Robinson Crusoe

WRECKED ON A DESERT ISLAND

After this stop, we made on to the southward continually for ten or
twelve days, living very sparingly on our provisions, which began to
abate very much, and going no oftener to the shore than we were obliged
to for fresh water. My design in this was to make the river Gambia or
Senegal, that is to say anywhere about the Cape de Verde, where I was
in hopes to meet with some European ship; and if I did not, I knew not
what course I had to take, but to seek for the islands, or perish there
among the negroes. I knew that all the ships from Europe, which sailed
either to the coast of Guinea or to Brazil, or to the East Indies, made
this cape, or those islands; and, in a word, I put the whole of my
fortune upon this single point, either that I must meet with some ship
or must perish.

When I had pursued this resolution about ten days longer, as I have
said, I began to see that the land was inhabited; and in two or three
places, as we sailed by, we saw people stand upon the shore to look at
us; we could also perceive they were quite black and naked. I was once
inclined to have gone on shore to them; but Xury was my better
counsellor, and said to me, “No go, no go.” However, I hauled in nearer
the shore that I might talk to them, and I found they ran along the
shore by me a good way. I observed they had no weapons in their hand,
except one, who had a long slender stick, which Xury said was a lance,
and that they could throw them a great way with good aim; so I kept at
a distance, but talked with them by signs as well as I could; and
particularly made signs for something to eat: they beckoned to me to
stop my boat, and they would fetch me some meat. Upon this I lowered
the top of my sail and lay by, and two of them ran up into the country,
and in less than half-an-hour came back, and brought with them two
pieces of dried flesh and some corn, such as is the produce of their
country; but we neither knew what the one or the other was; however, we
were willing to accept it, but how to come at it was our next dispute,
for I would not venture on shore to them, and they were as much afraid
of us; but they took a safe way for us all, for they brought it to the
shore and laid it down, and went and stood a great way off till we
fetched it on board, and then came close to us again.

We made signs of thanks to them, for we had nothing to make them
amends; but an opportunity offered that very instant to oblige them
wonderfully; for while we were lying by the shore came two mighty
creatures, one pursuing the other (as we took it) with great fury from
the mountains towards the sea; whether it was the male pursuing the
female, or whether they were in sport or in rage, we could not tell,
any more than we could tell whether it was usual or strange, but I
believe it was the latter; because, in the first place, those ravenous
creatures seldom appear but in the night; and, in the second place, we
found the people terribly frighted, especially the women. The man that
had the lance or dart did not fly from them, but the rest did; however,
as the two creatures ran directly into the water, they did not offer to
fall upon any of the negroes, but plunged themselves into the sea, and
swam about, as if they had come for their diversion; at last one of
them began to come nearer our boat than at first I expected; but I lay
ready for him, for I had loaded my gun with all possible expedition,
and bade Xury load both the others. As soon as he came fairly within my
reach, I fired, and shot him directly in the head; immediately he sank
down into the water, but rose instantly, and plunged up and down, as if
he were struggling for life, and so indeed he was; he immediately made
to the shore; but between the wound, which was his mortal hurt, and the
strangling of the water, he died just before he reached the shore.

It is impossible to express the astonishment of these poor creatures at
the noise and fire of my gun: some of them were even ready to die for
fear, and fell down as dead with the very terror; but when they saw the
creature dead, and sunk in the water, and that I made signs to them to
come to the shore, they took heart and came, and began to search for
the creature. I found him by his blood staining the water; and by the
help of a rope, which I slung round him, and gave the negroes to haul,
they dragged him on shore, and found that it was a most curious
leopard, spotted, and fine to an admirable degree; and the negroes held
up their hands with admiration, to think what it was I had killed him
with.

