Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe - Chapter 2 – Slavery and Escape

None

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Audio books present Robinson Crusoe by Daniel de Foe,
Chapter two, Slavery and Escape. That evil influence which carried
me first away from my father's house, which hurried me

(00:22):
into the wild and indigested notion of raising my fortune,
and that impressed those conceits so forcibly upon me as
to make me deaf to all good advice and to
the entreaties and even the commands of my father. I
say the same influence, whatever it was, presented the most

(00:46):
unfortunate of all enterprises to my view, and I went
on board a vessel bound to the coast of Africa,
or as our sailors vulgarly called it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my misfortune that in all these adventures I
did not ship myself as a sailor, when though I

(01:10):
might have worked a little harder than ordinary, yet at
the same time I should have learnt the duty and
office of a foremasted man, and in time might have
qualified myself for a mate or a lieutenant, if not
for a master. But as it was always my fate

(01:30):
to choose for the worse, so I did here, for
having money in my pocket and good clothes upon my back.
I would always go on board in the habit of
a gentleman, and so I neither had any business in
the ship, nor learned to do any It was my lot,

(01:51):
first of all, to fall into pretty good company in London,
which does not always happen to such loose and misguided
young fellows, as I then was the devil, generally not
omitting to lay some snare for them very early. But
it was not so with me. I first got acquainted
with the master of a ship who had been on

(02:13):
the coast of Guinea, and who, having had very good
success there, was resolved to go again. This captain, taking
a fancy to my conversation, which was not at all
disagreeable at that time, hearing me say I had a
mind to see the world, told me if I would

(02:34):
go the voyage with him, I should be at no expense.
I should be his messmate and his companion, and if
I could carry anything with me, I should have all
the advantage of it that the trade would admit, and
perhaps I might meet with some encouragement. I embraced the offer,

(02:57):
and entering into a strict friendship with the captain, who
was an honest, plain dealing man, I went the voyage
with him and carried a small adventure with me, which,
by the disinterested honesty of my friend the Captain, I
increased very considerably. For I carried about forty pounds in
such toys and trifles as the Captain directed me to buy.

(03:21):
These forty pounds I had mustered together by the assistance
of some of my relations, whom I corresponded with, and
who I believe got my father or at least my mother,
to contribute so much as that to my first adventure.
This was the only voyage which I may say was

(03:41):
successful in all my adventures, which I owe to the
integrity and honesty of my friend the Captain, under whom
also I got a competent knowledge of the mathematics and
the rules of navigation, learned how to keep an account
of the ship's course, an observation, and in short to

(04:03):
understand some things that were needful to be understood by
a sailor. For as he took delight to instruct me,
I took delight to learn. And in a word, this
voyage made me both a sailor and a merchant, for
I brought home five pounds nine ounces of gold dust
for my adventure, which yielded me in London at my

(04:27):
return almost three hundred pounds, and this filled me with
those aspiring thoughts which ever since so completed my ruin.
Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too,
particularly that I was continually sick, being thrown into a

(04:51):
violent calenterer by the excessive heat of the climate, our
principal trading being upon the coast from latitude of fifteen
degrees north even to the line itself. I was now
set up for a getty trader, and my friend, to
my great misfortune, dying soon after his arrival. I resolved

(05:15):
to go the same voyage again, and I embarked in
the same vessel with one who was his mate in
the former voyage, and had now got the command of
the ship. This was the unhappiest voyage that ever manned made,
for though I did not carry quite one hundred pounds

(05:36):
of my newly gained wealth, so that I left two
hundred pounds, which I had lodged with my friend's widow,
who was very just to me. Yet I fell into
terrible misfortunes. The first was this our ship making her
course toward the Canary islands, or rather between those islands
and the African shore, was surprised in the gray of

(06:00):
the morning by a Turkish rover of Salie, who gave
chase to us with all the sails she could make.
We crowded also as much canvas as our yards would
spread as or our masts carry to get clear, but
finding the pirate gained upon us and would certainly come

(06:22):
up with us in a few hours, we prepared to fight,
our ship, having twelve guns and the rogue eighteen. About
three in the afternoon he came up upon us, and
bringing to by mistake, just a thwart our quarter instead
of a thwart our stern as he intended. We brought

(06:46):
eight of our guns to bear on that side and
poured in a broadside upon him, which made him shear
off again. After returning our fire and pouring in also
his small shot from near two hundred men which he
had on board. However, we had not a man touched

(07:06):
all our men keeping close, he prepared to attack us again,
and we to defend ourselves, but laying us on board.
The next time upon our other quarter, he entered sixty
men upon our decks, who immediately fell to cutting and
hacking the sails and rigging. We plied them with small shot, halfpikes,

(07:31):
powder chests, and such like, and cleared our deck of
them twice. However, to cut short this melancholy part of
our story, our ship being disabled and three of our
men killed and eight wounded, we were obliged to yield
and were carried all prisoners into Sali, a port belonging

(07:54):
to the Moors. The usage I had there was not
so dreadful as at first I apprehended, nor was I
carried up the country to the Emperor's court as the
rest of our men were, but was kept by the
captain of the rover as his proper prize, and made
his slave, being young and nimble and fit for his business.

