The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

valley, yet they found out my plantation at the bower, and pulled

  it all to pieces, and all the fences and planting about it; trod

  all the corn under foot, tore up the vines and grapes, being just

  then almost ripe, and did our men inestimable damage, though to

  themselves not one farthing's worth of service.

  Though our men were able to fight them upon all occasions, yet they

  were in no condition to pursue them, or hunt them up and down; for

  as they were too nimble of foot for our people when they found them

  single, so our men durst not go abroad single, for fear of being

  surrounded with their numbers. The best was they had no weapons;

  for though they had bows, they had no arrows left, nor any

  materials to make any; nor had they any edge-tool among them. The

  extremity and distress they were reduced to was great, and indeed

  deplorable; but, at the same time, our men were also brought to

  very bad circumstances by them, for though their retreats were

  preserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and their harvest

  spoiled, and what to do, or which way to turn themselves, they knew

  not. The only refuge they had now was the stock of cattle they had

  in the valley by the cave, and some little corn which grew there,

  and the plantation of the three Englishmen. Will Atkins and his

  comrades were now reduced to two; one of them being killed by an

  arrow, which struck him on the side of his head, just under the

  temple, so that he never spoke more; and it was very remarkable

  that this was the same barbarous fellow that cut the poor savage

  slave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended to have

  murdered the Spaniards.

  I looked upon their case to have been worse at this time than mine

  was at any time, after I first discovered the grains of barley and

  rice, and got into the manner of planting and raising my corn, and

  my tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolves

  upon the island, which would devour everything they could come at,

  yet could be hardly come at themselves.

  When they saw what their circumstances were, the first thing they

  concluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages up

  to the farther part of the island, south-west, that if any more

  came on shore they might not find one another; then, that they

  would daily hunt and harass them, and kill as many of them as they

  could come at, till they had reduced their number; and if they

  could at last tame them, and bring them to anything, they would

  give them corn, and teach them how to plant, and live upon their

  daily labour. In order to do this, they so followed them, and so

  terrified them with their guns, that in a few days, if any of them

  fired a gun at an Indian, if he did not hit him, yet he would fall

  down for fear. So dreadfully frightened were they that they kept

  out of sight farther and farther; till at last our men followed

  them, and almost every day killing or wounding some of them, they

  kept up in the woods or hollow places so much, that it reduced them

  to the utmost misery for want of food; and many were afterwards

  found dead in the woods, without any hurt, absolutely starved to

  death.

  When our men found this, it made their hearts relent, and pity

  moved them, especially the generous-minded Spaniard governor; and

  he proposed, if possible, to take one of them alive and bring him

  to understand what they meant, so far as to be able to act as

  interpreter, and go among them and see if they might be brought to

  some conditions that might be depended upon, to save their lives

  and do us no harm.

  It was some while before any of them could be taken; but being weak

  and half-starved, one of them was at last surprised and made a

  prisoner. He was sullen at first, and would neither eat nor drink;

  but finding himself kindly used, and victuals given to him, and no

  violence offered him, he at last grew tractable, and came to

  himself. They often brought old Friday to talk to him, who always

  told him how kind the others would be to them all; that they would

  not only save their lives, but give them part of the island to live

  in, provided they would give satisfaction that they would keep in

  their own bounds, and not come beyond it to injure or prejudice

  others; and that they should have corn given them to plant and make

  it grow for their bread, and some bread given them for their

  present subsistence; and old Friday bade the fellow go and talk

  with the rest of his countrymen, and see what they said to it;

  assuring them that, if they did not agree immediately, they should

  be all destroyed.

  The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in number to

  about thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the first offer,

  and begged to have some food given them; upon which twelve

  Spaniards and two Englishmen, well armed, with three Indian slaves

  and old Friday, marched to the place where they were. The three

  Indian slaves carried them a large quantity of bread, some rice

  boiled up to cakes and dried in the sun, and three live goats; and

  they were ordered to go to the side of a hill, where they sat down,

  ate their provisions very thankfully, and were the most faithful

  fellows to their words that could be thought of; for, except when

  they came to beg victuals and directions, they never came out of

  their bounds; and there they lived when I came to the island and I

  went to see them. They had taught them both to plant corn, make

  bread, breed tame goats, and milk them: they wanted nothing but

  wives in order for them soon to become a nation. They were

  confined to a neck of land, surrounded with high rocks behind them,

  and lying plain towards the sea before them, on the south-east

  corner of the island. They had land enough, and it was very good

  and fruitful; about a mile and a half broad, and three or four

  miles in length. Our men taught them to make wooden spades, such

  as I made for myself, and gave among them twelve hatchets and three

  or four knives; and there they lived, the most subjected, innocent

  creatures that ever were heard of.

