Robinson Crusoe

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

I had now been in this unhappy island above ten months. All possibility
of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from me;
and I firmly believe that no human shape had ever set foot upon that
place. Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my
mind, I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the
island, and to see what other productions I might find, which I yet
knew nothing of.

It was on the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular
survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I
hinted, I brought my rafts on shore. I found after I came about two
miles up, that the tide did not flow any higher, and that it was no
more than a little brook of running water, very fresh and good; but
this being the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of
it—at least not enough to run in any stream, so as it could be
perceived. On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs
or meadows, plain, smooth, and covered with grass; and on the rising
parts of them, next to the higher grounds, where the water, as might be
supposed, never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and
growing to a great and very strong stalk. There were divers other
plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that might,
perhaps, have virtues of their own, which I could not find out. I
searched for the cassava root, which the Indians, in all that climate,
make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of
aloes, but did not understand them. I saw several sugar-canes, but
wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented myself with
these discoveries for this time, and came back, musing with myself what
course I might take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the
fruits or plants which I should discover, but could bring it to no
conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little observation while I was
in the Brazils, that I knew little of the plants in the field; at
least, very little that might serve to any purpose now in my distress.

The next day, the sixteenth, I went up the same way again; and after
going something further than I had gone the day before, I found the
brook and the savannahs cease, and the country become more woody than
before. In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found
melons upon the ground, in great abundance, and grapes upon the trees.
The vines had spread, indeed, over the trees, and the clusters of
grapes were just now in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a
surprising discovery, and I was exceeding glad of them; but I was
warned by my experience to eat sparingly of them; remembering that when
I was ashore in Barbary, the eating of grapes killed several of our
Englishmen, who were slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes and
fevers. But I found an excellent use for these grapes; and that was, to
cure or dry them in the sun, and keep them as dried grapes or raisins
are kept, which I thought would be, as indeed they were, wholesome and
agreeable to eat when no grapes could be had.

I spent all that evening there, and went not back to my habitation;
which, by the way, was the first night, as I might say, I had lain from
home. In the night, I took my first contrivance, and got up in a tree,
where I slept well; and the next morning proceeded upon my discovery;
travelling nearly four miles, as I might judge by the length of the
valley, keeping still due north, with a ridge of hills on the south and
north side of me. At the end of this march I came to an opening where
the country seemed to descend to the west; and a little spring of fresh
water, which issued out of the side of the hill by me, ran the other
way, that is, due east; and the country appeared so fresh, so green, so
flourishing, everything being in a constant verdure or flourish of
spring that it looked like a planted garden. I descended a little on
the side of that delicious vale, surveying it with a secret kind of
pleasure, though mixed with my other afflicting thoughts, to think that
this was all my own; that I was king and lord of all this country
indefensibly, and had a right of possession; and if I could convey it,
I might have it in inheritance as completely as any lord of a manor in
England. I saw here abundance of cocoa trees, orange, and lemon, and
citron trees; but all wild, and very few bearing any fruit, at least
not then. However, the green limes that I gathered were not only
pleasant to eat, but very wholesome; and I mixed their juice afterwards
with water, which made it very wholesome, and very cool and refreshing.
I found now I had business enough to gather and carry home; and I
resolved to lay up a store as well of grapes as limes and lemons, to
furnish myself for the wet season, which I knew was approaching. In
order to do this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, a
lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of limes and lemons in
another place; and taking a few of each with me, I travelled homewards;
resolving to come again, and bring a bag or sack, or what I could make,
to carry the rest home. Accordingly, having spent three days in this
journey, I came home (so I must now call my tent and my cave); but
before I got thither the grapes were spoiled; the richness of the fruit
and the weight of the juice having broken them and bruised them, they
were good for little or nothing; as to the limes, they were good, but I
could bring but a few.

The next day, being the nineteenth, I went back, having made me two
small bags to bring home my harvest; but I was surprised, when coming
to my heap of grapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them,
to find them all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some
here, some there, and abundance eaten and devoured. By this I concluded
there were some wild creatures thereabouts, which had done this; but
what they were I knew not. However, as I found there was no laying them
up on heaps, and no carrying them away in a sack, but that one way they
would be destroyed, and the other way they would be crushed with their
own weight, I took another course; for I gathered a large quantity of
the grapes, and hung upon the out-branches of the trees, that they
might cure and dry in the sun; and as for the limes and lemons, I
carried as many back as I could well stand under.

When I came home from this journey, I contemplated with great pleasure
the fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of the situation;
the security from storms on that side of the water, and the wood: and
concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode which was by
far the worst part of the country. Upon the whole, I began to consider
of removing my habitation, and looking out for a place equally safe as
where now I was situate, if possible, in that pleasant, fruitful part
of the island.

