The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe

This sharing out the land to them I left to Will Atkins, who was

  now grown a sober, grave, managing fellow, perfectly reformed,

  exceedingly pious and religious; and, as far as I may be allowed to

  speak positively in such a case, I verily believe he was a true

  penitent. He divided things so justly, and so much to every one's

  satisfaction, that they only desired one general writing under my

  hand for the whole, which I caused to be drawn up, and signed and

  sealed, setting out the bounds and situation of every man's

  plantation, and testifying that I gave them thereby severally a

  right to the whole possession and inheritance of the respective

  plantations or farms, with their improvements, to them and their

  heirs, reserving all the rest of the island as my own property, and

  a certain rent for every particular plantation after eleven years,

  if I, or any one from me, or in my name, came to demand it,

  producing an attested copy of the same writing. As to the

  government and laws among them, I told them I was not capable of

  giving them better rules than they were able to give themselves;

  only I made them promise me to live in love and good neighbourhood

  with one another; and so I prepared to leave them.

  One thing I must not omit, and that is, that being now settled in a

  kind of commonwealth among themselves, and having much business in

  hand, it was odd to have seven-and-thirty Indians live in a nook of

  the island, independent, and, indeed, unemployed; for except the

  providing themselves food, which they had difficulty enough to do

  sometimes, they had no manner of business or property to manage. I

  proposed, therefore, to the governor Spaniard that he should go to

  them, with Friday's father, and propose to them to remove, and

  either plant for themselves, or be taken into their several

  families as servants to be maintained for their labour, but without

  being absolute slaves; for I would not permit them to make them

  slaves by force, by any means; because they had their liberty given

  them by capitulation, as it were articles of surrender, which they

  ought not to break.

  They most willingly embraced the proposal, and came all very

  cheerfully along with him: so we allotted them land and

  plantations, which three or four accepted of, but all the rest

  chose to be employed as servants in the several families we had

  settled. Thus my colony was in a manner settled as follows: The

  Spaniards possessed my original habitation, which was the capital

  city, and extended their plantations all along the side of the

  brook, which made the creek that I have so often described, as far

  as my bower; and as they increased their culture, it went always

  eastward. The English lived in the north-east part, where Will

  Atkins and his comrades began, and came on southward and south-

  west, towards the back part of the Spaniards; and every plantation

  had a great addition of land to take in, if they found occasion, so

  that they need not jostle one another for want of room. All the

  east end of the island was left uninhabited, that if any of the

  savages should come on shore there only for their customary

  barbarities, they might come and go; if they disturbed nobody,

  nobody would disturb them: and no doubt but they were often

  ashore, and went away again; for I never heard that the planters

  were ever attacked or disturbed any more.

  CHAPTER VIII--SAILS FROM THE ISLAND FOR THE BRAZILS

  It now came into my thoughts that I had hinted to my friend the

  clergyman that the work of converting the savages might perhaps be

  set on foot in his absence to his satisfaction, and I told him that

  now I thought that it was put in a fair way; for the savages, being

  thus divided among the Christians, if they would but every one of

  them do their part with those which came under their hands, I hoped

  it might have a very good effect.

  He agreed presently in that, if they did their part. "But how,"

  says he, "shall we obtain that of them?" I told him we would call

  them all together, and leave it in charge with them, or go to them,

  one by one, which he thought best; so we divided it--he to speak to

  the Spaniards, who were all Papists, and I to speak to the English,

  who were all Protestants; and we recommended it earnestly to them,

  and made them promise that they would never make any distinction of

  Papist or Protestant in their exhorting the savages to turn

  Christians, but teach them the general knowledge of the true God,

  and of their Saviour Jesus Christ; and they likewise promised us

  that they would never have any differences or disputes one with

  another about religion.

  When I came to Will Atkins's house, I found that the young woman I

  have mentioned above, and Will Atkins's wife, were become

  intimates; and this prudent, religious young woman had perfected

  the work Will Atkins had begun; and though it was not above four

  days after what I have related, yet the new-baptized savage woman

  was made such a Christian as I have seldom heard of in all my

  observation or conversation in the world. It came next into my

  mind, in the morning before I went to them, that amongst all the

  needful things I had to leave with them I had not left them a

  Bible, in which I showed myself less considering for them than my

  good friend the widow was for me when she sent me the cargo of a

  hundred pounds from Lisbon, where she packed up three Bibles and a

  Prayer-book. However, the good woman's charity had a greater

  extent than ever she imagined, for they were reserved for the

  comfort and instruction of those that made much better use of them

  than I had done.

  I took one of the Bibles in my pocket, and when I came to Will

  Atkins's tent, or house, and found the young woman and Atkins's

  baptized wife had been discoursing of religion together--for Will

  Atkins told it me with a great deal of joy--I asked if they were

  together now, and he said, "Yes"; so I went into the house, and he

  with me, and we found them together very earnest in discourse.

