Images de page
PDF
ePub

it was now very near dark, made more terrible, that they drew back a little; upon which I ordered our last pistols to be fired off in one volley, and after that we gave a shout: upon this the wolves turned tail, and we sallied immediately upon near twenty lame ones, that we found struggling on the ground, and fell a cutting them with our swords, which answered our expectation; for the crying and howling they made was better understood by their fellows; so that they all fled and left us.

We had, first and last, killed about threescore of them; and had it been daylight, we had killed many more. The field of battle being thus cleared, we made forward again, for we had still near a league to go. We heard the ravenous creatures howl and yell in the woods as we went, several times, and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them, but the snow dazzling our eyes, we were not certain: in about an hour more we came to the town where we were to lodge, which we found in a terrible fright, and all in arms; for, it seems, the night before, the wolves and some bears had broke into the village, and put them in such terror, that they were obliged to keep guard night and day, but especially in the night, to preserve their cattle, and, indeed, their people.

The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs swelled so much with the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so we were obliged to take a new guide here, and go to Thoulouse, where we found a warm climate, a fruitful pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves, nor anything like them; but when we told our story at Thoulouse, they told us it was nothing but what what was ordinary in the great forest at the foot of the mountains, especially when the snow lay on the ground; but they inquired much what kind of a guide we had got, who would venture to bring us that way in such a severe season; and told us it was surprising we were not all devoured. When we told them how we placed ourselves, and the horses in the middle, they blamed us exceedingly, and told us it was fifty to one but we had been all destroyed; for it was the sight of the horses which made the wolves so furious, seeing their prey: and that, at other times, they are really afraid of a gun; but being excessive hungry, and raging on that account, the eagerness to come at the horses had made them senseless of danger; and that if we had not, by the continued fire, and at last by the stratagem of the train of powder, mastered them, it had been great odds but that we had been torn to pieces pieces: whereas, had we been content to have sat still on horseback, and fired as horsemen, they would not have taken the horses so much for their own, when men were on their backs, as otherwise; and withal they told us, that, at last, if we had stood altogether, and left our horses, they would have been so eager to have devoured them, that we might have come off safe, especially having our fire-arms in our hands, and being so many in number. For my part, I was never so sensible

of danger in my life; for seeing above three hundred devils come roaring and open-mouthed to devour us, and having nothing to shelter us, or retreat to, I gave myself over for lost; and, as it was, I believe I shall never care to cross those mountains again: I think I would much rather go a thousand leagues by sea, though I was sure to meet with a storm once a week.

I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through France, nothing but what other travellers have given an account of, with much more advantage than I can. I travelled from Thoulouse to Paris, and without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover, the 14th of January, after having a severe cold season to travel in.

I was now come to the centre of my travels, and had in a little time all my new discovered estate safe about me; the bills of exchange which I brought with me having been very currently paid.

My principal guide and privy counsellor was my good ancient widow; who, in gratitude for the money I had sent her, thought no pains too much, nor care too great, to employ for me; and I trusted her so entirely with everything, that I was perfectly easy as to the security of my effects: and, indeed, I was very happy from the beginning, and now to the end, in the unspotted integrity of this good gentlewoman.

I now resolved to dispose of my plantation in the Brazils, if I could find means. For this purpose, I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who having offered it to the two merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brazils, they accepted the offer, and icmitted thirty-three thousand pieces of eight to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon, to pay for it. Having signed the instrument of sale, and sent it to my old friend, he remitted me bills of exchange for thirty-two thousand eight hundred pieces of eight for the estate, reserving the payment of a hundred moidores a year to himself during his life, and fifty moidores afterwards to his son for life, which I had promised them.

Though I had sold my estate in the Brazils, yet I could not keep the country out of my head; nor could I resist the strong inclination I had to see my island. My true friend, the widow, earnestly dissuaded me from it, and so far prevailed with me, that, for almost seven years, she prevented my running abroad; during which time I took my two nephews, the children of one of my brothers, into my care: the eldest having something of his own, I bred up as a gentleman, and gave him a settlement of some addition to his estate, after my decease. The other I put out to a captain of a ship; and after five years, finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising young fellow, I put him into a good ship, and sent him to sea: and this young fellow afterwards drew me in, old as I was, to further adventures myself.

In the mean time, I in part settled myself here; for, first of all, I married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction, and had three children, two sons and one daughter; but my wife dying, and my nephew coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my inclination to go abroad, and his importunity prevailed, and engaged me to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies: this was in the year 1694.

But these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new adventures of my own, for ten years more, I shall give a further account of.

That homely proverb used on so many occasions in England, viz. "That what is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh," was never more verified than in the story of my life. Any one would think that, after thirty-five years' affliction, and a variety of unhappy circumstances, which few men, if any, ever went through before, and after near seven years of peace and enjoyment in the fulness of all things, grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of every state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought that the native propensity to rambling, which I gave an account of in my first setting out in the world to have been so predominant in my thoughts, should be worn out, the volatile part be fully evacuated, or at least condensed, and I might, at sixty-one years of age, have been a little inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing life and fortune any more.