The other creature, frighted with the flash of fire and the noise of
the gun, swam on shore, and ran up directly to the mountains from
whence they came; nor could I, at that distance, know what it was. I
found quickly the negroes wished to eat the flesh of this creature, so
I was willing to have them take it as a favour from me; which, when I
made signs to them that they might take him, they were very thankful
for. Immediately they fell to work with him; and though they had no
knife, yet, with a sharpened piece of wood, they took off his skin as
readily, and much more readily, than we could have done with a knife.
They offered me some of the flesh, which I declined, pointing out that
I would give it them; but made signs for the skin, which they gave me
very freely, and brought me a great deal more of their provisions,
which, though I did not understand, yet I accepted. I then made signs
to them for some water, and held out one of my jars to them, turning it
bottom upward, to show that it was empty, and that I wanted to have it
filled. They called immediately to some of their friends, and there
came two women, and brought a great vessel made of earth, and burnt, as
I supposed, in the sun, this they set down to me, as before, and I sent
Xury on shore with my jars, and filled them all three. The women were
as naked as the men.

I was now furnished with roots and corn, such as it was, and water; and
leaving my friendly negroes, I made forward for about eleven days more,
without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run out a
great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five
leagues before me; and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing
to make this point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues
from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward; then I
concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape de
Verde, and those the islands called, from thence, Cape de Verde
Islands. However, they were at a great distance, and I could not well
tell what I had best to do; for if I should be taken with a fresh of
wind, I might neither reach one or other.

In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the cabin and
sat down, Xury having the helm; when, on a sudden, the boy cried out,
“Master, master, a ship with a sail!” and the foolish boy was frighted
out of his wits, thinking it must needs be some of his master’s ships
sent to pursue us, but I knew we were far enough out of their reach. I
jumped out of the cabin, and immediately saw, not only the ship, but
that it was a Portuguese ship; and, as I thought, was bound to the
coast of Guinea, for negroes. But, when I observed the course she
steered, I was soon convinced they were bound some other way, and did
not design to come any nearer to the shore; upon which I stretched out
to sea as much as I could, resolving to speak with them if possible.

With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come in
their way, but that they would be gone by before I could make any
signal to them: but after I had crowded to the utmost, and began to
despair, they, it seems, saw by the help of their glasses that it was
some European boat, which they supposed must belong to some ship that
was lost; so they shortened sail to let me come up. I was encouraged
with this, and as I had my patron’s ancient on board, I made a waft of
it to them, for a signal of distress, and fired a gun, both which they
saw; for they told me they saw the smoke, though they did not hear the
gun. Upon these signals they very kindly brought to, and lay by for me;
and in about three hours’ time I came up with them.

They asked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in French,
but I understood none of them; but at last a Scotch sailor, who was on
board, called to me: and I answered him, and told him I was an
Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors, at
Sallee; they then bade me come on board, and very kindly took me in,
and all my goods.

It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will believe, that I
was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and almost
hopeless condition as I was in; and I immediately offered all I had to
the captain of the ship, as a return for my deliverance; but he
generously told me he would take nothing from me, but that all I had
should be delivered safe to me when I came to the Brazils. “For,” says
he, “I have saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to
be saved myself: and it may, one time or other, be my lot to be taken
up in the same condition. Besides,” said he, “when I carry you to the
Brazils, so great a way from your own country, if I should take from
you what you have, you will be starved there, and then I only take away
that life I have given. No, no,” says he: “Seignior Inglese” (Mr.
Englishman), “I will carry you thither in charity, and those things
will help to buy your subsistence there, and your passage home again.”

As he was charitable in this proposal, so he was just in the
performance to a tittle; for he ordered the seamen that none should
touch anything that I had: then he took everything into his own
possession, and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might
have them, even to my three earthen jars.

As to my boat, it was a very good one; and that he saw, and told me he
would buy it of me for his ship’s use; and asked me what I would have
for it? I told him he had been so generous to me in everything that I
could not offer to make any price of the boat, but left it entirely to
him: upon which he told me he would give me a note of hand to pay me
eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil; and when it came there, if any
one offered to give more, he would make it up. He offered me also sixty
pieces of eight more for my boy Xury, which I was loth to take; not
that I was unwilling to let the captain have him, but I was very loth
to sell the poor boy’s liberty, who had assisted me so faithfully in
procuring my own. However, when I let him know my reason, he owned it
to be just, and offered me this medium, that he would give the boy an
obligation to set him free in ten years, if he turned Christian: upon
this, and Xury saying he was willing to go to him, I let the captain
have him.