  "Oh, sir," says Will Atkins, "when God has sinners to reconcile to

  Himself, and aliens to bring home, He never wants a messenger; my

  wife has got a new instructor: I knew I was unworthy, as I was

  incapable of that work; that young woman has been sent hither from

  heaven--she is enough to convert a whole island of savages." The

  young woman blushed, and rose up to go away, but I desired her to

  sit-still; I told her she had a good work upon her hands, and I

  hoped God would bless her in it.

  We talked a little, and I did not perceive that they had any book

  among them, though I did not ask; but I put my hand into my pocket,

  and pulled out my Bible. "Here," said I to Atkins, "I have brought

  you an assistant that perhaps you had not before." The man was so

  confounded that he was not able to speak for some time; but,

  recovering himself, he takes it with both his hands, and turning to

  his wife, "Here, my dear," says he, "did not I tell you our God,

  t
hough He lives above, could hear what we have said? Here's the

  book I prayed for when you and I kneeled down under the bush; now

  God has heard us and sent it." When he had said so, the man fell

  into such passionate transports, that between the joy of having it,

  and giving God thanks for it, the tears ran down his face like a

  child that was crying.

  The woman was surprised, and was like to have run into a mistake

  that none of us were aware of; for she firmly believed God had sent

  the book upon her husband's petition. It is true that

  providentially it was so, and might be taken so in a consequent

  sense; but I believe it would have been no difficult matter at that

  time to have persuaded the poor woman to have believed that an

  express messenger came from heaven on purpose to bring that

  individual book. But it was too serious a matter to suffer any

  delusion to take place, so I turned to the young woman, and told

  her we did not desire to impose upon the new convert in her first

  and more ignorant understanding of things, and begged her to

  explain to her that God may be very properly said to answer our

  petitions, when, in the course of His providence, such things are

  in a particular manner brought to pass as we petitioned for; but we

  did not expect returns from heaven in a miraculous and particular

  manner, and it is a mercy that it is not so.

  This the young woman did afterwards effectually, so that there was

  no priestcraft used here; and I should have thought it one of the

  most unjustifiable frauds in the world to have had it so. But the

  effect upon Will Atkins is really not to be expressed; and there,

  we may be sure, was no delusion. Sure no man was ever more

  thankful in the world for anything of its kind than he was for the

  Bible, nor, I believe, never any man was glad of a Bible from a

  better principle; and though he had been a most profligate

  creature, headstrong, furious, and desperately wicked, yet this man

  is a standing rule to us all for the well instructing children,

  viz. that parents should never give over to teach and instruct, nor

  ever despair of the success of their endeavours, let the children

  be ever so refractory, or to appearance insensible to instruction;

  for if ever God in His providence touches the conscience of such,

  the force of their education turns upon them, and the early

  instruction of parents is not lost, though it may have been many

  years laid asleep, but some time or other they may find the benefit

  of it. Thus it was with this poor man: however ignorant he was of

  religion and Christian knowledge, he found he had some to do with

  now more ignorant than himself, and that the least part of the

  instruction of his good father that now came to his mind was of use

  to him.

  Among the rest, it occurred to him, he said, how his father used to

  insist so much on the inexpressible value of the Bible, and the

  privilege and blessing of it to nations, families, and persons; but

  he never entertained the least notion of the worth of it till now,

  when, being to talk to heathens, savages, and barbarians, he wanted

  the help of the written oracle for his assistance. The young woman

  was glad of it also for the present occasion, though she had one,

  and so had the youth, on board our ship among their goods, which

  were not yet brought on shore. And now, having said so many things

  of this young woman, I cannot omit telling one story more of her

  and myself, which has something in it very instructive and

  remarkable.

  I have related to what extremity the poor young woman was reduced;

  how her mistress was starved to death, and died on board that

  unhappy ship we met at sea, and how the whole ship's company was

  reduced to the last extremity. The gentlewoman, and her son, and

  this maid, were first hardly used as to provisions, and at last

  totally neglected and starved--that is to say, brought to the last

  extremity of hunger. One day, being discoursing with her on the

  extremities they suffered, I asked her if she could describe, by

  what she had felt, what it was to starve, and how it appeared? She

  said she believed she could, and told her tale very distinctly

  thus:-

  "First, we had for some days fared exceedingly hard, and suffered

  very great hunger; but at last we were wholly without food of any

  kind except sugar, and a little wine and water. The first day

  after I had received no food at all, I found myself towards

  evening, empty and sick at the stomach, and nearer night much

  inclined to yawning and sleep. I lay down on the couch in the

  great cabin to sleep, and slept about three hours, and awaked a

  little refreshed, having taken a glass of wine when I lay down;

  after being about three hours awake, it being about five o'clock in

  the morning, I found myself empty, and my stomach sickish, and lay

  down again, but could not sleep at all, being very faint and ill;

  and thus I continued all the second day with a strange variety--

  first hungry, then sick again, with retchings to vomit. The second

  night, being obliged to go to bed again without any food more than

  a draught of fresh water, and being asleep, I dreamed I was at

  Barbadoes, and that the market was mightily stocked with

  provisions; that I bought some for my mistress, and went and dined

  very heartily. I thought my stomach was full after this, as it

  would have been after a good dinner; but when I awaked I was

  exceedingly sunk in my spirits to find myself in the extremity of

  family. The last glass of wine we had I drank, and put sugar in

  it, because of its having some spirit to supply nourishment; but

  there being no substance in the stomach for the digesting office to

  work upon, I found the only effect of the wine was to raise

  disagreeable fumes from the stomach into the head; and I lay, as

  they told me, stupid and senseless, as one drunk, for some time.