(08:19):
At this surprising change of my circumstances from a merchant
to a miserable slave, I was perfectly overwhelmed. And now
I looked back upon my father's prophetic discourse to me
that I should be miserable and have none to relieve me,
which I thought was now so effectually brought to pass

(08:41):
that I could not be worse. For now the hand
of Heaven had overtaken me, and I was undone without redemption.
But alas this was but a taste of the misery
I was to go through, as will appear in the
sequel of the story. As my new patron or master
had taken me home to his house, so I was

(09:04):
in hopes that he would take me with him when
he went to sea again, believing that it would, sometime
or other be his fate to be taken by a
Spanish or Portugal man of war, and that then I
should be set at liberty. But this hope of mine
was soon taken away, for when he went to sea,

(09:24):
he left me on shore to look after his little
garden and do the common drudgery of slaves around his house.
And when he came home again from his crews, he
ordered me to lie in the cabin to look after
the ship. Here I meditated nothing but my escape and
what method I might take to effect it, but found

(09:46):
no way that had the least probability in it. Nothing
presented to make the supposition of it rational, for I
had nobody to communicate it to that would embark with me,
no fellow slave, no Englishman, Irishmen, or scotchman there but myself,

(10:08):
So that for two years, though I often pleased myself
with the imagination, yet I never had the least encouraging
prospect of putting it in practice. After about two years,
an odd circumstance presented itself, which put the old thought
of making some attempt for my liberty again in my head.

(10:28):
My patron lying at home longer than usual without fitting
out his ship, which as I heard, was for want
of money. He used constantly, once or twice a week,
sometimes oftener, if the weather was fair, to take the
ship's pinnace and go out into the road of fishing.

(10:49):
And as he always took me and the young Moresco
with him to row the boat, we made him very merry,
and I proved very dexterous in catching fish, insomuch that
sometimes he would send me with the Moore, one of
his kinsmen, and the youth the Moresco as they called him,
to catch a dish of fish for him. It happened

(11:13):
one time that, going to fishing in a calm morning,
a fog rose so thick that, though we were not
half a league from the shore, we lost sight of it,
and rowing we knew not whither or which way. We
labored all day and all the next night, and when
the morning came, we found we had pulled off to

(11:34):
sea instead of pulling in for shore, and that we
were at least two leagues from the shore. However, we
got well and again, though with a great deal of
labor and some danger, for the wind began to blow
pretty fresh in the morning. But we were all very hungry.

(11:54):
But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take
more care of himself for the future, and having lying
by him the long boat of our English ship that
he had taken, he resolved he would not go fishing
anymore without a compass and some provision. So he ordered
the carpenter of his ship, which was also an English slave,

(12:18):
to build a little stateroom or cabin in the middle
of the longboat, like that of a barge, with the
place to stand behind it to steer and haul home
the main sheet, the room before for a hand or
two to stand and work the sails. She sailed with

(12:38):
what we call a shoulder of mutton sail, and the
boom jibed over the top of the cabin, which lay
very snug and low, and had in it room for
him to lie, with a slaver two and a table
to eat on with some small lockers to put in
some bottles of such liquor as he thought fit to drink,

(12:59):
and bread, rice and coffee. We went frequently out with
this boat a fishing, and as I was most dexterous
to catch fish for him, he never went without me.
It happened that he had appointed to go out in
this boat, either for pleasure or for fish with two

(13:20):
or three moors of some distinction in that place, and
for whom he had provided extraordinarily, and had therefore sent
on board the boat overnight a larger store of provisions
than ordinary, and had ordered me to get ready three
fuss with powder and shot, which were on board his ship.

