part I found different fruits, and particularly I found mel-
ons upon the ground, in great abundance, and grapes upon
the trees. The vines had spread, indeed, over the trees, and
the clusters of grapes were just now in their prime, very ripe
and rich. This was a surprising discovery, and I was exceed-
ing glad of them; but I was warned by my experience to eat
sparingly of them; remembering that when I was ashore in
Barbary, the eating of grapes killed several of our English-
men, who were slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes
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and fevers. But I found an excellent use for these grapes;
and that was, to cure or dry them in the sun, and keep them
as dried grapes or raisins are kept, which I thought would
be, as indeed they were, wholesome and agreeable to eat
when no grapes could be had.
I spent all that evening there, and went not back to my
habitation; which, by the way, was the first night, as I might
say, I had lain from home. In the night, I took my first con-
trivance, and got up in a tree, where I slept well; and the
next morning proceeded upon my discovery; travelling
nearly four miles, as I might judge by the length of the val-
ley, keeping still due north, with a ridge of hills on the south
and north side of me. At the end of this march I came to an
opening where the country seemed to descend to the west;
and a little spring of fresh water, which issued out of the side
of the hill by me, ran the other way, that is, due east; and the
country appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishing, every-
thing being in a constant verdure or flourish of spring that
it looked like a planted garden. I descended a little on the
side of that delicious vale, surveying it with a secret kind of
pleasure, though mixed with my other afflicting thoughts,
to think that this was all my own; that I was king and lord
of all this country indefensibly, and had a right of posses-
sion; and if I could convey it, I might have it in inheritance
as completely as any lord of a manor in England. I saw here
abundance of cocoa trees, orange, and lemon, and citron
trees; but all wild, and very few bearing any fruit, at least
not then. However, the green limes that I gathered were not
only pleasant to eat, but very wholesome; and I mixed their
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juice afterwards with water, which made it very wholesome,
and very cool and refreshing. I found now I had business
enough to gather and carry home; and I resolved to lay up a
store as well of grapes as limes and lemons, to furnish myself
for the wet season, which I knew was approaching. In order
to do this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, a
lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of limes and
lemons in another place; and taking a few of each with me,
I travelled homewards; resolving to come again, and bring
a bag or sack, or what I could make, to carry the rest home.
Accordingly, having spent three days in this journey, I came
home (so I must now call my tent and my cave); but before I
got thither the grapes were spoiled; the richness of the fruit
and the weight of the juice having broken them and bruised
them, they were good for little or nothing; as to the limes,
they were good, but I could bring but a few.
The next day, being the nineteenth, I went back, having
made me two small bags to bring home my harvest; but I
was surprised, when coming to my heap of grapes, which
were so rich and fine when I gathered them, to find them
all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some
here, some there, and abundance eaten and devoured. By
this I concluded there were some wild creatures there-
abouts, which had done this; but what they were I knew
not. However, as I found there was no laying them up on
heaps, and no carrying them away in a sack, but that one
way they would be destroyed, and the other way they would
be crushed with their own weight, I took another course;
for I gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hung them
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trees, that they might cure and dry in the sun; and as for
the limes and lemons, I carried as many back as I could well
stand under.
When I came home from this journey, I contemplated
with great pleasure the fruitfulness of that valley, and the
pleasantness of the situation; the security from storms on
that side of the water, and the wood: and concluded that I
had pitched upon a place to fix my abode which was by far
the worst part of the country. Upon the whole, I began to
consider of removing my habitation, and looking out for a
place equally safe as where now I was situate, if possible, in
that pleasant, fruitful part of the island.