  The third day, in the morning, after a night of strange, confused,

  and inconsistent dreams, and rather dozing than sleeping, I awaked

  ravenous and furious with hunger; and I question, had not my

  understanding returned and conquered it, whether if I had been a

  mother, and had had a little child with me, its life would have

  been safe or not. This lasted about three hours, during which time

  I was twice raging mad as any creature in Bedlam, as my young

  master told me, and as he can now inform you.

  "In one of these fits of lunacy or distraction I fell down and

  struck my face against the corner of a pallet-bed, in which my

  mistress lay, and with the blow the blood gushed out of my nose;

  and the cabin-boy bringing me a little basin, I sat down and bled

  into it a great deal; and as the blood came from me I came to

  myself, and the violence of the flame or fever I was in abated, and

  so did the ravenous part of the hunger. Then I grew sick, and

  retched to vomit, but could not, for I had nothing in my stomach to

  bring up. After I had bled some time I swooned, and they all

  believed I was de
ad; but I came to myself soon after, and then had

  a most dreadful pain in my stomach not to be described--not like

  the colic, but a gnawing, eager pain for food; and towards night it

  went off with a kind of earnest wishing or longing for food. I

  took another draught of water with sugar in it; but my stomach

  loathed the sugar and brought it all up again; then I took a

  draught of water without sugar, and that stayed with me; and I laid

  me down upon the bed, praying most heartily that it would please

  God to take me away; and composing my mind in hopes of it, I

  slumbered a while, and then waking, thought myself dying, being

  light with vapours from an empty stomach. I recommended my soul

  then to God, and then earnestly wished that somebody would throw me

  into the into the sea.

  "All this while my mistress lay by me, just, as I thought,

  expiring, but she bore it with much more patience than I, and gave

  the last bit of bread she had left to her child, my young master,

  who would not have taken it, but she obliged him to eat it; and I

  believe it saved his life. Towards the morning I slept again, and

  when I awoke I fell into a violent passion of crying, and after

  that had a second fit of violent hunger. I got up ravenous, and in

  a most dreadful condition; and once or twice I was going to bite my

  own arm. At last I saw the basin in which was the blood I had bled

  at my nose the day before: I ran to it, and swallowed it with such

  haste, and such a greedy appetite, as if I wondered nobody had

  taken it before, and afraid it should be taken from me now. After

  it was down, though the thoughts of it filled me with horror, yet

  it checked the fit of hunger, and I took another draught of water,

  and was composed and refreshed for some hours after. This was the

  fourth day; and this I kept up till towards night, when, within the

  compass of three hours, I had all the several circumstances over

  again, one after another, viz. sick, sleepy, eagerly hungry, pain

  in the stomach, then ravenous again, then sick, then lunatic, then

  crying, then ravenous again, and so every quarter of an hour, and

  my strength wasted exceedingly; at night I lay me down, having no

  comfort but in the hope that I should die before morning.

  "All this night I had no sleep; but the hunger was now turned into

  a disease; and I had a terrible colic and griping, by wind instead

  of food having found its way into the bowels; and in this condition

  I lay till morning, when I was surprised by the cries and

  lamentations of my young master, who called out to me that his

  mother was dead. I lifted myself up a little, for I had not

  strength to rise, but found she was not dead, though she was able

  to give very little signs of life. I had then such convulsions in

  my stomach, for want of some sustenance, as I cannot describe; with

  such frequent throes and pangs of appetite as nothing but the

  tortures of death can imitate; and in this condition I was when I

  heard the seamen above cry out, 'A sail! a sail!' and halloo and

  jump about as if they were distracted. I was not able to get off

  from the bed, and my mistress much less; and my young master was so

  sick that I thought he had been expiring; so we could not open the

  cabin door, or get any account what it was that occasioned such

  confusion; nor had we had any conversation with the ship's company

  for twelve days, they having told us that they had not a mouthful

  of anything to eat in the ship; and this they told us afterwards--

  they thought we had been dead. It was this dreadful condition we

  were in when you were sent to save our lives; and how you found us,

  sir, you know as well as I, and better too."

  This was her own relation, and is such a distinct account of

  starving to death, as, I confess, I never met with, and was

  exceeding instructive to me. I am the rather apt to believe it to

  be a true account, because the youth gave me an account of a good

  part of it; though I must own, not so distinct and so feeling as

  the maid; and the rather, because it seems his mother fed him at