This thought ran long in my head, and I was exceeding fond of it for
some time, the pleasantness of the place tempting me; but when I came
to a nearer view of it, I considered that I was now by the seaside,
where it was at least possible that something might happen to my
advantage, and, by the same ill fate that brought me hither might bring
some other unhappy wretches to the same place; and though it was scarce
probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself
among the hills and woods in the centre of the island was to anticipate
my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, but
impossible; and that therefore I ought not by any means to remove.
However, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spent much of my time
there for the whole of the remaining part of the month of July; and
though upon second thoughts, I resolved not to remove, yet I built me a
little kind of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance with a strong
fence, being a double hedge, as high as I could reach, well staked and
filled between with brushwood; and here I lay very secure, sometimes
two or three nights together; always going over it with a ladder; so
that I fancied now I had my country house and my sea-coast house; and
this work took me up to the beginning of August.

I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my labour, when
the rains came on, and made me stick close to my first habitation; for
though I had made me a tent like the other, with a piece of a sail, and
spread it very well, yet I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me
from storms, nor a cave behind me to retreat into when the rains were
extraordinary.

About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished my bower, and
began to enjoy myself. The 3rd of August, I found the grapes I had hung
up perfectly dried, and, indeed, were excellent good raisins of the
sun; so I began to take them down from the trees, and it was very happy
that I did so, for the rains which followed would have spoiled them,
and I had lost the best part of my winter food; for I had above two
hundred large bunches of them. No sooner had I taken them all down, and
carried the most of them home to my cave, than it began to rain; and
from hence, which was the 14th of August, it rained, more or less,
every day till the middle of October; and sometimes so violently, that
I could not stir out of my cave for several days.

In this season I was much surprised with the increase of my family; I
had been concerned for the loss of one of my cats, who ran away from
me, or, as I thought, had been dead, and I heard no more tidings of her
till, to my astonishment, she came home about the end of August with
three kittens. This was the more strange to me because, though I had
killed a wild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought it was
quite a different kind from our European cats; but the young cats were
the same kind of house-breed as the old one; and both my cats being
females, I thought it very strange. But from these three cats I
afterwards came to be so pestered with cats that I was forced to kill
them like vermin or wild beasts, and to drive them from my house as
much as possible.

From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain, so that I could
not stir, and was now very careful not to be much wet. In this
confinement, I began to be straitened for food: but venturing out
twice, I one day killed a goat; and the last day, which was the 26th,
found a very large tortoise, which was a treat to me, and my food was
regulated thus: I ate a bunch of raisins for my breakfast; a piece of
the goat’s flesh, or of the turtle, for my dinner, broiled—for, to my
great misfortune, I had no vessel to boil or stew anything; and two or
three of the turtle’s eggs for my supper.

During this confinement in my cover by the rain, I worked daily two or
three hours at enlarging my cave, and by degrees worked it on towards
one side, till I came to the outside of the hill, and made a door or
way out, which came beyond my fence or wall; and so I came in and out
this way. But I was not perfectly easy at lying so open; for, as I had
managed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure; whereas now I
thought I lay exposed, and open for anything to come in upon me; and
yet I could not perceive that there was any living thing to fear, the
biggest creature that I had yet seen upon the island being a goat.

Sept. 30.—I was now come to the unhappy anniversary of my landing. I
cast up the notches on my post, and found I had been on shore three
hundred and sixty-five days. I kept this day as a solemn fast, setting
it apart for religious exercise, prostrating myself on the ground with
the most serious humiliation, confessing my sins to God, acknowledging
His righteous judgments upon me, and praying to Him to have mercy on me
through Jesus Christ; and not having tasted the least refreshment for
twelve hours, even till the going down of the sun, I then ate a
biscuit-cake and a bunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day
as I began it. I had all this time observed no Sabbath day; for as at
first I had no sense of religion upon my mind, I had, after some time,
omitted to distinguish the weeks, by making a longer notch than
ordinary for the Sabbath day, and so did not really know what any of
the days were; but now, having cast up the days as above, I found I had
been there a year; so I divided it into weeks, and set apart every
seventh day for a Sabbath; though I found at the end of my account I
had lost a day or two in my reckoning. A little after this, my ink
began to fail me, and so I contented myself to use it more sparingly,
and to write down only the most remarkable events of my life, without
continuing a daily memorandum of other things.

The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear regular to me,
and I learned to divide them so as to provide for them accordingly; but
I bought all my experience before I had it, and this I am going to
relate was one of the most discouraging experiments that I made.

