In this thankful frame I continued all the remainder of my time, and the conversation which employed the hours between Friday and I was such as made the three years which we lived there together perfectly and completely happy, if any such thing as complete happiness can be formed in a sublunary state. The savage was now a good Christian, a much better than I; though I have reason to hope, and bless God for it, that we were equally penitent, and comforted, restored penitents; we had here the Word of God to read and no farther off from His Spirit to instruct than if we had been in England.
I always applied myself to reading the Scripture to let him know, as well as I could, the meaning of what I read; and he again, by his serious inquiries and questions, made me, as I said before, a much better scholar in the Scripture knowledge than I should ever have been by my own private mere reading. Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here also, from experience in this retired part of my life, viz., how infinite and inexpressible a blessing it is that the knowledge of God and of the doctrine of salvation by Christ Jesus is so plainly laid down in the Word of God, so easy to be received and understood, that as the bare reading the Scripture made me capable of understanding enough of my duty to carry me directly on to the great work of sincere repentance for my sins, and laying hold of a Saviour for life and salvation, to a stated reformation in practice, and obedience to all God’s commands, and this without any teacher or instructor (I mean, human), so the same plain instruction sufficiently served to the enlightening this savage creature and bringing him to be such a Christian as I have known few equal to him in my life.
As to all the disputes, wranglings, strife, and contention which has happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in doctrines, or schemes of church government, they were all perfectly useless to us; as, for aught I can yet see, they have been to all the rest in the world. We had the sure guide to Heaven, viz., the Word of God; and we had, blessed be God, comfortable views of the Spirit of God, teaching and instructing us by His Word, leading us into all truth, and making us both willing and obedient to the instruction of His Word; and I cannot see the least use that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points in religion, which have made such confusions in the world, would have been to us, if we could have obtained it; but I must go on with the historical part of things, and take every part in its order.
After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and that he could understand almost all I said to him and speak fluently, though in broken English, to me, I acquainted him with my own story, or at least so much of it as related to my coming into the place, how I had lived there, and how long. I let him into the mystery, for such it was to him, of gunpowder and bullet, and taught him how to shoot. I gave him a knife, which he was wonderfully delighted with, and I made him a belt, with a frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not only as good a weapon, in some cases, but much more useful upon other occasions.
I described to him the country of Europe, and particularly England, which I came from; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how we behaved to one another; and how we traded in ships to all parts of the world. I gave him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of, and showed him as near as I could the place where she lay; but she was all beaten in pieces before, and gone.
I showed him the ruins of our boat, which we lost when we escaped, and which I could not stir with my whole strength then, but was now fallen almost all to pieces. Upon seeing this boat, Friday stood musing a great while, and said nothing; I asked him what it was he studied upon; at last says he, ‘‘Me see such boat like come to place at my nation.’’
I did not understand him a good while; but at last, when I had examined further into it, I understood by him that a boat, such as that had been, came on shore upon the country where he lived; that is, as he explained it, was driven thither by stress of weather. I presently imagined that some European ship must have been cast away upon their coast, and the boat might get loose and drive ashore; but was so dull that I never once thought of men making escape from a wreck thither, much less whence they might come; so I only inquired after a description of the boat.
Friday described the boat to me well enough, but brought me better to understand him when he added with some warmth, ‘‘We save the white mans from drown.’’ Then I presently asked him if there were any white mans, as he called them, in the boat. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said, ‘‘the boat full of white mans.’’ I asked him how many; he told upon his fingers seventeen. I asked him then what became of them; he told me, ‘‘They live, they dwell at my nation.’’
This put new thoughts into my head; for I presently imagined that these might be the men belonging to the ship that was cast away in sight of my island, as I now call it; and who, after the ship was struck on the rock and they saw her inevitably lost, had saved themselves in their boat and were landed upon that wild shore among the savages.
Upon this I inquired of him more critically what was become of them. He assured me they lived still there; that they had been there about four years; that the savages let them alone, and gave them victuals to live. I asked him how it came to pass they did not kill them and eat them. He said, ‘‘No, they make brother with them’’; that is, as I understood him, a truce. And then he added, ‘‘They no eat mans but when make the war fight’’; that is to say, they never eat any men but such as come to fight with them and are taken in battle.
It was after this some considerable time that being on the top of the hill, at the east side of the island, from whence, as I have said, I had in a clear day discovered the main, or continent of America, Friday, the weather being very serene, looks very earnestly towards the mainland, and in a kind of surprise falls a-jumping and dancing, and calls out to me, for I was at some distance from him. I asked him what was the matter. "O joy!’’ says he, "O glad! There see my country, there my nation!’’
I observed an extraordinary sense of pleasure appeared in his face, and his eyes sparkled, and his countenance discovered a strange eagerness, as if he had a mind to be in his own country again; and this observation of mine put a great many thoughts into me, which made me at first not so easy about my new man Friday as I was before; and I made no doubt but that if Friday could get back to his own nation again, he would not only forget all his religion but all his obligation to me; and would be forward enough to give his countrymen an account of me, and come back, perhaps with a hundred or two of them, and make a feast upon me, at which he might be as merry as he used to be with those of his enemies, when they were taken in war.