This thought ran long in my head, and I was exceeding
fond of it for some time, the pleasantness of the place tempt-
ing me; but when I came to a nearer view of it, I considered
that I was now by the seaside, where it was at least possible
that something might happen to my advantage, and, by the
same ill fate that brought me hither might bring some oth-
er unhappy wretches to the same place; and though it was
scarce probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet
to enclose myself among the hills and woods in the centre
of the island was to anticipate my bondage, and to render
such an affair not only improbable, but impossible; and
that therefore I ought not by any means to remove. How-
ever, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spent much
of my time there for the whole of the remaining part of
the month of July; and though upon second thoughts, I re-
solved not to remove, yet I built me a little kind of a bower,
and surrounded it at a distance with a strong fence, being a
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double hedge, as high as I could reach, well staked and filled
between with brushwood; and here I lay very secure, some-
times two or three nights together; always going over it with
a ladder; so that I fancied now I had my country house and
my sea- coast house; and this work took me up to the begin-
ning of August.
I had but newly finished my fence, and began to enjoy my
labour, when the rains came on, and made me stick close
to my first habitation; for though I had made me a tent like
the other, with a piece of a sail, and spread it very well, yet
I had not the shelter of a hill to keep me from storms, nor a
cave behind me to retreat into when the rains were extraor-
dinary.
About the beginning of August, as I said, I had finished
my bower, and began to enjoy myself. The 3rd of August, I
found the grapes I had hung up perfectly dried, and, indeed,
were excellent good raisins of the sun; so I began to take
them down from the trees, and it was very happy that I did
so, for the rains which followed would have spoiled them,
and I had lost the best part of my winter food; for I had
above two hundred large bunches of them. No sooner had I
taken them all down, and carried the most of them home to
my cave, than it began to rain; and from hence, which was
the 14th of August, it rained, more or less, every day till the
middle of October; and sometimes so violently, that I could
not stir out of my cave for several days.
In this season I was much surprised with the increase of
my family; I had been concerned for the loss of one of my
cats, who ran away from me, or, as I thought, had been dead,
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1
and I heard no more tidings of her till, to my astonishment,
she came home about the end of August with three kittens.
This was the more strange to me because, though I had
killed a wild cat, as I called it, with my gun, yet I thought
it was quite a different kind from our European cats; but
the young cats were the same kind of house-breed as the
old one; and both my cats being females, I thought it very
strange. But from these three cats I afterwards came to be
so pestered with cats that I was forced to kill them like ver-
min or wild beasts, and to drive them from my house as
much as possible.
From the 14th of August to the 26th, incessant rain, so
that I could not stir, and was now very careful not to be
much wet. In this confinement, I began to be straitened for
food: but venturing out twice, I one day killed a goat; and
the last day, which was the 26th, found a very large tortoise,
which was a treat to me, and my food was regulated thus: I
ate a bunch of raisins for my breakfast; a piece of the goat’s
flesh, or of the turtle, for my dinner, broiled - for, to my
great misfortune, I had no vessel to boil or stew anything;
and two or three of the turtle’s eggs for my supper.
During this confinement in my cover by the rain, I
worked daily two or three hours at enlarging my cave, and
by degrees worked it on towards one side, till I came to the
outside of the hill, and made a door or way out, which came
beyond my fence or wall; and so I came in and out this way.
But I was not perfectly easy at lying so open; for, as I had
managed myself before, I was in a perfect enclosure; where-
as now I thought I lay exposed, and open for anything to
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come in upon me; and yet I could not perceive that there
was any living thing to fear, the biggest creature that I had
yet seen upon the island being a goat.
SEPT. 30. - I was now come to the unhappy anniversary
of my landing. I cast up the notches on my post, and found
I had been on shore three hundred and sixty-five days. I
kept this day as a solemn fast, setting it apart for religious
exercise, prostrating myself on the ground with the most
serious humiliation, confessing my sins to God, acknowl-
edging His righteous judgments upon me, and praying to
Him to have mercy on me through Jesus Christ; and not
having tasted the least refreshment for twelve hours, even
till the going down of the sun, I then ate a biscuit-cake and
a bunch of grapes, and went to bed, finishing the day as I
began it. I had all this time observed no Sabbath day; for as
at first I had no sense of religion upon my mind, I had, after
some time, omitted to distinguish the weeks, by making a
longer notch than ordinary for the Sabbath day, and so did
not really know what any of the days were; but now, having
cast up the days as above, I found I had been there a year; so
I divided it into weeks, and set apart every seventh day for
a Sabbath; though I found at the end of my account I had
lost a day or two in my reckoning. A little after this, my ink
began to fail me, and so I contented myself to use it more
sparingly, and to write down only the most remarkable
events of my life, without continuing a daily memorandum
of other things.
