very little of the substance for some months farther ofour journey."

  "Well," said I, "but still it is better than paganism, and worshippingof devils."--"Why, I'll tell you," said he; "except the Russian soldiersin garrisons, and a few of the inhabitants of the cities upon the road,all the rest of this country, for above a thousand miles farther, isinhabited by the worst and most ignorant of pagans." And so indeedwe found it.

  We were now launched into the greatest piece of solid earth, if Iunderstand any thing of the surface of the globe, that is to be found inany part of the world: we had at least twelve hundred miles to the sea,eastward; we had at least two thousand to the bottom of the Baltic sea,westward; and almost three thousand miles, if we left that sea, and wenton west to the British and French channels; we had full five thousandmiles to the Indian or Persian sea, south; and about eight hundred milesto the Frozen sea, north; nay, if some people may be believed, theremight be no sea north-east till we came round the pole, and consequentlyinto the north-west, and so had a continent of land into America, nomortal knows where; though I could give some reasons why I believe thatto be a mistake too.

  As we entered into the Muscovite dominions, a good while before we cameto any considerable town, we had nothing to observe there but this:first, that all the rivers run to the east. As I understood by thecharts which some of our caravans had with them, it was plain that allthose rivers ran into the great river Yamour, or Gammour. This river, bythe natural course of it, must run into the east sea, or Chinese ocean.The story they tell us, that the mouth of this river is choked up withbulrushes of a monstrous growth, viz. three feet about, and twenty orthirty feet high, I must be allowed to say I believe nothing of; but asits navigation is of no use, because there is no trade that way, theTartars, to whom alone it belongs, dealing in nothing but cattle; sonobody that ever I heard or, has been curious enough either to go downto the mouth of it in boats, or to come up from the mouth of it inships; but this is certain, that this river running due east, in thelatitude of sixty degrees, carries a vast concourse of rivers along withit, and finds an ocean to empty itself in that latitude; so we are sureof sea there.

  Some leagues to the north of this river there are several considerablerivers, whose streams run as due north as the Yamour runs east; andthese are all found to join their waters with the great river Tartarus,named so from the northernmost nations of the Mogul Tartars, who, theChinese say, were the first Tartars in the world; and who, as ourgeographers allege, are the Gog and Magog mentioned in sacred story.

  These rivers running all northward, as well as all the other rivers I amyet to speak of, made it evident that the northern ocean bounds the landalso on that side; so that it does not seem rational in the least tothink that the land can extend itself to join with America on that side,or that there is not a communication between the northern and theeastern ocean; but of this I shall say no more; it was my observation atthat time, and therefore I take notice of it in this place. We nowadvanced from the river Arguna by easy and moderate journies, and werevery visibly obliged to the care the czar of Muscovy has taken to havecities and towns built in as many places as are possible to place them,where his soldiers keep garrison, something, like the stationarysoldiers placed by the Romans in the remotest countries of their empire,some of which I had read were particularly placed in Britain for thesecurity of commerce, and for the lodging of travellers; and thus it washere; though wherever we came at these towns and stations the garrisonsand governor were Russians and professed mere pagans, sacrificing toidols, and worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, or all the host ofheaven; and not only so, but were, of all the heathens and pagans thatever I met with, the most barbarous, except only that they did not eatman's flesh, as our savages of America did.

  Some instances of this we met with in the country between Arguna, wherewe enter the Muscovite dominions, and a city of Tartars and Russianstogether, called Nertzinskay; in which space is a continued desert orforest, which cost us twenty days to travel over it. In a village nearthe last of those places, I had the curiosity to go and see their way ofliving; which is most brutish and unsufferable: they had, I suppose, agreat sacrifice that day; for there stood out upon an old stump of atree, an idol made of wood, frightful as the devil; at least as anything we can think of to represent the devil that can be made. It had ahead certainly not so much as resembling any creature that the worldever saw; ears as big as goats' horns, and as high; eyes as big as acrown-piece; and a nose like a crooked ram's horn, and a mouth extendedfour-cornered, like that of a lion, with horrible teeth, hooked like aparrot's under bill. It was dressed up in the filthiest manner that youcan suppose; its upper garment was of sheep-skins, with the wooloutward; a great Tartar bonnet on the head, with two horns growingthrough it: it was about eight feet high, yet had no feet or legs, orany other proportion of parts.

  This scarecrow was set up at the outside of the village; and when I camenear to it, there were sixteen or seventeen creatures, whether men orwomen I could not tell, for they make no distinction by their habits,either of body or head; these lay all flat on the ground, round thisformidable block of shapeless wood. I saw no motion among them any morethan if they had been logs of wood, like thei
r idol; at first I reallythought they had been so; but when I came a little nearer, they startedup upon their feet, and raised a howling cry, as if it had been so manydeep-mouthed hounds, and walked away as if they were displeased at ourdisturbing them. A little way off from this monster, and at the door ofa tent or hut, made all of sheep-skins and cow-skins, dried, stood threebutchers: I thought they were such; for when I came nearer to them, Ifound they had long knives in their hands, and in the middle of the tentappeared three sheep killed, and one young bullock, or steer. These, itseems, were sacrifices to that senseless log of an idol; and these threemen priests belonging to it; and the seventeen prostrated wretches werethe people who brought the offering, and were making their prayers tothat stock.

  I confess I was more moved at their stupidity, and this brutish worshipof a hobgoblin, than ever I was at any thing in my life: to see