We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and I arrived in the Bay de
Todos los Santos, or All Saints’ Bay, in about twenty-two days after.
And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of all
conditions of life; and what to do next with myself I was to consider.

The generous treatment the captain gave me I can never enough remember:
he would take nothing of me for my passage, gave me twenty ducats for
the leopard’s skin, and forty for the lion’s skin, which I had in my
boat, and caused everything I had in the ship to be punctually
delivered to me; and what I was willing to sell he bought of me, such
as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of
beeswax—for I had made candles of the rest: in a word, I made about two
hundred and twenty pieces of eight of all my cargo; and with this stock
I went on shore in the Brazils.

I had not been long here before I was recommended to the house of a
good honest man like himself, who had an ingenio, as they call it
(that is, a plantation and a sugar-house). I lived with him some time,
and acquainted myself by that means with the manner of planting and
making of sugar; and seeing how well the planters lived, and how they
got rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get a licence to settle
there, I would turn planter among them: resolving in the meantime to
find out some way to get my money, which I had left in London, remitted
to me. To this purpose, getting a kind of letter of naturalisation, I
purchased as much land that was uncured as my money would reach, and
formed a plan for my plantation and settlement; such a one as might be
suitable to the stock which I proposed to myself to receive from
England.

I had a neighbour, a Portuguese, of Lisbon, but born of English
parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such circumstances as I was.
I call him my neighbour, because his plantation lay next to mine, and
we went on very sociably together. My stock was but low, as well as
his; and we rather planted for food than anything else, for about two
years. However, we began to increase, and our land began to come into
order; so that the third year we planted some tobacco, and made each of
us a large piece of ground ready for planting canes in the year to
come. But we both wanted help; and now I found, more than before, I had
done wrong in parting with my boy Xury.

But, alas! for me to do wrong that never did right, was no great
wonder. I had no remedy but to go on: I had got into an employment
quite remote to my genius, and directly contrary to the life I
delighted in, and for which I forsook my father’s house, and broke
through all his good advice. Nay, I was coming into the very middle
station, or upper degree of low life, which my father advised me to
before, and which, if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have
stayed at home, and never have fatigued myself in the world as I had
done; and I used often to say to myself, I could have done this as well
in England, among my friends, as have gone five thousand miles off to
do it among strangers and savages, in a wilderness, and at such a
distance as never to hear from any part of the world that had the least
knowledge of me.

In this manner I used to look upon my condition with the utmost regret.
I had nobody to converse with, but now and then this neighbour; no work
to be done, but by the labour of my hands; and I used to say, I lived
just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had nobody
there but himself. But how just has it been—and how should all men
reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others
that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be
convinced of their former felicity by their experience—I say, how just
has it been, that the truly solitary life I reflected on, in an island
of mere desolation, should be my lot, who had so often unjustly
compared it with the life which I then led, in which, had I continued,
I had in all probability been exceeding prosperous and rich.

I was in some degree settled in my measures for carrying on the
plantation before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that took me
up at sea, went back—for the ship remained there, in providing his
lading and preparing for his voyage, nearly three months—when telling
him what little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this
friendly and sincere advice:—“Seignior Inglese,” says he (for so he
always called me), “if you will give me letters, and a procuration in
form to me, with orders to the person who has your money in London to
send your effects to Lisbon, to such persons as I shall direct, and in
such goods as are proper for this country, I will bring you the produce
of them, God willing, at my return; but, since human affairs are all
subject to changes and disasters, I would have you give orders but for
one hundred pounds sterling, which, you say, is half your stock, and
let the hazard be run for the first; so that, if it come safe, you may
order the rest the same way, and, if it miscarry, you may have the
other half to have recourse to for your supply.”