The rainy season and the dry season began now to appear
regular to me, and I learned to divide them so as to provide
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for them accordingly; but I bought all my experience before
I had it, and this I am going to relate was one of the most
discouraging experiments that I made.
I have mentioned that I had saved the few ears of bar-
ley and rice, which I had so surprisingly found spring up,
as I thought, of themselves, and I believe there were about
thirty stalks of rice, and about twenty of barley; and now I
thought it a proper time to sow it, after the rains, the sun
being in its southern position, going from me. Accord-
ingly, I dug up a piece of ground as well as I could with
my wooden spade, and dividing it into two parts, I sowed
my grain; but as I was sowing, it casually occurred to my
thoughts that I would not sow it all at first, because I did not
know when was the proper time for it, so I sowed about two-
thirds of the seed, leaving about a handful of each. It was
a great comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one
grain of what I sowed this time came to anything: for the
dry months following, the earth having had no rain after
the seed was sown, it had no moisture to assist its growth,
and never came up at all till the wet season had come again,
and then it grew as if it had been but newly sown. Finding
my first seed did not grow, which I easily imagined was by
the drought, I sought for a moister piece of ground to make
another trial in, and I dug up a piece of ground near my
new bower, and sowed the rest of my seed in February, a
little before the vernal equinox; and this having the rainy
months of March and April to water it, sprung up very
pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop; but having part of
the seed left only, and not daring to sow all that I had, I had
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but a small quantity at last, my whole crop not amounting
to above half a peck of each kind. But by this experiment I
was made master of my business, and knew exactly when
the proper season was to sow, and that I might expect two
seed-times and two harvests every year.
While this corn was growing I made a little discovery,
which was of use to me afterwards. As soon as the rains
were over, and the weather began to settle, which was about
the month of November, I made a visit up the country to
my bower, where, though I had not been some months, yet
I found all things just as I left them. The circle or double
hedge that I had made was not only firm and entire, but the
stakes which I had cut out of some trees that grew there-
abouts were all shot out and grown with long branches, as
much as a willow-tree usually shoots the first year after lop-
ping its head. I could not tell what tree to call it that these
stakes were cut from. I was surprised, and yet very well
pleased, to see the young trees grow; and I pruned them,
and led them up to grow as much alike as I could; and it
is scarce credible how beautiful a figure they grew into in
three years; so that though the hedge made a circle of about
twenty-five yards in diameter, yet the trees, for such I might
now call them, soon covered it, and it was a complete shade,
sufficient to lodge under all the dry season. This made me
resolve to cut some more stakes, and make me a hedge like
this, in a semi-circle round my wall (I mean that of my first
dwelling), which I did; and placing the trees or stakes in
a double row, at about eight yards distance from my first
fence, they grew presently, and were at first a fine cover to
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1
my habitation, and afterwards served for a defence also, as I
shall observe in its order.
I found now that the seasons of the year might generally
be divided, not into summer and winter, as in Europe, but
into the rainy seasons and the dry seasons, which were gen-
erally thus:- The half of February, the whole of March, and
the half of April - rainy, the sun being then on or near the
equinox.
The half of April, the whole of May, June, and July, and
the half of August - dry, the sun being then to the north of
the line.
The half of August, the whole of September, and the half
of October - rainy, the sun being then come back.
The half of October, the whole of November, December,
and January, and the half of February - dry, the sun being
then to the south of the line.
The rainy seasons sometimes held longer or shorter as
the winds happened to blow, but this was the general ob-
servation I made. After I had found by experience the ill
consequences of being abroad in the rain, I took care to fur-
nish myself with provisions beforehand, that I might not be
obliged to go out, and I sat within doors as much as possible
during the wet months. This time I found much employ-
ment, and very suitable also to the time, for I found great
occasion for many things which I had no way to furnish
myself with but by hard labour and constant application;
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