I have mentioned that I had saved the few ears of barley and rice,
which I had so surprisingly found spring up, as I thought, of
themselves, and I believe there were about thirty stalks of rice, and
about twenty of barley; and now I thought it a proper time to sow it,
after the rains, the sun being in its southern position, going from me.
Accordingly, I dug up a piece of ground as well as I could with my
wooden spade, and dividing it into two parts, I sowed my grain; but as
I was sowing, it casually occurred to my thoughts that I would not sow
it all at first, because I did not know when was the proper time for
it, so I sowed about two-thirds of the seed, leaving about a handful of
each. It was a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not
one grain of what I sowed this time came to anything: for the dry
months following, the earth having had no rain after the seed was sown,
it had no moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at all till
the wet season had come again, and then it grew as if it had been but
newly sown. Finding my first seed did not grow, which I easily imagined
was by the drought, I sought for a moister piece of ground to make
another trial in, and I dug up a piece of ground near my new bower, and
sowed the rest of my seed in February, a little before the vernal
equinox; and this having the rainy months of March and April to water
it, sprung up very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having
part of the seed left only, and not daring to sow all that I had, I had
but a small quantity at last, my whole crop not amounting to above half
a peck of each kind. But by this experiment I was made master of my
business, and knew exactly when the proper season was to sow, and that
I might expect two seed-times and two harvests every year.

While this corn was growing I made a little discovery, which was of use
to me afterwards. As soon as the rains were over, and the weather began
to settle, which was about the month of November, I made a visit up the
country to my bower, where, though I had not been some months, yet I
found all things just as I left them. The circle or double hedge that I
had made was not only firm and entire, but the stakes which I had cut
out of some trees that grew thereabouts were all shot out and grown
with long branches, as much as a willow-tree usually shoots the first
year after lopping its head. I could not tell what tree to call it that
these stakes were cut from. I was surprised, and yet very well pleased,
to see the young trees grow; and I pruned them, and led them up to grow
as much alike as I could; and it is scarce credible how beautiful a
figure they grew into in three years; so that though the hedge made a
circle of about twenty-five yards in diameter, yet the trees, for such
I might now call them, soon covered it, and it was a complete shade,
sufficient to lodge under all the dry season. This made me resolve to
cut some more stakes, and make me a hedge like this, in a semi-circle
round my wall (I mean that of my first dwelling), which I did; and
placing the trees or stakes in a double row, at about eight yards
distance from my first fence, they grew presently, and were at first a
fine cover to my habitation, and afterwards served for a defence also,
as I shall observe in its order.

I found now that the seasons of the year might generally be divided,
not into summer and winter, as in Europe, but into the rainy seasons
and the dry seasons, which were generally thus:—The half of February,
the whole of March, and the half of April—rainy, the sun being then on
or near the equinox.

The half of April, the whole of May, June, and July, and the half of
August—dry, the sun being then to the north of the line.

The half of August, the whole of September, and the half of
October—rainy, the sun being then come back.

The half of October, the whole of November, December, and January, and
the half of February—dry, the sun being then to the south of the line.

The rainy seasons sometimes held longer or shorter as the winds
happened to blow, but this was the general observation I made. After I
had found by experience the ill consequences of being abroad in the
rain, I took care to furnish myself with provisions beforehand, that I
might not be obliged to go out, and I sat within doors as much as
possible during the wet months. This time I found much employment, and
very suitable also to the time, for I found great occasion for many
things which I had no way to furnish myself with but by hard labour and
constant application; particularly I tried many ways to make myself a
basket, but all the twigs I could get for the purpose proved so brittle
that they would do nothing. It proved of excellent advantage to me now,
that when I was a boy, I used to take great delight in standing at a
basket-maker’s, in the town where my father lived, to see them make
their wicker-ware; and being, as boys usually are, very officious to
help, and a great observer of the manner in which they worked those
things, and sometimes lending a hand, I had by these means full
knowledge of the methods of it, and I wanted nothing but the materials,
when it came into my mind that the twigs of that tree from whence I cut
my stakes that grew might possibly be as tough as the sallows, willows,
and osiers in England, and I resolved to try. Accordingly, the next day
I went to my country house, as I called it, and cutting some of the
smaller twigs, I found them to my purpose as much as I could desire;
whereupon I came the next time prepared with a hatchet to cut down a
quantity, which I soon found, for there was great plenty of them. These
I set up to dry within my circle or hedge, and when they were fit for
use I carried them to my cave; and here, during the next season, I
employed myself in making, as well as I could, a great many baskets,
both to carry earth or to carry or lay up anything, as I had occasion;
and though I did not finish them very handsomely, yet I made them
sufficiently serviceable for my purpose; thus, afterwards, I took care
never to be without them; and as my wicker-ware decayed, I made more,
especially strong, deep baskets to place my corn in, instead of sacks,
when I should come to have any quantity of it.

Having mastered this difficulty, and employed a world of time about it,
I bestirred myself to see, if possible, how to supply two wants. I had
no vessels to hold anything that was liquid, except two runlets, which
were almost full of rum, and some glass bottles—some of the common
size, and others which were case bottles, square, for the holding of
water, spirits, &c. I had not so much as a pot to boil anything, except
a great kettle, which I saved out of the ship, and which was too big
for such as I desired it—viz. to make broth, and stew a bit of meat by
itself. The second thing I fain would have had was a tobacco-pipe, but
it was impossible to me to make one; however, I found a contrivance for
that, too, at last. I employed myself in planting my second rows of
stakes or piles, and in this wicker-working all the summer or dry
season, when another business took me up more time than it could be
imagined I could spare.