Kabanata Kabanata 7 · AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

. AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

I had now been in this unhappy island above ten months. All possibility

of deliverance from this condition seemed to be entirely taken from me;

and I firmly believe that no human shape had ever set foot upon that

place. Having now secured my habitation, as I thought, fully to my

mind, I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the

island, and to see what other productions I might find, which I yet

knew nothing of.

It was on the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular

survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I

hinted, I brought my rafts on shore. I found after I came about two

miles up, that the tide did not flow any higher, and that it was no

more than a little brook of running water, very fresh and good; but

this being the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of

it—at least not enough to run in any stream, so as it could be

perceived. On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs

or meadows, plain, smooth, and covered with grass; and on the rising

parts of them, next to the higher grounds, where the water, as might be

supposed, never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and

growing to a great and very strong stalk. There were divers other

plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that might,

perhaps, have virtues of their own, which I could not find out. I

searched for the cassava root, which the Indians, in all that climate,

make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of

aloes, but did not understand them. I saw several sugar-canes, but

wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented myself with

these discoveries for this time, and came back, musing with myself what

course I might take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the

fruits or plants which I should discover, but could bring it to no

conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little observation while I was

in the Brazils, that I knew little of the plants in the field; at

least, very little that might serve to any purpose now in my distress.

The next day, the sixteenth, I went up the same way again; and after

going something further than I had gone the day before, I found the

brook and the savannahs cease, and the country become more woody than

before. In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found

melons 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 exceeding 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

Englishmen, who were slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes 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 contrivance, 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

valley, 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, everything 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 possession; 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 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 thereabouts, 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 upon the out-branches of the 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 tempting 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 other 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.

However, 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 resolved 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 double hedge, as high as I could reach, well staked and

filled between with brushwood; and here I lay very secure, sometimes

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 beginning 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

extraordinary.

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, 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 vermin 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; whereas now I

thought I lay exposed, and open for anything to 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, acknowledging

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 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 barley 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.

Accordingly, 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

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 thereabouts were all shot out and grown

with long branches, as much as a willow-tree usually shoots the first

year after lopping 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 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 generally 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 observation I made. After I

had found by experience the ill consequences of being abroad in the

rain, I took care to furnish 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 employment, 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; particularly I tried many ways to make myself a

basket, but all the twigs I could get for the purpose proved so brittle

that they would do nothing. It proved of excellent advantage to me now,

that when I was a boy, I used to take great delight in standing at a

basket-maker’s, in the town where my father lived, to see them make

their wicker-ware; and being, as boys usually are, very officious to

help, and a great observer of the manner in which they worked those

things, and sometimes lending a hand, I had by these means full

knowledge of the methods of it, and I wanted nothing but the materials,

when it came into my mind that the twigs of that tree from whence I cut

my stakes that grew might possibly be as tough as the sallows, willows,

and osiers in England, and I resolved to try. Accordingly, the next day

I went to my country house, as I called it, and cutting some of the

smaller twigs, I found them to my purpose as much as I could desire;

whereupon I came the next time prepared with a hatchet to cut down a

quantity, which I soon found, for there was great plenty of them. These

I set up to dry within my circle or hedge, and when they were fit for

use I carried them to my cave; and here, during the next season, I

employed myself in making, as well as I could, a great many baskets,

both to carry earth or to carry or lay up anything, as I had occasion;

and though I did not finish them very handsomely, yet I made them

sufficiently serviceable for my purpose; thus, afterwards, I took care

never to be without them; and as my wicker-ware decayed, I made more,

especially strong, deep baskets to place my corn in, instead of sacks,

when I should come to have any quantity of it.

Having mastered this difficulty, and employed a world of time about it,

I bestirred myself to see, if possible, how to supply two wants. I had

no vessels to hold anything that was liquid, except two runlets, which

were almost full of rum, and some glass bottles—some of the common

size, and others which were case bottles, square, for the holding of

water, spirits, &c. I had not so much as a pot to boil anything, except

a great kettle, which I saved out of the ship, and which was too big

for such as I desired it—viz. to make broth, and stew a bit of meat by

itself. The second thing I fain would have had was a tobacco-pipe, but

it was impossible to me to make one; however, I found a contrivance for

that, too, at last. I employed myself in planting my second rows of

stakes or piles, and in this wicker-working all the summer or dry

season, when another business took me up more time than it could be

imagined I could spare.