  After this the colony enjoyed a perfect tranquillity with respect

  to the savages, till I came to revisit them, which was about two

  years after; not but that, now and then, some canoes of savages

  came on shore for their triumphal, unnatural feasts; but as they

  were of several nations, and perhaps had never heard of those that

  came before, or the reason of it, they did not make any search or

  inquiry after their countrymen; and if they had, it would have been

  very hard to have found them out.

  Thus, I think, I have given a full account of all that happened to

  them till my return, at least that was worth notice. The Indians

  were wonderfully civilised by them, and they frequently went among

  them; but they forbid, on pain of death, any one of the Indians

  coming to them, because they would not have their settlement

  betrayed again. One thing was very remarkable, viz. that they

  taught the savages to mak
e wicker-work, or baskets, but they soon

  outdid their masters: for they made abundance of ingenious things

  in wicker-work, particularly baskets, sieves, bird-cages,

  cupboards, &c.; as also chairs, stools, beds, couches, being very

  ingenious at such work when they were once put in the way of it.

  My coming was a particular relief to these people, because we

  furnished them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes,

  and all things of that kind which they could want. With the help

  of those tools they were so very handy that they came at last to

  build up their huts or houses very handsomely, raddling or working

  it up like basket-work all the way round. This piece of ingenuity,

  although it looked very odd, was an exceeding good fence, as well

  against heat as against all sorts of vermin; and our men were so

  taken with it that they got the Indians to come and do the like for

  them; so that when I came to see the two Englishmen's colonies,

  they looked at a distance as if they all lived like bees in a hive.

  As for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, useful,

  and sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as

  I believe was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces round

  on the outside, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close

  worked as a basket, in panels or squares of thirty-two in number,

  and very strong, standing about seven feet high; in the middle was

  another not above twenty-two paces round, but built stronger, being

  octagon in its form, and in the eight corners stood eight very

  strong posts; round the top of which he laid strong pieces, knit

  together with wooden pins, from which he raised a pyramid for a

  handsome roof of eight rafters, joined together very well, though

  he had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made himself,

  too, out of the old iron that I had left there. Indeed, this

  fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had

  no knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of wooden

  bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work;

  and he formed out of the iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer

  upon: in this manner he made many things, but especially hooks,

  staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the house:

  after he had pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked it

  up between the rafters with basket-work, so firm, and thatched that

  over again so ingeniously with rice-straw, and over that a large

  leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house was as dry as

  if it had been tiled or slated. He owned, indeed, that the savages

  had made the basket-work for him. The outer circuit was covered as

  a lean-to all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay from

  the thirty-two angles to the top posts of the inner house, being

  about twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a walk

  within the outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty

  feet wide.

  The inner place he partitioned off with the same wickerwork, but

  much fairer, and divided into six apartments, so that he had six

  rooms on a floor, and out of every one of these there was a door:

  first into the entry, or coming into the main tent, another door

  into the main tent, and another door into the space or walk that

  was round it; so that walk was also divided into six equal parts,

  which served not only for a retreat, but to store up any

  necessaries which the family had occasion for. These six spaces

  not taking up the whole circumference, what other apartments the

  outer circle had were thus ordered: As soon as you were in at the

  door of the outer circle you had a short passage straight before

  you to the door of the inner house; but on either side was a wicker

  partition and a door in it, by which you went first into a large

  room or storehouse, twenty feet wide and about thirty feet long,

  and through that into another not 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 inner tent, and served as

  closets or retiring rooms to the respective chambers of the inner

  circle; and four large warehouses, or barns, or what you please to

  call them, which went through one another, two on either hand 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, nor a house or tent so neatly contrived, much less so built.

  In this great bee-hive lived the three families, that is to say,

  Will Atkins and his companion; the third was killed, but his wife

  remained with three children, and the other two were not at all

  backward to give the widow her full share of everything, I mean as

  to their corn, milk, grapes, &c., and when they killed a kid, or

  found a turtle on the shore; so that they all lived well enough;

  though it was true they were not so industrious as the other two,

  as has been observed already.

