The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) Part 25

This harebrained carriage obliged them to consider seriously what was to be done. The two Englishmen and the Spaniard who saved the poor savage, were of the opinion that they should hang one of the three for an example to the rest; and that particularly it should be he that had twice attempted to commit murder with his hatchet; and indeed there was some reason to believe he had done it, for the poor savage was in such a miserable condition with the wound he had received, that it was thought he could not live.

But the governor Spaniard still said, no, it was an Englishman that had saved all their lives, and he would never consent to put an Englishman to death though he had murdered half of them; nay, he said if he had been killed himself by an Englishman, and had time left to speak, it should be that they should pardon him.

This was so positively insisted on by the governor Spaniard, that there was no gainsaying it; and as merciful counsels are most apt to prevail, where they are so earnestly pressed, so they all came into it; but then it was to be considered what should be done to keep them from the mischief they designed; for all agreed, governor and all, that means were to be used for preserving the society from danger. After a long debate it was agreed, first, that they should be disarmed, and not permitted to have either gun, or powder, or shot, or sword, or any weapon, and should be turned out of the society, and left to live where they would, and how they could by themselves; but that none of the rest, either Spaniards or English, should converse with them, speak with them, or have any thing to do with them; that they should be forbid to come within a certain distance of the place where the rest dwelt; and that if they offered to commit any disorder, so as to spoil, burn, kill, or destroy any of the corn, plantings, buildings, fences, or cattle belonging to the society, that they should die without mercy, and would shoot them wherever they could find them.

The governor, a man of great humanity, musing upon the sentence, considered a little upon it, and turning to the two honest Englishmen, said, "Hold, you must reflect, that it will be long ere they can raise corn and cattle of their own, and they must not starve; we must therefore allow them provisions." So he caused to be added, that they should have a proportion of corn given them to last them eight months, and for seed to sow, by which time they might be supposed to raise some of their own; that they should have six milch-goats, four he-goats, and six kids given them, as well for present subsistence as for a store; and that they should have tools given them for their work in the field; such as six hatchets, an axe, a saw, and the like: but they should have none of these tools or provisions unless they would swear solemnly that they would not hurt or injure any of the Spaniards with them, or of their fellow Englishmen.

Thus they dismissed them the society, and turned them out to shift for themselves. They went away sullen and refractory, as neither contented to go away or to stay; but as there was no remedy they went, pretending to go and choose a place where they should settle themselves, to plant and live by themselves; and some provisions were given, but no weapons.

About four or five days after they came again for some victuals, and gave the governor an account where they had pitched their tents, and marked themselves out an habitation or plantation: it was a very convenient place indeed, on the remotest part of the island, N.E. much about the place where I providentially landed in my first voyage when I was driven out to sea, the Lord alone knows whither, in my foolish attempt to surround the island.

Here they built themselves two handsome huts, and contrived them in a manner like my first habitation being close under the side of a hill, having some trees growing already to the three sides of it; so that by planting others it would be very easily covered from the sight, unless narrowly searched for. They desired some dry goat-skins for beds and covering, which were given them; and upon their giving their words that they would not disturb the rest, or injure any of their plantations, they gave them hatchets, and what other tools they could spare; some peas, barley, and rice, for sowing, and, in a word, any thing they wanted but arms and ammunition.

They lived in this separate condition about six months, and had got in their first harvest, though the quant.i.ty was but small, the parcel of land they had planted being but little; for indeed having all their plantation to form, they had a great deal of work upon their hands; and when they came to make boards, and pots, and such things, they were quite out of their element, and could make nothing of it; and when the rainy season came on, for want of a cave in the earth, they could not keep their grain dry, and it was in great danger of spoiling: and this humbled them much; so they came and begged the Spaniards to help them, which they very readily did; and in four days worked a great hole in the side of the hill for them, big enough to secure their corn and other things from the rain: but it was but a poor place at best compared to mine; and especially as mine was then; for the Spaniards had greatly enlarged it, and made several new apartments in it.