Nay, further, the common motive of foreign adventures was taken away in me; for I had no fortune to make; I had nothing to seek: if I had gained ten thousand pounds, I had been no richer; for I had already sufficient for me, and for those I had to leave it to; and that I had was visibly increasing; for having no great family, I could not spend the income of what I had, unless I would set up for an expensive way of living, such as a great family, servants, equipage, gaiety, and the like, which were things I had no notion of, or inclination to; so that I had nothing indeed to do but to sit still, and fully enjoy what I had got, and see it increase daily upon my hands. Yet all these things had no effect upon me, or at least not enough to resist the strong inclination I had to go abroad again, which hung about me like a chronical distemper. In particular, the desire of seeing my new plantation in the island, and the colony I left there, ran in my head continually. I dreamed of it all night, and my imagination ran upon it all day; it was uppermost in all my thoughts; and my fancy worked so steadily and strongly upon it, that I talked of it in my sleep; in short, nothing could remove it out of my mind: it even broke so violently into all my discourses, that it made my conversation tiresome, for I could talk of nothing else: all my discourse ran into it, even to impertinence; and I saw it in myself.

[graphic][merged small]

HE IS SEIZED WITH A DESIRE TO REVISIT HIS ISLAND-LOSES HIS WIFE-IS TEMPTED TO GO TO SEA AGAIN--TAKES OUT A CARGO FOR HIS COLONY.

I HAVE often heard persons of good judgment say, that all the stir people make in the world about ghosts and apparitions is owing to the strength of imagination, and the powerful operation of fancy in their minds; that there is no such thing as a spirit appearing, or a ghost walking, and the like: that people's poring affectionately upon the past conversation of their deceased friends, so realises it to them, that they are capable of fancying, upon some extraordinary circumstances, that they see them, talk to them, and are answered by them, when, in truth, there is nothing but shadow and vapour in the thing, and they really know nothing of the matter.

For my part, I know not to this hour whether there are any such things as real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are dead: or whether there is anything in the stories they tell us of that kind, more than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering fancies: but this I know, that my imagination worked up to such a height, and brought me into such excess of vapours, or what else I may call it, that I actually supposed myself often upon the spot, at my old castle, behind the trees; saw my old Spaniard, Friday's father, and the reprobate sailors I left upon the island; nay, I fancied I talked with them, and looked at them steadily, though I was broad awake, as at persons just before me: and this I did till I often frightened

myself with the images my fancy represented to me. One time, in my sleep, I had the villany of the three pirate sailors so lively related to me by the first Spaniard and Friday's father, that it was surprising: they told me how they barbarously attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that they set fire to the provisions they had laid up, on purpose to distress and starve them; things that I had never heard of, and that indeed were never all of them true in fact; but it was so warm in my imagination, and so realised to me, that, to the hour I saw them, I could not be persuaded but that it was, or would be, true: also how I resented it, when the Spaniard complained to me; and how I brought them to justice, tried them before me, and ordered them all three to be hanged. What there was really in this shall be seen in its place: for however I came to form such things in my dream, and what secret converse of spirits injected it, yet there was, I say, much of it true. I own, that this dream had nothing in it literally and specifically true; but the general part was so true, the base villanous behaviour of these three hardened rogues was such, and had been so much worse than all I can describe, that the dream had too much similitude of the fact; and as I would afterwards have punished them severely, so, if I had hanged them all, I had been much in the right, and even should have been justified both by the laws of God and man. But to return to my story. In this kind of temper I lived some years; I had no enjoyment of my life, no pleasant hours, no agreeable diversion, but what had something or other of this in it; so that my wife, who saw my mind wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously one night, that she believed there was some secret powerful impulse of Providence upon me, which had determined me to go thither again; and that she found nothing hindered my going, but my being engaged to a wife and children. She told me, that it was true she could not think of parting wwith me; but as she was assured, that if she was dead it would be the first thing I would do, so, as it seemed to her that the thing was determined above, she would not be the only obstruction; for, if I thought fit, and resolved to go-Here she found me very intent upon her words, and that I looked very earnestly at her, so that it a little disordered her, and she stopped. I asked her, why she did not go on, and say out what she was going to say? But I perceived that her heart was too full, and some tears stood in her eyes. Speak out, my dear, said I; are you willing I should go? No, says she, very affectionately, I am far from willing; but if you are resolved to go, says she, and rather than I would be the only hinderance, I will go with you: for though I think it a most preposterous thing for one of your years, and in your condition, yet, if it must be, said she, again weeping, I would not leave you; for if it be of Heaven, you must do it; there is no resisting it: and if Heaven make it your duty to go, he will also make it

R

« PrécédentContinuer »