But I wronged the poor honest creature very much, for which I was very sorry afterwards. However, as my jealousy increased, and held me some weeks, I was a little more circumspect, and not so familiar and kind to him as before; in which I was certainly in the wrong too, the honest grateful creature having no thought about it but what consisted with the best principles, both as a religious Christian and as a grateful friend, as appeared afterwards to my full satisfaction.
While my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every day pumping him to see if he would discover any of the new thoughts which I suspected were in him; but I found everything he said was so honest and so innocent that I could find nothing to nourish my suspicion; and in spite of all my uneasiness he made me at last entirely his own again; nor did he in the least perceive that I was uneasy, and therefore I could not suspect him of deceit.
One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at sea so that we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said, ‘‘Friday, do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation?’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ he said, ‘‘I be much O glad to be at my nation.’’ ‘‘What would you do there?’’ said I. ‘‘Would you turn wild again, eat men’s flesh again, and be a savage as you were before?’’ He looked full of concern, and shaking his head, said, ‘‘No, no, Friday tell them to live good, tell them to pray God, tell
them to eat corn bread, cattle flesh, milk, no eat man again.’’ ‘‘Why then,’’ said I to him, ‘‘they will kill you.’’ He looked grave at that, and then said, ‘‘No, they no kill me, they willing love learn.’’ He meant by this, they would be willing to learn. He added, they learned much of the bearded mans that come in the boat. Then I asked him if he would go back to them. He smiled at that and told me he could not swim so far. I told him I would make a canoe for him. He told me he would go, if I would go with him. ‘‘I go!’’ says I. ‘‘Why, they will eat me if I come there.’’ ‘‘No, no,’’ says he, ‘‘me make they no eat you; me make they much love you.’’ He meant he would tell them how I had killed his enemies and saved his life, and so he would make them love me; then he told me as well as he could how kind they were to seventeen white men, or bearded men, as he called them, who came on shore there in distress.
From this time, I confess, I had a mind to venture over, and see if I could possibly join with these bearded men, who, I made no doubt, were Spaniards or Portuguese; not doubting but, if I could, we might find some method to escape from thence, being upon the continent, and a good company together, better than I could from an island forty miles off the shore, and alone without help. So after some days I took Friday to work again, by way of discourse, and told him I would give him a boat to go back to his own nation; and accordingly I carried him to my frigate, which lay on the other side of the island, and having cleared it of water, for I always kept it sunk in the water, I brought it out, showed it him, and we both went into it.
I found he was a most dexterous fellow at managing it, would make it go almost as swift and fast again as I could; so when he was in, I said to him, ‘‘Well, now, Friday, shall we go to your nation?’’ He looked very dull at my saying so, which, it seems, was because he thought the boat too small to go so far. I told him then I had a bigger; so the next day I went to the place where the first boat lay which I had made, but which I could not get into the water. He said that was big enough; but then, as I had taken no care of it, and it had lain two or three and twenty years there, the sun had split and dried it, that it was in a manner rotten. Friday told me such a boat would do very well and would carry ‘‘much talking.
Upon the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going over with him to the continent, that I told him we would go and make one as big as that, and he should go home in it. He answered not one word, but looked very grave and sad. I asked him what was the matter with him; he asked me again thus, ‘‘Why you angry mad with Friday, what me done?’’ I asked him what he meant; I told him I was not angry with him at all. ‘‘No angry! no angry!’’ says he, repeating the words several times, ‘‘Why send Friday home away to my nation? ’’ ‘‘Why,’’ says I, ‘‘Friday, did you not say you wished you were there?’’ ‘‘Yes, yes,’’ says he, ‘‘wish be both there, no wish Friday there, no Master there.’’ In a word, he would not think of going there without me. ‘‘I go there, Friday!’’ says I. ‘‘What shall I do there?’’ He turned very quick upon me at this: ‘‘You do great deal much good,’’ says he, ‘‘you teach wild mans be good sober tame mans; you tell them know God, pray God, and live new life.’’ ‘‘Alas, Friday,’’ says I, ‘‘thou knowest not what thou sayest. I am but an ignorant man myself.’’ ‘‘Yes, yes,’’ says he, ‘‘you teachee me good, you teachee them good.’’ ‘‘No, no, Friday,’’ says I, ‘‘you shall go without me, leave me here to live by myself, as I did before.’’ He looked confused again at that word, and running to one of the hatchets which he used to wear, he takes it up hastily, and gives it to me. ‘‘What must I do with this?’’ says I to him. ‘‘You take kill Friday,’’ says he. ‘‘What must I kill you for?’’ said I again. He returns very quick, ‘‘What you send Friday away for? Take kill Friday, no send Friday away.’’ This he spoke so earnestly that I saw tears stand in his eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered the utmost affection in him to me, and a firm resolution in him, that I told him then, and often after, that I would never send him away from me, if he was willing to stay with me.
Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse a settled affection to me, and that nothing should part him from me, so I found all the foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent affection to the people, and his hopes of my doing them good; a thing, which as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the least thought or intention or desire of undertaking it. But still I found a strong inclination to my attempting an escape, as above, founded on the supposition gathered from the discourse, viz., that there were seventeen bearded men there; and therefore, without any more delay, I went to work with Friday to find out a great tree proper to fell, and make a large piragua or canoe to undertake the voyage. There were trees enough in the island to have built a little fleet, not of piraguas and canoes, but even of good large vessels. But the main thing I looked at was to get one so near the water that we might launch it when it was made, to avoid the mistake I committed at first.
At last, Friday pitched upon a tree, for I found he knew much better than I what kind of wood was fittest for it; nor can I tell, to this day, what wood to call the tree we cut down, except that it was very like the tree we call fustic, or between that and the Nicaragua wood, for it was much of the same colour and smell. Friday was for burning the hollow or cavity of this tree out, to make it for a boat. But I showed him how rather to cut it out with tools, which after I showed him how to use, he did very handily; and in about a month’s hard labour, we finished it and made it very handsome, especially when with our axes, which I showed him how to handle, we cut and hewed the outside into the true shape of a boat; after this, however, it cost us near a fortnight’s time to get her along, as it were, inch by inch, upon great rollers into the water. But when she was in, she would have carried twenty men with great ease.
When she was in the water, and though she was so big, it amazed me to see with what dexterity and how swift my man Friday would manage her, turn her, and paddle her along; so I asked him if he would, and if we might venture over in her. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said, ‘‘he venture over in her very well, though great blow wind.’’ However, I had a further design that he knew nothing of, and that was to make a mast and sail, and to fit her with an anchor and cable. As to a mast, that was easy enough to get; so I pitched upon a straight young cedar tree, which I found near the place, and which there was great plenty of in the island; and I set Friday to work to cut it down, and gave him directions how to shape and order it. But as to the sail, that was my particular care; I knew I had old sails, or rather pieces of old sails, enough; but as I had had them now twenty-six years by me and had not been very careful to preserve them, not imagining that I should ever have this kind of use for them, I did not doubt but they were all rotten; and indeed most of them were so; however, I found two pieces which appeared pretty good, and with these I went to work, and with a great deal of pains, and awkward tedious stitching (you may be sure) for want of needles, I at length made a three-cornered ugly thing, like what we call in England a shoulder-of-mutton sail, to go with a boom at bottom, and a little short sprit at the top, such as usually our ships’ longboats sail with, and such as I best knew how to manage; because it was such a one as I had to the boat in which I made my escape from Barbary, as related in the first part of my story.
I was near two months performing this last work, viz., rigging and fitting my mast and sails; for I finished them very complete, making a small stay, and a sail, or foresail to it, to assist, if we should turn to windward; and which was more than all, I fixed a rudder to the stern of her, to steer with; and though I was but a bungling ship-wright, yet as I knew the usefulness and even necessity of such a thing, I applied myself with so much pains to do it that at last I brought it to pass, though considering the many dull contrivances I had for it that failed, I think it cost me almost as much labour as making the boat.
After all this was done too, I had my man Friday to teach as to what b
elonged to the navigation of my boat; for though he knew very well how to paddle a canoe, he knew nothing what belonged to a sail and a rudder, and was the most amazed when he saw me work the boat to and again in the sea by the rudder, and how the sail jibed, and filled this way or that way, as the course we sailed changed; I say, when he saw this, he stood like one astonished and amazed. However, with a little use I made all these things familiar to him; and he became an expert sailor, except that as to the compass, I could make him understand very little of that. On the other hand, as there was very little cloudy weather, and seldom or never any fogs in those parts, there was the less occasion for a compass, seeing the stars were always to be seen by night and the shore by day, except in the rainy seasons, and then nobody cared to stir abroad, either by land or sea.
I was now entered on the seven and twentieth year of my captivity in this place; though the three last years that I had this creature with me ought rather to be left out of the account, my habitation being quite of another kind than in all the rest of the time. I kept the anniversary of my landing here with the same thankfulness to God for His mercies as at first; and if I had such cause of acknowledgement at first, I had much more so now, having such additional testimonies of the care of Providence over me, and the great hopes I had of being effectually and speedily delivered; for I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts that my deliverance was at hand, and that I should not be another year in this place. However, I went on with my husbandry, digging, planting, fencing, as usual; I gathered and cured my grapes, and did every necessary thing, as before.
The rainy season was in the meantime upon me, when I kept more within doors than at other times; so I had stowed our new vessel as secure as we could, bringing her up into the creek, where, as I said in the beginning, I landed my rafts from the ship and, hauling her up to the shore, at high-water mark, I made my man Friday dig a little dock, just big enough to hold her, and just deep enough to give her water enough to float in; and then when the tide was out, we made a strong dam across the end of it, to keep the water out; and so she lay dry, as to the tide, from the sea; and to keep the rain off, we laid a great many boughs of trees so thick that she was as well thatched as a house; and thus we waited for the months of November and December, in which I designed to make my adventure.