About three quarters of a year after this separation a new frolic took these rogues, which, together with the former villany they had committed, brought mischief enough upon them, and had very near been the ruin of the whole colony. The three new a.s.sociates began, it seems, to be weary of the laborious life they led, and that without hope of bettering their circ.u.mstances; and a whim took them that they would make a voyage to the continent from whence the savages came, and would try if they could not seize upon some prisoners among the natives there, and bring them home, so as to make them do the laborious part of the work for them.

The project was not so preposterous if they had gone no farther; but they did nothing and proposed nothing but had either mischief in the design or mischief in the event; and if I may give my opinion, they seemed to be under a blast from Heaven; for if we will not allow a visible curse to pursue visible crimes, how shall we reconcile the events of things with divine justice? It was certainly an apparent vengeance on their crime of mutiny and piracy that brought them to the state they were in; and as they shewed not the least remorse for the crime, but added new villanies to it, such as particularly that piece of monstrous cruelty of wounding a poor slave because he did not, or perhaps could not understand to do what he was directed, and to wound him in such a manner as, no question, made him a cripple all his life, and in a place where no surgeon or medicine could be had for his cure; and what was still worse, the murderous intent, or, to do justice to the crime, the intentional murder, for such to be sure it was, as was afterwards the formed design they all laid to murder the Spaniards in cold blood, and in their sleep.

But I leave observing, and return to the story: The three fellows came down to the Spaniards one morning, and in very humble terms desired to be admitted to speak with them; the Spaniards very readily heard what they had to say, which was this, that they were tired of living in the manner they did, that they were not handy enough to make the necessaries they wanted; and that, having no help, they found they should be starved; but if the Spaniards would give them leave to take one of the canoes which they came over in, and give them arms and ammunition proportioned for their defence, they would go over to the main, and seek their fortune, and so deliver them from the trouble of supplying them with any other provisions.

The Spaniards were glad enough to be rid of them; but yet very honestly represented to them the certain destruction they were running into; told them they had suffered such hardships upon that very spot, that they could, without any spirit of prophecy, tell them that they would be starved or murdered, and bade them consider of it.

The men replied audaciously, they should be starved if they stayed here, for they could not work, and would not work; and they could but be starved abroad; and if they were murdered, there was an end of them, they had no wives or children to cry after them; and, in short, insisted importunately upon their demand, declaring that they would go, whether they would give them any arms or no.

The Spaniards told them with great kindness, that if they were resolved to go, they should not go like naked men, and be in no condition to defend themselves, and that though they could ill spare their fire-arms, having not enough for themselves, yet they would let them have two muskets, a pistol, and a cutla.s.s, and each man a hatchet, which they thought sufficient for them.

In a word, they accepted the offer, and having baked them bread enough to serve them a month, and given them as much goat's flesh as they could eat while it was sweet, and a great basket full of dried grapes, a pot full of fresh water, and a young kid alive to kill, they boldly set out in a canoe for a voyage over the sea, where it was at least forty miles broad.

The boat was indeed a large one, and would have very well carried fifteen or twenty men, and therefore was rather too big for them to manage; but as they had a fair breeze and the flood-tide with them, they did well enough; they had made a mast of a long pole, and a sail of four large goat-skins dried, which they had sewed or laced together; and away they went merrily enough; the Spaniards called after them, "Bon veajo;"

and no man ever thought of seeing them any more.

The Spaniards would often say to one another, and the two honest Englishmen who remained behind, how quietly and comfortably they lived now those three turbulent fellows were gone; as for their ever coming again, that was the remotest thing from their thoughts could be imagined; when, behold, after twenty-two days absence, one of the Englishmen being abroad upon his planting work, sees three strange men coming towards him at a distance, two of them with guns upon their shoulders.