This was so wholesome advice, and looked so friendly, that I could not
but be convinced it was the best course I could take; so I accordingly
prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I had left my money, and
a procuration to the Portuguese captain, as he desired.

I wrote the English captain’s widow a full account of all my
adventures—my slavery, escape, and how I had met with the Portuguese
captain at sea, the humanity of his behaviour, and what condition I was
now in, with all other necessary directions for my supply; and when
this honest captain came to Lisbon, he found means, by some of the
English merchants there, to send over, not the order only, but a full
account of my story to a merchant in London, who represented it
effectually to her; whereupon she not only delivered the money, but out
of her own pocket sent the Portugal captain a very handsome present for
his humanity and charity to me.

The merchant in London, vesting this hundred pounds in English goods,
such as the captain had written for, sent them directly to him at
Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me to the Brazils; among which,
without my direction (for I was too young in my business to think of
them), he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, ironwork, and
utensils necessary for my plantation, and which were of great use to
me.

When this cargo arrived I thought my fortune made, for I was surprised
with the joy of it; and my good steward, the captain, had laid out the
five pounds, which my friend had sent him for a present for himself, to
purchase and bring me over a servant, under bond for six years’
service, and would not accept of any consideration, except a little
tobacco, which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.

Neither was this all; for my goods being all English manufacture, such
as cloths, stuffs, baize, and things particularly valuable and
desirable in the country, I found means to sell them to a very great
advantage; so that I might say I had more than four times the value of
my first cargo, and was now infinitely beyond my poor neighbour—I mean
in the advancement of my plantation; for the first thing I did, I
bought me a negro slave, and an European servant also—I mean another
besides that which the captain brought me from Lisbon.

But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our
greatest adversity, so it was with me. I went on the next year with
great success in my plantation: I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco
on my own ground, more than I had disposed of for necessaries among my
neighbours; and these fifty rolls, being each of above a hundredweight,
were well cured, and laid by against the return of the fleet from
Lisbon: and now increasing in business and wealth, my head began to be
full of projects and undertakings beyond my reach; such as are, indeed,
often the ruin of the best heads in business. Had I continued in the
station I was now in, I had room for all the happy things to have yet
befallen me for which my father so earnestly recommended a quiet,
retired life, and of which he had so sensibly described the middle
station of life to be full of; but other things attended me, and I was
still to be the wilful agent of all my own miseries; and particularly,
to increase my fault, and double the reflections upon myself, which in
my future sorrows I should have leisure to make, all these miscarriages
were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish
inclination of wandering abroad, and pursuing that inclination, in
contradiction to the clearest views of doing myself good in a fair and
plain pursuit of those prospects, and those measures of life, which
nature and Providence concurred to present me with, and to make my
duty.

As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my parents, so I could
not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy view I had of
being a rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a
rash and immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the
thing admitted; and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulf
of human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent
with life and a state of health in the world.

To come, then, by the just degrees to the particulars of this part of
my story. You may suppose, that having now lived almost four years in
the Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my
plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted
acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among
the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port; and that, in my
discourses among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two
voyages to the coast of Guinea: the manner of trading with the negroes
there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the coast for trifles—such
as beads, toys, knives, scissors, hatchets, bits of glass, and the
like—not only gold-dust, Guinea grains, elephants’ teeth, &c., but
negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers.

They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads,
but especially to that part which related to the buying of negroes,
which was a trade at that time, not only not far entered into, but, as
far as it was, had been carried on by assientos, or permission of the
kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the public stock: so that
few negroes were bought, and these excessively dear.

It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my
acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them
came to me next morning, and told me they had been musing very much
upon what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they came
to make a secret proposal to me; and, after enjoining me to secrecy,
they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea;
that they had all plantations as well as I, and were straitened for
nothing so much as servants; that as it was a trade that could not be
carried on, because they could not publicly sell the negroes when they
came home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the negroes
on shore privately, and divide them among their own plantations; and,
in a word, the question was whether I would go their supercargo in the
ship, to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they
offered me that I should have my equal share of the negroes, without
providing any part of the stock.

