But I am singled out, too, from all the ship’s crew, to be spared from death; and He that miraculously saved me from death, can deliver me from this condition.
But I am not starved and perishing on a barren place, affording no sustenance.
But I am in a hot climate, where, if I had clothes, I could hardly wear them.
But I am cast on an island where I see no wild beasts to hurt me, as I saw on the coast of Africa; and what if I had been shipwrecked there?
But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have gotten out so many necessary things as will either supply my wants, or enable me to supply myself, even as long as I live.
Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; and let this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world, that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and to set in the description of good and evil on the credit side of the account.
Having now brought my mind a little to relish my condition, and given over looking out to sea, to see if I could spy a ship – I say, giving over these things, I began to apply myself to accommodate my way of living, and to make things as easy to me as I could.
I have already described my habitation, which was a tent, under the side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables; but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up against it of turfs, about two feet thick on the outside; and after some time – I think it was a year and a half – I raised rafters from it, leaning to the rock, and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees, and such things as I could get to keep out the rain, which I found at some times of the year very violent.
I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale, and into the cave which I had made behind me: but I must observe, too, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, which, as they lay in no order, so they took up all my place: I had no room to turn myself, so I set myself to enlarge my cave and works farther into the earth; for it was a loose, sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed on it – and so, when I found I was pretty safe as to beasts of prey, I worked sideways to the right hand into the rock: and then, turning to the right again, worked quite out, and made me a door to come out, on the outside of my pale, or fortification.
This gave me not only egress and regress, as it were a back way to my tent and to my storehouse, but gave me room to stow my goods.
And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I found I most wanted, particularly a chair and a table; for without these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world – I could not write, or eat, or do several things with so much pleasure without a table.,
So I went to work; and here I must needs observe, that as reason is the substance and original of the mathematics, so, by stating and squaring everything by reason, and by making the most rational judgment of things, every man may be in time master of every mechanic art. I had never handled a tool in my life, and yet in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools; however, I made abundance of things even without tools, and some with no more tools than an adze and a hatchet, which perhaps, were never made that way before, and that with infinite labour – for example, if I wanted a board, I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on edge before me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I had brought it to be as thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze. It is true, by this method I could make but one board out of a whole tree; but this I had no remedy for but patience, any more than I had for the prodigious deal of time and labour which it took me up to make a plank or board; but my time and labour were little worth, and so they were as well employed one way as another.
However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the first place – and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that I brought on my raft from the ship: but, when I had wrought out some boards, as above, I made large shelves of the breadth of a foot and a half, one over another, all along one side of my cave, to lay all my tools, nails, and iron-work, and in a word, to separate everything at large in their places, that I might come easily at them. I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock to hang my guns, and all things that would hang up.
So that, had my cave been to be seen, it looked like a general magazine of all necessary things; and I had everything so ready at my hand, that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order, and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great.
And now it was that I began to keep a journal of every day’s employment; for indeed at first I was in too much a hurry; and not only hurry as to labour, but in too much discomposure of mind, and my journal would have been full of many dull things. For example, I must have said thus: – September the 30th, after I got to shore, and had escaped drowning, instead of being thankful to God for my deliverance, having first vomited with the great quantity of salt water which was gotten into my stomach, and recovering myself a little, I ran about the shore, wringing my hands, and beating my head and face, exclaiming at my misery, and crying out, I was undone, undone! till, tired and faint, I was forced to lie down on the ground to repose, but durst not sleep for fear of being devoured.
Some days after this, and after I had been on board the ship, and got all that I could out of her, yet I could not forbear getting up to the top of a little mountain, and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a ship; then fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail – please myself with the hopes of it – and then, after looking steadily till I was almost blind, lose it quite, and sit down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly.
But having gotten over these things in some measure and having settled my household stuff and habitation, made me a table and a chair, and all as handsome about me as I could, I began to keep my journal, of which I shall here give you the copy (though in it will be told all these particulars over again), as long as it lasted; for having no more ink, I was forced to leave it off.
THE JOURNAL
I begin a Journal – Various Schemes to
make Tools, etc. – Begin to build a house –
Discover Corn – Earthquake and Storm
– September 30, 1659.
I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked during a dreadful storm in the offing, came on shore on this dismal, unfortunate island, which I called the Island of Despair; all the rest of the ship’s company being drowned, and myself almost dead.
All the rest of that day I spent in afflicting myself at the dismal circumstances I was brought to, namely, I had neither food, house, clothes, weapon, nor place to fly to, and in despair of any relief, saw nothing but death before me, either that I should be devoured by wild beasts, murdered by savages, or starved to death for want of food. At the approach of night I slept in a tree, for fear of wild creatures, but slept soundly, though it rained all night.
October I. – In the morning, I saw to my great surprise, the ship had floated with the high tide, and was driven on shore again much nearer the island; which, as it was some comfort on one hand, for seeing her sit upright, and not broken to pieces, I hoped, if the wind abated, I might get on board, and get some food and necessaries out of her for my relief; so, on the other hand, it renewed my grief at the loss of my comrades, who, I imagined, if we had all stayed on board, might have saved the ship, or at least that they would not have been all drowned as they were; and that had the men been saved we might perhaps have built us a boat out of the ruins of the ship, to have carried us to some other part of the world, I spent great part of this day in perplexing myself on these things; but at length, seeing the ship almost dry,