Away runs the Englishman, as if he was bewitched, and became frighted and amazed, to the governor Spaniard, and tells him they were all undone, for there were strangers landed upon the island, he could not tell who. The Spaniard pausing a while, says to him, "How do you mean, you cannot tell who? They are savages to be sure."--"No, no," says the Englishman, "they are men in clothes, with arms."--"Nay then," says the Spaniard, "why are you concerned? If they are not savages, they must be friends; for there is no Christian nation upon earth but will do us good rather than harm."

While they were debating thus, came the three Englishmen, and standing without the wood which was new-planted, hallooed to them; they presently knew their voices, and so all the wonder of that kind ceased. But now the admiration was turned upon another question, viz. What could be the matter, and what made them come back again?

It was not long before they brought the men in; and inquiring where they had been, and what they had been doing? they gave them a full account of their voyage in a few words, viz. that they reached the land in two days, or something less, but finding the people alarmed at their coming, and preparing with bows and arrows to fight them, they durst not go on sh.o.r.e, but sailed on to the northward six or seven hours, till they came to a great opening, by which they perceived that the land they saw from our island was not the main, but an island: that entering that opening of the sea, they saw another island on the right hand north, and several more west; and being resolved to land somewhere, they put over to one of the islands which lay west, and went boldly on sh.o.r.e; that they found the people were courteous and friendly to them, and they gave them several roots, and some dried fish, and appeared very sociable: and the women, as well as the men, were very forward to supply them with any thing they could get for them to eat, and brought it to them a great way upon their heads.

They continued here four days, and inquired, as well as they could of them by signs, what nations were this way, and that way; and were told of several fierce and terrible people, that lived almost every way; who, as they made known by signs to them, used to eat men; but as for themselves, they said, that they never ate men or women, except only such as they took in the wars; and then they owned that they made a great feast, and ate their prisoners.

The Englishmen inquired when they had a feast of that kind, and they told them two moons ago, pointing to the moon, and then to two-fingers; and that their great king had two hundred prisoners now which he had taken in his war, and they were feeding them to make them fat for the next feast. The Englishmen seemed mighty desirous to see those prisoners, but the others mistaking them, thought they were desirous to have some of them to carry away for their own eating. So they beckoned to them, pointing to the setting of the sun, and then to the rising; which was to signify, that the next morning at sun-rising they would bring some for them; and accordingly the next morning they brought down five women and eleven men, and gave them to the Englishmen to carry with them on their voyage, just as we would bring so many cows and oxen down to a sea-port town to victual a ship.

As brutish and barbarous as these fellows were at home, their stomachs turned at this sight, and they did not know what to do; to refuse the prisoners would have been the highest affront to the savage gentry that offered them; and what to do with them they knew not; however, upon some debate, they resolved to accept of them; and in return they gave the savages that brought them one of their hatchets, an old key, a knife, and six or seven of their bullets, which, though they did not understand, they seemed extremely pleased with; and then tying the poor creatures' hands behind them, they (the people) dragged the prisoners into the boat for our men.

The Englishmen were obliged to come away as soon as they had them, or else they that gave them his n.o.ble present would certainly have expected that they should have gone to work with them, have killed two or three of them the next morning, and perhaps have invited the donors to dinner.

But having taken their leave with all the respect and thanks that could well pa.s.s between people, where, on either side, they understood not one word they could say, they put off with their boat, and came back towards the first island, where when they arrived, they set eight of their prisoners at liberty, there being too many of them for their occasion.

In their voyage they endeavoured to have some communication with their prisoners, but it was impossible to make them understand any thing; nothing they could say to them, or give them, or do for them, but was looked upon as going about to murder them: they first of all unbound them, but the poor creatures screamed at that, especially the women, as if they had just felt the knife at their throats; for they immediately concluded they were unbound on purpose to be killed.

If they gave them any thing to eat, it was the same thing; then they concluded it was for fear they should sink in flesh, and so not be fat enough to kill; if they looked at one of them more particularly, the party presently concluded it was to see whether he or she was fattest and fittest to kill first; nay, after they had brought them quite over, and began to use them kindly and treat them well, still they expected every day to make a dinner or supper for their new masters.

