The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (1801). Defoe Daniel

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ pieces of wood to thrust and guide it in the fall. But after this was done, I was still unable to stir it up, or to get under it, much less to move it forward towards the water, and so I was forced to give it over.

      This disapointment, however did not frighten me. I began to think whether it was not possible for me to make a canoe or perigua, such as the Indians make of the trunk of a tree, But here I lay under particular inconveniencies; want of tools to make it, and want of hands to move it in the water when it was made. However, to work I went upon it, stopping all the inquiries I could make, with this very simple answer I made to myself, Let's first make it, I'll warrant I'll find some way or other to get it along when it is done.

      I first cut down a cedar tree, which was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part next the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two feet, after which it lessened for a space, and then parted into branches. Twenty days was I a hacking and hewing this tree at the bottom, fourteen more in cutting off the branches and limbs, and a whole month in shaping it like the bottom of the boat. As for the inside, I was three weeks with a mallet and chissel, clearing it in such a manner, as that it was big enough to carry twenty-six men, much bigger than any canoe I ever saw in my life, and confequentiy sufficient to transport me and all my effects to that wished-for shore I so ardently desired.

      Nothing remained now, but, indeed, the greatest difficulty to get it into the water, it lying about one hundred yards from it. To remedy the first inconvenience, which was a rising hill between the boat and the creek, with wonderful pains and labour I dug into the bowels of the earth, and made a declivity. But when this was done, all the strength I had was as insufficient to remove it, as it was when I attempted to remove the boat. I then proceeded to measure the difference of ground, resolving to make a canal, in order to bring the water to the canoe, since I could not bring the canoe to the water. But as this seemed to be impracticable to myself alone, under the space of eleven or twelve years, it brought me into some sort of consideration: so that I concluded this also to be impossible, and the attempt altogether vain. I now saw, and not before, what stupidity it is to begin a work before we reckon its costs, or judge rightly our own abilities to go through with its performance.

      In the height of this work my fourth year expired, from the time I was cast on this island, At this time I did not forget my anniversary; but kept it with rather greater devotion than before. For now my hopes being frustrated, I looked upon this world as a thing had nothing to do with; and very well might I say as Father Abraham said unto Dives, Between thee and me there is a gulph fixed. And indeed I was separated from its wickedness too, having neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, nor the pride of life; I had nothing to covet, being lord, king and emperor over the whole country I had in possession, without dispute and without control: I had loadings of corn, plenty of turtles, timber in abundance, and grapes above measure. What was all the rest to me? the money I had lay by me as despicable dross, which I would freely have given for a gross of tobacco pipes, or a hard mill to grind my corn: in a word the-nature and experience of these things dictated to me this just reflection: That the good things of this world are no farther good to us, than they are for our use; and that whatever we may heap up to give to others, we can but enjoy as much as we use, and no more.

      These thoughts rendered my mind more easy than usual. Every time I sat down to meat, I did it with thankfulness, admiring the providential hand of God, who in this wilderness had spread a table to me. And now I considered what I enjoyed, rather than what I wanted, compared my present condition with what I at first expected it should be; how I should have done, if I had got nothing out of the ship, that I must have perished before I had caught fish or turtles; or lived, had I found them, like a mere savage, by eating them raw, and pulling them in pieces with my claws, like a beast. I next compared my station to that which I deserved: how undutiful I had been to my parents; how destitute of the fear of God; bow void of every thing that was good; and how ungrateful for those abundant mercies I had received from Heaven, being fed as it were, by a miracle, even as great as Elijah's being fed by ravens; and cast on a place where there is no venomous creatures to poison or devour me; in short making God's tender mercies matter of great consolation, I relinquished all sadness, and gave way to contentment.

      As long as my ink continued, which with water I made last as long as I could, I used to minute down the days of the month on which any remarkable event happened. – And,

      First, I observed, that the same day I forsook my parents and friends, and ran away to Hull, in order to go to sea, the same day afterwards in the next year, I was taken and made a slave by the Sallee rovers.

      That the very day I escaped out of the wreck of the ship in Yarmouth roads, a year after on the same day, I made my escape from Sallee in my patron' fishing boat.

      And on the 30th of September, being the day of the year I was born on, on that day twenty-six years after, was I miraculously saved, and cast ashore on this island.

      The next thing that wasted after my ink, was the biscuit which I had brought out of the ship, and though I allowed myself but one cake a day, for above a twelvemonth, yet I was quite out of bread for near a year, before I got any corn of my own.

      In the next place, my clothes began to decay, and my linen had been gone long before. However, I had preserved about three dozen of the sailors chequered shirts, which proved a great refreshment to me, when the violent beams of the sun would not suffer me to bear any of the seamen's heavy watch coats, which made me turn taylor, and, after a miserable botching manner, convert them to jackets. To preserve my head, I made me a cap of goat-skins, with the hair outwards to keep out the rain; which indeed served me so well, that afterwards I made me a waistcoat and opened-kneed breeches of the fame: And then I contrived a sort of an umbrella, covering it with skins, which not only kept out the heat of the sun, but rain also. Thus being easy, and settled in my mind, my chief happiness was to converse with God, in most heavenly and comfortable ejaculations.

      For five years after this I cannot say any extraordinary thing occured to me. My chief employment was to cure my raisins, and plant my barley and rice, of both which I had a year's provision beforehand. But though I was disapointed in my first canoe, I made it, at intermediate times, my business to make a second, of much inferior size; and it was two-years before I had finished it. But as I perceived it would no wife answer my design of failing to the other shore, my thoughts were consigned to take a tour round the island, to see what further discoveries I could make. To this intent, after having moved her to the water, and tried how she would sail, I fitted up a little raft to my boat, and made a sail of the ships sail that by me. I then made lockers or boxes at the end of it, to put in necessaries, provision, and ammunition, which would preserve them dry, either from rain or the spray of the sea; and in the inside of the boat, I cut me a long hollow place to lay my gun in, and to keep it dry made a flag to hang over it. My umbrella I fixed in a step in the stern, like a mast, to keep the heat of the sun off me. And now resolving to see the circumference of my little kingdom, I victualled my ship for the voyage, putting in two dozen of my barley-bread loaves, an earthen pot-full of parched rice, a little bottle of rum, half a goat, powder and shot, and two watch coats. It was the 6th of November, in the 6th year of my reign, or captivity, that I set out in this voyage; which was much longer than I expected, being obliged to put further out, by reason of the rocks that lay a great way in the sea. And indeed so much did these rocks surprise me, that I was for putting back, fearing that if I ventured farther it would be out of my power to return in this uncertainty I came to an anchor just off shore, to which I waded with my gun on my shoulder, and then climbing up a hill, which overlooked that point, I saw the full extent of it, and so resolved to run all hazards.

      In this prospect from the hill, I perceived a violent current running to the east, coming very close to the point; which I the more carefully observed, thinking it dangerous, and that when I came to it, I might be drove into the sea by its force, and not able to return to the island; and certainly it must have been so, had I not made this observation; for on the other side was the like current, with this difference, that it set off at a greater distance; СКАЧАТЬ