This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to any
one that had not had a settlement and a plantation of his own to look
after, which was in a fair way of coming to be very considerable, and
with a good stock upon it; but for me, that was thus entered and
established, and had nothing to do but to go on as I had begun, for
three or four years more, and to have sent for the other hundred pounds
from England; and who in that time, and with that little addition,
could scarce have failed of being worth three or four thousand pounds
sterling, and that increasing too—for me to think of such a voyage was
the most preposterous thing that ever man in such circumstances could
be guilty of.

But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the
offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs when my father’s
good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I would go with
all my heart, if they would undertake to look after my plantation in my
absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct, if I
miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings or
covenants to do so; and I made a formal will, disposing of my
plantation and effects in case of my death, making the captain of the
ship that had saved my life, as before, my universal heir, but obliging
him to dispose of my effects as I had directed in my will; one half of
the produce being to himself, and the other to be shipped to England.

In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects and to
keep up my plantation. Had I used half as much prudence to have looked
into my own interest, and have made a judgment of what I ought to have
done and not to have done, I had certainly never gone away from so
prosperous an undertaking, leaving all the probable views of a thriving
circumstance, and gone upon a voyage to sea, attended with all its
common hazards, to say nothing of the reasons I had to expect
particular misfortunes to myself.

But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my fancy
rather than my reason; and, accordingly, the ship being fitted out, and
the cargo furnished, and all things done, as by agreement, by my
partners in the voyage, I went on board in an evil hour, the 1st
September 1659, being the same day eight years that I went from my
father and mother at Hull, in order to act the rebel to their
authority, and the fool to my own interests.

Our ship was about one hundred and twenty tons burden, carried six guns
and fourteen men, besides the master, his boy, and myself. We had on
board no large cargo of goods, except of such toys as were fit for our
trade with the negroes, such as beads, bits of glass, shells, and other
trifles, especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissors, hatchets,
and the like.

The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away to the
northward upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for the
African coast when we came about ten or twelve degrees of northern
latitude, which, it seems, was the manner of course in those days. We
had very good weather, only excessively hot, all the way upon our own
coast, till we came to the height of Cape St. Augustino; from whence,
keeping further off at sea, we lost sight of land, and steered as if we
were bound for the isle Fernando de Noronha, holding our course N.E. by
N., and leaving those isles on the east. In this course we passed the
line in about twelve days’ time, and were, by our last observation, in
seven degrees twenty-two minutes northern latitude, when a violent
tornado, or hurricane, took us quite out of our knowledge. It began
from the south-east, came about to the north-west, and then settled in
the north-east; from whence it blew in such a terrible manner, that for
twelve days together we could do nothing but drive, and, scudding away
before it, let it carry us whither fate and the fury of the winds
directed; and, during these twelve days, I need not say that I expected
every day to be swallowed up; nor, indeed, did any in the ship expect
to save their lives.

In this distress we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of our
men die of the calenture, and one man and the boy washed overboard.
About the twelfth day, the weather abating a little, the master made an
observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about eleven
degrees north latitude, but that he was twenty-two degrees of longitude
difference west from Cape St. Augustino; so that he found he was upon
the coast of Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river
Amazon, toward that of the river Orinoco, commonly called the Great
River; and began to consult with me what course he should take, for the
ship was leaky, and very much disabled, and he was going directly back
to the coast of Brazil.

I was positively against that; and looking over the charts of the
sea-coast of America with him, we concluded there was no inhabited
country for us to have recourse to till we came within the circle of
the Caribbee Islands, and therefore resolved to stand away for
Barbadoes; which, by keeping off at sea, to avoid the indraft of the
Bay or Gulf of Mexico, we might easily perform, as we hoped, in about
fifteen days’ sail; whereas we could not possibly make our voyage to
the coast of Africa without some assistance both to our ship and to
ourselves.

