part of the flesh of human bodies eaten and devoured by
those wretches with merriment and sport. I was so filled
with indignation at the sight, that I now began to premedi-
tate the destruction of the next that I saw there, let them be
whom or how many soever. It seemed evident to me that
the visits which they made thus to this island were not very
frequent, for it was above fifteen months before any more of
them came on shore there again - that is to say, I neither saw
them nor any footsteps or signals of them in all that time;
for as to the rainy seasons, then they are sure not to come
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abroad, at least not so far. Yet all this while I lived uncom-
fortably, by reason of the constant apprehensions of their
coming upon me by surprise: from whence I observe, that
the expectation of evil is more bitter than the suffering, es-
pecially if there is no room to shake off that expectation or
those apprehensions.
During all this time I was in a murdering humour, and
spent most of my hours, which should have been better
employed, in contriving how to circumvent and fall upon
them the very next time I should see them - especially if
they should be divided, as they were the last time, into two
parties; nor did I consider at all that if I killed one party
- suppose ten or a dozen - I was still the next day, or week,
or month, to kill another, and so another, even AD INFI-
NITUM, till I should be, at length, no less a murderer than
they were in being man-eaters - and perhaps much more
so. I spent my days now in great perplexity and anxiety of
mind, expecting that I should one day or other fall, into the
hands of these merciless creatures; and if I did at any time
venture abroad, it was not without looking around me with
the greatest care and caution imaginable. And now I found,
to my great comfort, how happy it was that I had provided
a tame flock or herd of goats, for I durst not upon any ac-
count fire my gun, especially near that side of the island
where they usually came, lest I should alarm the savages;
and if they had fled from me now, I was sure to have them
come again with perhaps two or three hundred canoes with
them in a few days, and then I knew what to expect. How-
ever, I wore out a year and three months more before I ever
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saw any more of the savages, and then I found them again,
as I shall soon observe. It is true they might have been there
once or twice; but either they made no stay, or at least I did
not see them; but in the month of May, as near as I could
calculate, and in my four-and-twentieth year, I had a very
strange encounter with them; of which in its place.
The perturbation of my mind during this fifteen or sixteen
months’ interval was very great; I slept unquietly, dreamed
always frightful dreams, and often started out of my sleep in
the night. In the day great troubles overwhelmed my mind;
and in the night I dreamed often of killing the savages and
of the reasons why I might justify doing it.
But to waive all this for a while. It was in the middle of
May, on the sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor wood-
en calendar would reckon, for I marked all upon the post
still; I say, it was on the sixteenth of May that it blew a very
great storm of wind all day, with a great deal of lightning
and thunder, and; a very foul night it was after it. I knew
not what was the particular occasion of it, but as I was read-
ing in the Bible, and taken up with very serious thoughts
about my present condition, I was surprised with the noise
of a gun, as I thought, fired at sea. This was, to be sure, a
surprise quite of a different nature from any I had met with
before; for the notions this put into my thoughts were quite
of another kind. I started up in the greatest haste imagin-
able; and, in a trice, clapped my ladder to the middle place of
the rock, and pulled it after me; and mounting it the second
time, got to the top of the hill the very moment that a flash
of fire bid me listen for a second gun, which, accordingly, in
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about half a minute I heard; and by the sound, knew that
it was from that part of the sea where I was driven down
the current in my boat. I immediately considered that this
must be some ship in distress, and that they had some com-
rade, or some other ship in company, and fired these for
signals of distress, and to obtain help. I had the presence of
mind at that minute to think, that though I could not help
them, it might be that they might help me; so I brought to-
gether all the dry wood I could get at hand, and making a
good handsome pile, I set it on fire upon the hill. The wood
was dry, and blazed freely; and, though the wind blew very
hard, yet it burned fairly out; so that I was certain, if there
was any such thing as a ship, they must needs see it. And
no doubt they did; for as soon as ever my fire blazed up, I
heard another gun, and after that several others, all from
the same quarter. I plied my fire all night long, till daybreak:
and when it was broad day, and the air cleared up, I saw
something at a great distance at sea, full east of the island,
whether a sail or a hull I could not distinguish - no, not with
my glass: the distance was so great, and the weather still
something hazy also; at least, it was so out at sea.
I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived
that it did not move; so I presently concluded that it was
a ship at anchor; and being eager, you may be sure, to be
satisfied, I took my gun in my hand, and ran towards the
south side of the island to the rocks where I had formerly
been carried away by the current; and getting up there, the
weather by this time being perfectly clear, I could plainly
see, to my great sorrow, the wreck of a ship, cast away in
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the night upon those concealed rocks which I found when
I was out in my boat; and which rocks, as they checked the
violence of the stream, and made a kind of counter-stream,
or eddy, were the occasion of my recovering from the most
desperate, hopeless condition that ever I had been in in all
my life. Thus, what is one man’s safety is another man’s de-
struction; for it seems these men, whoever they were, being
out of their knowledge, and the rocks being wholly under
water, had been driven upon them in the night, the wind
blowing hard at ENE. Had they seen the island, as I must
necessarily suppose they did not, they must, as I thought,
have endeavoured to have saved themselves on shore by the
help of their boat; but their firing off guns for help, espe-
cially when they saw, as I imagined, my fire, filled me with
many thoughts. First, I imagined that upon seeing my light
they might have put themselves into their boat, and endea-
voured to make the shore: but that the sea running very
high, they might have been cast away. Other times I imag-
ined that they might have lost their boat before, as might be
the case many ways; particularly by the breaking of the sea
upon their ship, which many times obliged men to stave, or
take in pieces, their boat, and sometimes to throw it over-
board with their own hands. Other times I imagined they
had some other ship or ships in company, who, upon the
signals of distress they made, had taken them up, and car-
ried them off. Other times I fancied they were all gone off
to sea in their boat, and being hurried away by the current
that I had been formerly in, were carried out into the great
ocean, where there was nothing but misery and perishing:
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and that, perhaps, they might by this time think of starving,
and of being in a condition to eat one another.
As all these were but conjectures at best, so, in the con-
dition I was in, I could do no more than look on upon the
misery of the poor men, and pity them; which had still this
good effect upon my side, that it gave me more and more
cause to give thanks to God, who had so happily and com-
fortably provided for me in my desolate condition; and that
of two ships’ companies, who were now cast away upon this
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