these things were brought to perfection; and therefore, I must go back to some other things which took up some of my thoughts. At the same time it happened, after I had laid my scheme for the setting up of my tent, and making the cave, that a storm of rain falling from a thick, dark cloud, a sudden flash of lightning happened, and after that, a great clap of thunder, as is naturally the effect of it. I was not so much surprised with the lightning as I was with a thought which darted into my mind as swift as the lightning itself: O my powder! My very heart sunk within me when I thought, that at one blast all my powder might be destroyed; on which not my defence only, but the providing me food, as I thought, entirely depended. I was nothing near so anxious about my own danger, though, had the powder taken fire, I should never have known who had hurt me. Such impressions did this make upon me, that after the storm was over, I laid aside all my works, my building and fortifying, and applied myself to make bags and boxes to separate the powder, and to keep it a little and a little in a parcel, in hope that whatever might come, it might not all take fire at once; and to keep it so apart, that it should not be possible to make one part fire another. I finished this work in about a fortnight; and I think my powder, which in all was about two hundred and forty pounds weight, was divided into not less than a hundred parcels. As to the barrel that had been wet, I did not apprehend any danger from that; so I placed it in my new cave, which, in my fancy, I called my kitchen, and the rest I hid up and down in holes among the rocks, so that no wet might come to it, marking very carefully where I laid it. In the interval of time while this was doing, I went out at least once every day with my gun. One day I killed a she-goat, which had a little kid by her, which she gave suck to, which grieved me heartily; but when the old one fell, the kid stood stock still by her, till I came and took her up; and not only so, but when I carried the old one with me, upon my shoulders, the kid followed me quite to my enclosure; upon which I laid down the dam, and took the kid in my arms, and carried it over my pale, in hopes to have bred it up tame; but it would not eat; so I was forced to kill it, and eat it myself. These two supplied me with flesh a great while, for I eat sparingly, and preserved my provisions (my bread especially) as much as possibly I could. And now being about to enter into a melancholy relation of a scene of silent life, such perhaps, as was never heard of in the world before, I shall take it from its beginning, and continue it in its order. It was, by my account, the 30th of September, when, in the manner as above said, I first set foot upon this horrid island; when the sun being to us in its autumnal equinox, was almost just over my head: for I reckoned myself, by observation, to be in the latitude of nine degrees twenty-two minutes north of the Line. ROBINSON'S MODE OF RECKONING TIME-DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM WANT OF TOOLS-HE ARRANGES HIS HABITATION. AFTER I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my thoughts that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books, and pen and ink, and should even forget the Sabbath days from the working days: but, to prevent this, I cut it with my knife into a large post, in capital letters; and making it into a great cross, I set it up on the shore where I first landed, viz., "I came on shore here on the 30th of September, 1659." Upon the sides of this square post I cut every day a notch with my knife, and every seventh notch was as long again as the rest, and every first day of the month as long again as that long one: and thus I kept my calendar, or weekly, monthly, and yearly reckoning of time. But it happened, that among the many things which I brought out of the ship, in the several voyages which, as above mentioned, I made to it, I got several things of less value, but not at all less useful to me, which I found some time after, in rummaging the chests: as in particular, pens, ink, and paper; several parcels in the captain's, mate's, gunner's, and carpenter's keeping; three or four compasses, some mathematical instruments, dials, perspectives, charts, and books of navigation; all of which I huddled together, whether I might want them or no: also I found three very good Bibles, which came to me in my cargo from England, and which I had packed up among my things; some Portuguese books also, and, among them, two or three popish prayer-books, and several other books, all which I carefully secured. And I must not forget, that we had in the ship a dog, and two cats, of whose eminent history I may have occasion to say something, in its place; for I carried both the cats with me; and as for the dog he jumped out of the ship himself, and swam on shore the day after I went on shore with my first cargo, and was a trusty servant to me for many years: I wanted nothing that he could fetch me, nor any company that he could make up to me, I only wanted to have him talk to me, but that he could not do. As I observed before, 1 found pens, ink, and paper, and I husbanded them to the utmost; and I shall show that while my ink lasted, I kept things very exact, but after that was gone I could not; for I could not make any ink by any means that I could devise. And this put me in mind that I wanted many things, notwithstanding all that I had amassed together; and of these, this of ink was one; as also a spade, pickaxe, and shovel, to dig or remove the earth; needles, pins, and thread; as for linen, I soon learned to want that without much difficulty. a This want of tools made every work I did go on heavily: and it was nearly a whole year before I had entirely finished my little pale, or surrounded my habitation. The piles or stakes, which were as heavy as I could well lift, were a long time in cutting and preparing in the woods, and more by far in bringing home; so that I spent sometimes two days in cutting and bringing home one of those posts, and a third in driving it into the ground; for which purpose, I got heavy peace of wood at first, but at last bethought me of one of the iron crows; which, however, though I found it answer, made driving these posts or piles very laborious and tedious work. But what need I have been concerned at the tediousness of anything I had to do, seeing I had time enough to do it in; nor had I any other employment, if that had been over, at least that I could foresee, except the ranging the island to seek for food; which I did more or less, every day. 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 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 work further into the earth; for it was a loose sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labour I bestowed upon it; and when I found I was pretty safe as to the 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 in 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 need observe, that as reason is the substance and original of mathematics, so that 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 bu but I could have made, 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 an 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 of a whole tree; but this I had no remedy for but patience, any more than I had for a prodigious deal of time and labour which it took me up to make a plank or board: but my time or labour was little worth, and so it was as well employed one way as another. I made me a table and a chair, 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 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 on; and, in a word, to separate every thing at large in their places, that I might easily come 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 seen, it looked like a general magazine of all necessary things; and I had every thing 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 hurry, and not only as to labour, but in much discomposure of mind; and my journal would, too, have been full of many dull things. Some days after this, and after I had been on board the ship and got all that I could out of her, 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 that, at a vast distance, I spied a sail, please myself with the hopes of it, and, 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 got over these things in some measure, and having settled my household stuff and habitation, made me a table and a chair, and all about me as handsome 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. : |