When the three wanderers had given this unaccountable history or journal of their voyage, the Spaniard asked them where their new family was? And being told that they had brought them on sh.o.r.e, and put them into one of their huts, and were come to beg some victuals for them; they (the Spaniards) and the other two Englishmen, that is to say, the whole colony, resolved to go all down to the place and see them, and did so, and Friday's father with them.

When they came into the hut, there they sat all bound; for when they had brought them on sh.o.r.e they bound their hands, that they might not take the boat and make their escape; there, I say, they sat all of them stark naked. First, there were three men, l.u.s.ty, comely fellows, well shaped, straight and fair limbs, about thirty or thirty-five years of age, and five women; whereof two might be from thirty to forty, two more not above twenty-four or twenty-five, and the fifth, a tall, comely maiden, about sixteen or seventeen. The women were well-favoured, agreeable persons, both in shape and features, only tawny; and two of them, had they been perfect white, would have pa.s.sed for handsome women, even in London itself, having very pleasant, agreeable countenances, and of a very modest behaviour, especially when they came afterwards to be clothed, and dressed, as they called it, though that dress was very indifferent it must be confessed, of which hereafter.

The sight, you may be sure, was something uncouth to our Spaniards, who were (to give them a just character) men of the best behaviour, of the most calm, sedate tempers, and perfect good humour that ever I met with; and, in particular, of the most modesty, as will presently appear: I say the sight was very uncouth, to see three naked men and five naked women, all together bound, and in the most miserable circ.u.mstances that human nature could be supposed to be, viz. to be expecting every moment to be dragged out, and have their brains knocked out, and then to be eaten up like a calf that is killed for a dainty.

The first thing they did was to cause the old Indian, Friday's father, to go in and see first if he knew any of them, and then if he understood any of their speech. As soon as the old man came in, he looked seriously at them, but knew none of them; neither could any of them understand a word he said, or a sign he could make, except one of the women.

However, this was enough to answer the end, which was to satisfy them, that the men into whose hands they were fallen were Christians; that they abhorred eating of men or women, and that they might be sure they would not be killed. As soon as they were a.s.sured of this, they discovered such a joy, and by such awkward and several ways as is hard to describe, for it seems they were of several nations.

The woman who was their interpreter was bid, in the next place, to ask them if they were willing to be servants, and to work for the men who had brought them away to save their lives? At which they all fell a dancing; and presently one fell to taking up this, and another that, any thing that lay next, to carry on their shoulders, to intimate that they were willing to work.

The governor, who found that the having women among them would presently be attended with some inconveniency, and might occasion some strife, and perhaps blood, asked the three men what they intended to do with these women, and how they intended to use them, whether as servants or as women? One of the Englishmen answered very boldly and readily, that they would use them as both. To which the governor said, "I am not going to restrain you from it; you are your own masters as to that: but this I think is but just, for avoiding disorders and quarrels among you, and I desire it of you for that reason only, viz. that you will all engage, that if any of you take any of these women as a woman, or wife, he shall take but one; and that, having taken one, none else should touch her; for though we cannot marry any of you, yet it is but reasonable that while you stay here, the woman any of you takes should be maintained by the man that takes her, and should be his wife; I mean," says he, "while he continues here; and that none else should have any thing to do with her." All this appeared so just, that every one agreed to it without any difficulty.

Then the Englishmen asked the Spaniards if they designed to take any of them? But every one answered, "No;" some of them said they had wives in Spain; and the others did not like women that were not Christians; and all together declared, that they would not touch one of them; which was an instance of such virtue as I have not met with in all my travels. On the other hand, to be short, the five Englishmen took them every one a wife; that is to say, a temporary wife; and so they set up a new form of living; for the Spaniards and Friday's father lived in my old habitation, which they had enlarged exceedingly within; the three servants, which they had taken in the late battle of the savages, lived with them; and these carried on the main part of the colony, supplying all the rest with food, and a.s.sisting them in any thing as they could, or as they found necessity required.

