<h2>CHAPTER III—WRECKED ON A DESERT ISLAND</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I had not been long here before I was recommended to the house
of a good honest man like himself, who had an <i>ingenio</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But, alas! for me to do wrong that never did right, was no
great wonder. I hail 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>When this cargo arrived I thought my fortune made, for I was
surprised with the joy of it; and my stood 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.