With this design we changed our course, and steered away N.W. by W., in
order to reach some of our English islands, where I hoped for relief.
But our voyage was otherwise determined; for, being in the latitude of
twelve degrees eighteen minutes, a second storm came upon us, which
carried us away with the same impetuosity westward, and drove us so out
of the way of all human commerce, that, had all our lives been saved as
to the sea, we were rather in danger of being devoured by savages than
ever returning to our own country.

In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men
early in the morning cried out, “Land!” and we had no sooner run out of
the cabin to look out, in hopes of seeing whereabouts in the world we
were, than the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment her motion
being so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner that we
expected we should all have perished immediately; and we were
immediately driven into our close quarters, to shelter us from the very
foam and spray of the sea.

It is not easy for any one who has not been in the like condition to
describe or conceive the consternation of men in such circumstances. We
knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was we were
driven—whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not
inhabited. As the rage of the wind was still great, though rather less
than at first, we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many
minutes without breaking into pieces, unless the winds, by a kind of
miracle, should turn immediately about. In a word, we sat looking upon
one another, and expecting death every moment, and every man,
accordingly, preparing for another world; for there was little or
nothing more for us to do in this. That which was our present comfort,
and all the comfort we had, was that, contrary to our expectation, the
ship did not break yet, and that the master said the wind began to
abate.

Now, though we thought that the wind did a little abate, yet the ship
having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to
expect her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and had
nothing to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we could. We
had a boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was first staved
by dashing against the ship’s rudder, and in the next place she broke
away, and either sunk or was driven off to sea; so there was no hope
from her. We had another boat on board, but how to get her off into the
sea was a doubtful thing. However, there was no time to debate, for we
fancied that the ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told
us she was actually broken already.

In this distress the mate of our vessel laid hold of the boat, and with
the help of the rest of the men got her slung over the ship’s side; and
getting all into her, let go, and committed ourselves, being eleven in
number, to God’s mercy and the wild sea; for though the storm was
abated considerably, yet the sea ran dreadfully high upon the shore,
and might be well called den wild zee, as the Dutch call the sea in a
storm.

And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly that
the sea went so high that the boat could not live, and that we should
be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor if we had
could we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards
the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we
all knew that when the boat came near the shore she would be dashed in
a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we committed our
souls to God in the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us
towards the shore, we hastened our destruction with our own hands,
pulling as well as we could towards land.

What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal, we
knew not. The only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow
of expectation was, if we might find some bay or gulf, or the mouth of
some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got
under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was
nothing like this appeared; but as we made nearer and nearer the shore,
the land looked more frightful than the sea.

After we had rowed, or rather driven about a league and a half, as we
reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us,
and plainly bade us expect the coup de grâce. It took us with such a
fury, that it overset the boat at once; and separating us as well from
the boat as from one another, gave us no time to say, “O God!” for we
were all swallowed up in a moment.

Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt when I sank
into the water; for though I swam very well, yet I could not deliver
myself from the waves so as to draw breath, till that wave having
driven me, or rather carried me, a vast way on towards the shore, and
having spent itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry,
but half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind,
as well as breath left, that seeing myself nearer the mainland than I
expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavoured to make on towards the
land as fast as I could before another wave should return and take me
up again; but I soon found it was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the
sea come after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy,
which I had no means or strength to contend with: my business was to
hold my breath, and raise myself upon the water if I could; and so, by
swimming, to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself towards the shore,
if possible, my greatest concern now being that the sea, as it would
carry me a great way towards the shore when it came on, might not carry
me back again with it when it gave back towards the sea.