(13:43):
For that they designed some sport of fouling, as well
as fishing. I got all things ready as he had directed,
and waited the next morning, with the boat washed clean,
her ancient and pendants out, and everything to accommodate his
guest guests, when by and by my patron came on

(14:03):
board alone and told me his guests had put off
going from some business that fell out, and ordered me,
with the man and boy as usual, to out go
out with the boat and catch them some fish. For
that his friends were to stop at his house, and
commanded that as soon as I got some fish, I
should bring it home to his house, all which I

(14:24):
prepared to do. This moment my former notions of deliverance
darted into my thoughts. For now I found I was
likely to have a little ship at my command, and
my master being gone, I preferred prepared to furnish myself
not for fishing business, but for a voyage. Though I

(14:45):
knew not neither did I so much as consider whither
I should steer anywhere. To get out of that place
was my desire. My first contrivance was to make a
pretense to speak to this more to get something for
our subsistence on board. For I told him we must

(15:05):
not presume to eat of our patron's bread. He said
that was true, so he brought a large basket of
rusk or biscuit and three jars of fresh water into
the boat. I knew where my patron's case of bottles stood,
which it was evident by the make were taken out
of some English prize, and I conveyed them into the

(15:29):
boat while the moor was on shore, as if they
had been there before. For our master, I conveyed also
a great lump of bees wax into the boat, which
weighed about half a hundredweight, with a parcel of twine
or thread, a hatchet, a saw, and a hammer, all
of which were of great use to us afterwards, especially

(15:49):
the wax to make candles. Another trick I tried upon him,
which he innocently came into. Also his name was Ishmael,
which they called Muli or Moli, so I called him Molly,
said I, our patron's guns are on board the boat.

(16:11):
Can you not get a little powder and shot? It
may be we may kill kill some. Alchamis a fowl
like our curlews for ourselves, for I know he keeps
the gunner's stores in the ship. Yes, says he, I'll
bring some. And accordingly he brought a great leather pouch

(16:34):
which held a pound and a half of powder, or
rather more, and another was shot that had five or
six pounds with some bullets, and put all into the boat.
At the same time I found some powder of my
master's in the great cabin, with which I filled one
of the large bottles in the case, which was almost empty,

(16:55):
pouring what was in it into another, and thus furnished
with every thing needful we sailed out of the port
to fish. The castle, which is at the entrance of
the port, knew who we were and took no notice
of us, and we were not above a mile out
of the port before we hauled in our sail and

(17:18):
set us down to fish. The wind blew from the
north northeast, which was contrary to my desire, for had
it blown southenly, I had been sure to have made
the coast of Spain and at least reached to the
Bay of Cadiz. But my resolutions were blow which way

(17:39):
it would, I would be gone from that horrid place
where I was, and lead the rest to fate. After
we had fished for some time and caught nothing, for
when I had fish on my hook, I would not
pull them up, that he might not see them, I
said to them, more, this will not do. Our master

(18:00):
will not be thus served. We must stand farther off. He,
thinking no harm, agreed, and, being in the head of
the boat, set the sails, and as I had the helm,
I ran the boat out near a league farther and
then brought her to as if I would fish. When

(18:21):
giving the boy the helm, I stepped forward to where
the moor was and making as if I stooped for
something behind him. I took him by surprise with my
arm under his waist, and tossed him clear overboard into
the sea. He rose immediately, for he swam like a cork,
and called to me, begged to be taken in, told

(18:43):
me he would go all over the world with me.
He swam so strong after the boat that he would
have reached me very quickly, there being but little when,
upon which I stepped into the cabin, and fetching one
of the fowling pieces, I presented it at him and
told him I had done him no hurt, and if

(19:04):
he would be quiet, I would do him none, But
said I, you swim well enough to reach to the shore,
and the sea is calm. Make the best of your
way to shore, and I will do you no harm.
But if you come near the boat, I'll shoot you
through the head, for I am resolved to have my liberty.

(19:25):
So he turned himself about and swam for the shore,
and I make no doubt but he reached it with ease,
for he was an excellent swimmer. I could have been
content to have taken this moar with me and have
drowned the boy, but there was no venturing to trust him.
When he was gone, I turned to the boy, whom

(19:46):
they called Shuri, and said to him, surely, if you
will be faithful to me, I'll make you a great man.
But if you will not stroke your face to be
true to me, that is swear by Mohammet and his
father's beard, I must throw you into the sea too.

(20:07):
The boy smiled in my face and spoke so innocently
that I could not distress him, and swore to be
faithful to me and go all over the world with me.
While I was in view of the moor that was swimming,
I stood out directly to sea with the boat, rather
stretching to windward, that they might think me gone towards

(20:30):
the strait's mouth, as indeed anyone that had been in
their wits must have been supposed to do. For who
would have supposed We were sailed on to the southward,
to the truly Barbarian coast, where whole nations of Negroes
were sure to surround us with their boats and destroy us.