But the wonder of this story was, how five such refractory, ill-matched fellows should agree about these women, and that two of them should not pitch upon the same woman, especially seeing two or three of them were, without comparison, more agreeable than the others: but they took a good way enough to prevent quarrelling among themselves; for they set the five women by themselves in one of their huts, and they went all into the other hut, and drew lots among them who should choose first.

He that drew to choose first, went away by himself to the hut where the poor naked creatures were, and fetched out her he chose; and it was worth observing that he that chose first took her that was reckoned the homeliest and the oldest of the five, which made mirth enough among the rest; and even the Spaniards laughed at it; but the fellow considered better than any of them, that it was application and business that they were to expect a.s.sistance in as much as any thing else, and she proved the best wife in the parcel.

When the poor women saw themselves in a row thus, and fetched out one by one, the terrors of their condition returned upon them again, and they firmly believed that they were now going to be devoured: accordingly, when the English sailor came in and fetched out one of them, the rest set up a most lamentable cry, and hung about her, and took their leave of her with such agonies and such affection as would have grieved the hardest heart in the world; nor was it possible for the Englishmen to satisfy them that they were not to be immediately murdered, till they fetched the old man, Friday's father, who instantly let them know, that the five men who had fetched them out one by one, had chosen them for their wives.

When they had done this, and the fright the women were in was a little over, the men went to work, and the Spaniards came and helped them; and in a few hours they had built them every one a new hut or tent for their lodging apart; for those they had already were crowded with their tools, household stuff, and provisions. The three wicked ones had pitched farthest off, and the two honest ones nearer, but both on the north sh.o.r.e of the island, so that they continued separate as before: and thus my island was peopled in three places, and, as I might say, three towns were begun to be planted.

And here it is very well worth observing, that as it often happens in the world, (what the wise ends of G.o.d's providences are in such a disposition of things I cannot say) the two honest fellows had the two worst wives; and the three reprobates, that were scarce worth hanging, that were fit for nothing, and neither seemed born to do themselves good, or any one else, had three clever, diligent, careful, and ingenious wives, not that the two first were ill wives as to their temper or humour; for all the five were most willing, quiet, pa.s.sive, and subjected creatures, rather like slaves than wives; but my meaning is, they were not alike, capable, ingenious, or industrious, or alike cleanly and neat.

Another observation I must make, to the honour of a diligent application on the one hand, and to the disgrace of a slothful, negligent, idle temper on the other, that when I came to the place, and viewed the several improvements, planting, and management of the several little colonies, the two men had so far out-gone the three, that there was no comparison; they had indeed both of them as much ground laid out for corn as they wanted; and the reason was, because according to my rule, nature dictated, that it was to no purpose to sow more corn than they wanted; but the difference of the cultivation, of the planting, of the fences, and indeed every thing else, was easy to be seen at first view.

The two men had innumerable young trees planted about their huts, that when you came to the place nothing was to be seen but a wood; and though they had their plantation twice demolished, once by their own countrymen, and once by the enemy, as shall be shewn in its place; yet they had restored all again, and every thing was flourishing and thriving about them: they had grapes planted in order, and managed like a vineyard, though they had themselves never seen any thing of that kind; and by their good ordering their vines their grapes were as good again as any of the others. They had also formed themselves a retreat in the thickest part of the woods, where, though there was not a natural cave, as I had found, yet they made one with incessant labour of their hands, and where, when the mischief which followed happened, they secured their wives and children so as they could never be found; they having, by sticking innumerable stakes and poles of the wood, which, as I said, grow so easily, made a grove impa.s.sable except in one place, where they climbed up to get over the outside part, and then went in by ways of their own leaving.