The wave that came upon me again buried me at once twenty or thirty
feet deep in its own body, and I could feel myself carried with a
mighty force and swiftness towards the shore—a very great way; but I
held my breath, and assisted myself to swim still forward with all my
might. I was ready to burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt
myself rising up, so, to my immediate relief, I found my head and hands
shoot out above the surface of the water; and though it was not two
seconds of time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me
greatly, gave me breath, and new courage. I was covered again with
water a good while, but not so long but I held it out; and finding the
water had spent itself, and began to return, I struck forward against
the return of the waves, and felt ground again with my feet. I stood
still a few moments to recover breath, and till the waters went from
me, and then took to my heels and ran with what strength I had further
towards the shore. But neither would this deliver me from the fury of
the sea, which came pouring in after me again; and twice more I was
lifted up by the waves and carried forward as before, the shore being
very flat.

The last time of these two had well-nigh been fatal to me, for the sea
having hurried me along as before, landed me, or rather dashed me,
against a piece of rock, and that with such force, that it left me
senseless, and indeed helpless, as to my own deliverance; for the blow
taking my side and breast, beat the breath as it were quite out of my
body; and had it returned again immediately, I must have been strangled
in the water; but I recovered a little before the return of the waves,
and seeing I should be covered again with the water, I resolved to hold
fast by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath, if possible,
till the wave went back. Now, as the waves were not so high as at
first, being nearer land, I held my hold till the wave abated, and then
fetched another run, which brought me so near the shore that the next
wave, though it went over me, yet did not so swallow me up as to carry
me away; and the next run I took, I got to the mainland, where, to my
great comfort, I clambered up the cliffs of the shore and sat me down
upon the grass, free from danger and quite out of the reach of the
water.

I was now landed and safe on shore, and began to look up and thank God
that my life was saved, in a case wherein there was some minutes before
scarce any room to hope. I believe it is impossible to express, to the
life, what the ecstasies and transports of the soul are, when it is so
saved, as I may say, out of the very grave: and I do not wonder now at
the custom, when a malefactor, who has the halter about his neck, is
tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought to
him—I say, I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let
him blood that very moment they tell him of it, that the surprise may
not drive the animal spirits from the heart and overwhelm him.

“For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first.”

I walked about on the shore lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as
I may say, wrapped up in a contemplation of my deliverance; making a
thousand gestures and motions, which I cannot describe; reflecting upon
all my comrades that were drowned, and that there should not be one
soul saved but myself; for, as for them, I never saw them afterwards,
or any sign of them, except three of their hats, one cap, and two shoes
that were not fellows.

I cast my eye to the stranded vessel, when, the breach and froth of the
sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far off; and
considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore?

After I had solaced my mind with the comfortable part of my condition,
I began to look round me, to see what kind of place I was in, and what
was next to be done; and I soon found my comforts abate, and that, in a
word, I had a dreadful deliverance; for I was wet, had no clothes to
shift me, nor anything either to eat or drink to comfort me; neither
did I see any prospect before me but that of perishing with hunger or
being devoured by wild beasts; and that which was particularly
afflicting to me was, that I had no weapon, either to hunt and kill any
creature for my sustenance, or to defend myself against any other
creature that might desire to kill me for theirs. In a word, I had
nothing about me but a knife, a tobacco-pipe, and a little tobacco in a
box. This was all my provisions; and this threw me into such terrible
agonies of mind, that for a while I ran about like a madman. Night
coming upon me, I began with a heavy heart to consider what would be my
lot if there were any ravenous beasts in that country, as at night they
always come abroad for their prey.

All the remedy that offered to my thoughts at that time was to get up
into a thick bushy tree like a fir, but thorny, which grew near me, and
where I resolved to sit all night, and consider the next day what death
I should die, for as yet I saw no prospect of life. I walked about a
furlong from the shore, to see if I could find any fresh water to
drink, which I did, to my great joy; and having drank, and put a little
tobacco into my mouth to prevent hunger, I went to the tree, and
getting up into it, endeavoured to place myself so that if I should
sleep I might not fall. And having cut me a short stick, like a
truncheon, for my defence, I took up my lodging; and having been
excessively fatigued, I fell fast asleep, and slept as comfortably as,
I believe, few could have done in my condition, and found myself more
refreshed with it than, I think, I ever was on such an occasion.