  One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz. that as for religion, I

  do not know that there was anything of that kind among them; they

  often, indeed, put one another in mind that there was a God, by the

  very common method of seamen, swearing by His name: nor were their

  poor ignorant savage wives much better for having been married to

  Christians, as we must call them; for as they knew very little of

  God themselves, so they were utterly incapable of entering into any

  discourse with their wives about a God, or to talk anything to them

  concerning religion.

  The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives had

  made from them was, that they had taught them to speak English

  pretty well; and most of their children, who were near twenty in

  all, were taught to speak English too, from their first learning to

  speak, though they at first spoke it in a very broken manner, like

  their mothers. None of these children were above six years old

  when I came thither, for it was not much above seven years since

  they had fetched these five savage ladies over; they had all

  children, more or less: 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 them husbands), and lacked nothing but to be well instructed

  in the Christian religion, and to be legally married; both of which

  were happily brought about afterwards by my means, or at least in

  consequence of my coming among them.

  CHAPTER VI--THE FRENCH CLERGYMAN'S COUNSEL

  Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and pretty

  much of my runagate Englishmen, I must say something of the

  Spaniards, who were the main body of the family, and in whose story

  there are some incidents also remarkable enough.

  I had a great many discourses with them about their circumstances

  when they were among the savages. They told me readily that they

  had no instances to give of their application or ingenuity in that


  country; that they were a poor, miserable, dejected handful of

  people; that even if means had been put into their hands, yet they

  had so abandoned themselves to despair, and were so sunk under the

  weight of their misfortune, that they thought of nothing but

  starving. One of them, a grave and sensible man, told me he was

  convinced they were in the wrong; that it was not the part of wise

  men to give themselves up to their misery, but always to take hold

  of the helps which reason offered, as well for present support as

  for future deliverance: he told me that grief was the most

  senseless, insignificant passion in the world, for that it regarded

  only things past, which were generally impossible to be recalled or

  to be remedied, but had no views of things to come, and had no

  share in anything that looked like deliverance, but rather added to

  the affliction than proposed a remedy; and upon this he repeated a

  Spanish proverb, which, though I cannot repeat in the same words

  that he spoke it in, yet I remember I made it into an English

  proverb of my own, 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 in my solitude: my unwearied application, as he called it;

  and how I had made a condition, which in its circumstances was at

  first much worse than theirs, a thousand times more happy than

  theirs was, even now when they were all together. He told me it

  was remarkable that Englishmen had a greater presence of mind in

  their distress than any people that ever he met with; that their

  unhappy nation and the Portuguese were the worst men in the world

  to struggle with misfortunes; for that their first step in dangers,

  after the common efforts were over, was to despair, lie down under

  it, and die, without rousing their thoughts up to proper remedies

  for escape.

  I told him their case and mine differed exceedingly; that they were

  cast upon the shore without necessaries, without supply of food, or

  present sustenance till they could provide for it; that, it was

  true, I had this further disadvantage and discomfort, that I was

  alone; but then the supplies I had providentially thrown into my

  hands, by the unexpected driving of the ship on the shore, was such

  a help as would have encouraged any creature in the world to have

  applied himself as I had done. "Seignior," says the Spaniard, "had

  we poor Spaniards been in your case, we should never have got half

  those things out of the ship, as you did: nay," says he, "we

  should never have found means to have got a raft to carry them, or

  to have got the raft on shore without boat or sail: and how much

  less should we have done if any of us had been alone!" Well, I

  desired him to abate his compliments, and go on with the history of

  their coming on shore, where they landed. He told me they

  unhappily landed at a place where there were people without

  provisions; whereas, had they had the common sense to put off to

  sea again, and gone to another island a little further, they had

  found provisions, though without people: there being an island

  that way, as they had been told, where there were provisions,

  though no people--that is to say, that the Spaniards of Trinidad

  had frequently been there, and had filled the island with goats and

  hogs at several times, where they had bred in such multitudes, and

  where turtle and sea-fowls were in such plenty, that they could

  have been in no want of flesh, though they had found no bread;

  whereas, here they were only sustained with a few roots and herbs,

  which they understood not, and which had no substance in them, and

  which the inhabitants gave them sparingly enough; and they could

  treat them no better, unless they would turn cannibals and eat

  men's flesh.

  They gave me an account how many ways they strove to civilise the

  savages they were with, and to teach them rational customs in the

  ordinary way of living, but in vain; and how they retorted upon