As to the three reprobates, as I justly call them, though they were much civilized by their new settlement compared to what they were before, and were not so quarrelsome, having not the same opportunity, yet one of the certain companions of a profligate mind never left them, and that was their idleness. It is true, they planted corn and made fences; but Solomon's words were never better verified than in them: "I went by the vineyard of the slothful, and it was overgrown with thorns;" for when the Spaniards came to view their crop, they could not see it in some places for weeds; the hedge had several gaps in it, where the wild goats had gotten in and eaten up the corn; perhaps here and there a dead bush was crammed in to stop them out for the present, but it was only shutting the stable door after the steed was stolen; whereas, when they looked on the colony of the other two, here was the very face of industry and success upon all they did; there was not a weed to be seen in all their corn, or a gap in any of their hedges; and they, on the other hand, verified Solomon's words in another place: "The diligent hand maketh rich;" for every thing grew and thrived, and they had plenty within and without; they had more tame cattle than the others, more utensils and necessaries within doors, and yet more pleasure and diversion too.

It is true, the wives of the three were very handy and cleanly within doors; and having learnt the English ways of dressing and cooking from one of the other Englishmen, who, as I said, was a cook's mate on board the ship, they dressed their husbands' victuals very nicely; whereas the other could not be brought to understand it; but then the husband, who as I said, had been cook's mate, did it himself; but as for the husbands of the three wives, they loitered about, fetched turtles' eggs, and caught fish and birds; in a word, any thing but labour, and they fared accordingly. The diligent lived well and comfortably and the slothful lived hard and beggarly; and so I believe, generally speaking, it is all over the world.

But now I come to a scene different from all that had happened before, either to them or me; and the origin of the story was this:

Early one morning there came on sh.o.r.e five or six canoes of Indians, or savages, call them which you please; and there is no room to doubt that they came upon the old errand of feeding upon their slaves; but that part was now so familiar to the Spaniards, and to our men too, that they did not concern themselves about it as I did; but having been made sensible by their experience, that their only business was to lie concealed, and that, if they were not seen by any of the savages, they would go off again quietly when the business was done, having as yet not the least notion of there being any inhabitants in the island; I say having been made sensible of this, they had nothing to do but to give notice to all the three plantations to keep within doors, and not to shew themselves; only placing a scout in a proper place, to give notice when the boats went off to sea again.

This was, without doubt, very right; but a disaster spoiled all these measures, and made it known among the savages that there were inhabitants there, which was, in the end, the desolation of almost the whole colony. After the canoes with the savages were gone off, the Spaniards peeped abroad again, and some of them had the curiosity to go to the place where they had been, to see what they had been doing. Here, to their great surprise, they found three savages left behind, and lying fast asleep upon the ground; it was supposed they had either been so gorged with their inhuman feast, that, like beasts, they were asleep, and would not stir when the others went, or they were wandered into the woods, and did not come back in time to be taken in.

The Spaniards were greatly surprised at this sight, and perfectly at a loss what to do; the Spaniard governor, as it happened, was with them, and his advice was asked; but he professed he knew not what to do; as for slaves, they had enough already; and as to killing them, they were none of them inclined to that. The Spaniard governor told me they could not think of shedding innocent blood; for as to them, the poor creatures had done no wrong, invaded none of their property; and they thought they had no just quarrel against them to take away their lives.

And here I must, in justice to these Spaniards, observe, that let all the accounts of Spanish cruelty in Mexico and Peru be what they will, I never met with seventeen men, of any nation whatsoever, in any foreign country, who were so universally modest, temperate, virtuous, so very good-humoured, and so courteous as these Spaniards; and, as to cruelty, they had nothing of it in their very nature; no inhumanity, no barbarity, no outrageous pa.s.sions, and yet all of them men of great courage and spirit.

Their temper and calmness had appeared in their bearing the insufferable usage of the three Englishmen; and their justice and humanity appeared now in the case of the savages as above. After some consultation they resolved upon this, that they would lie still a while longer, till, if possible, these three men might be gone; but then the governor Spaniard recollected that the three savages had no boat; and that if they were left to rove about the island, they would certainly discover that there were inhabitants in it, and so they should be undone that way.