(20:53):
Where we could not go on shore, but we should
be devoured by savage beasts or more merciless savages of
the human kind. But as soon as it grew dusk
in the evening, I changed my course and steered directly
south and by east, bending my course a little towards

(21:13):
the east, that I might keep in with the shore,
and having a fair, fresh gale of wind and a smooth,
quiet sea, I made such sail that I believed by
the next day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, when
I first made the land, I could not be less
than one hundred and fifty miles south of Selie, quite

(21:35):
beyond the Emperor of Morocco's dominions, or indeed of any
other king thereabouts, for we saw no people. Yet. Such
was the fright I had taken of the moors, and
the dreadful apprehensions I had of falling into their hands,
that I would not stop, or go on shore, or

(21:56):
come to an anchor the whend. Continuing fair till I
had sailed in that manner five days, and then the
wind shifting to the southward. I concluded also that if
any of our vessels were in chase of me, they
also would now give over. So I ventured to make
the coast and come to an anchor in the mouth

(22:17):
of a little river. I knew not what nor where,
neither what latitude, what country, what nation, or what river.
I neither saw nor desired to see any people. The
principal thing I wanted was fresh water. We came into
this creek in the evening, resolving to swim on shore

(22:38):
as soon as it was dark and discover the country.
But as soon as it was quite dark we heard
such dreadful noises of the barking, roaring, and howling of
wild creatures, of we knew not what kinds that the
poor boy was ready to die with fear, and begged
of me not to go on shore till day. Well, sure,

(23:00):
said I, then I won't. But it may be that
we may see men by day who will be as
bad to us as those lions. Then we give them
the shoot gun, said Shurry, laughing, make them run away.
Such English Shurry spoke by conversing among the slaves. However,

(23:23):
I was glad to see the boy so cheerful, and
I gave him a dram out of our patron's case
of bottles to cheer him up. After all, Shurrey's advice
was good, and I took it. We dropped our little
anchor and lay still all night, I say still, for
we slept none. For in two or three hours we

(23:43):
saw vast, great creatures we knew not what to call
them of many sorts come down to the sea shore
and run into the water, wallowing and washing themselves for
the pleasure of cooling themselves. And they made such hideous
howlings and yelling that I never indeed heard the like.

(24:05):
Shuri was dreadfully frightened, and indeed so was I too.
But we were both more frighted when we heard one
of these mighty creatures come swimming towards our boat. We
could not see him, but we might hear him by
his blowing to be a monstrous, huge and furious beast.
Suri said it was a lion, and it might be

(24:27):
so for aught, I know, But poor Suri cried to
me to weigh the anchor and row away. No, says
I SURREI we can slip our cable with the boy
to it and go off to see they cannot follow
us far. I had no sooner said so, But I
perceived the creature, whatever it was, within two oar's length,

(24:49):
which something surprised me. However, I immediately stepped to the
cabin door and taking up my gun fired at him,
upon which he immediately turned about and swam towards the
shore again. But it is impossible to describe the horrid
noises and hideous cries and howlings that were raised as

(25:10):
well upon the edge of the shore as higher within
the country. Upon the noise or report of the gun,
a thing I have some reason to believe those creatures
had never heard before. This convinced me that there was
no going on shore for us in the night on
that coast, and how to venture on shore of the

(25:30):
day was another question, too, for to have fallen into
the hands of any of the savages had been as
bad as to have fallen into the hands of the
lions and tigers. At least we were equally apprehensive of
the danger of it. Be that as it would, we
were obliged to go on shore somewhere or other for water,

(25:53):
for we had not a pint left in the boat.
When and where to get to it was the point
Surrey said, if I would let him go on shore
with one of the jars, he would find if there
was any water and bring some to me. I asked
him why he should go, why I should not go,

(26:14):
and he stay in the boat. The boy answered, with
so much affection as made me love him ever after,
says he, if wild mans come they eat me, you
go away. Well, surey, said I. We will both go,
and if the wild mans come, we will kill them.
They shall eat neither of us. So I gave Shuy

(26:39):
a piece of rusk bread to eat in a dram
out of our patron's case of bottles, which I mentioned before,
and we hauled the boat in as near to the
shore as we thought was proper, and so waited on shore,
carrying nothing but our arms and two jars for water.

(27:00):
I did not care to go out of sight of
the boat, fearing the coming of canoes with savages down
the river. But the boy, seeing a low place about
a mile up the country, rambled to it, and by
and bye I saw him come running towards me. I
thought he was pursued by some savage, or frighted with
some wild beast, and I ran towards him to help him.

(27:23):
But when I came nearer to him, I saw something
hanging over his shoulders, which was a creature that he
had shot, like a hare, but different in color and
longer legs. However, we were very glad of it, and
it was very good meat. But the great joy that
poor Shuri came with was to tell me he had
found good water and seen no wild man's But we

(27:48):
found afterwards that we need not take such pains for water.
For a little higher up the creek where we were,
we found the water fresh when the tide was out,
which flowed but little way up, and so we filled
our jars and feasted on the air. He had killed,
and prepared to go our way, having seen no footsteps

(28:10):
of any human creature in that part of the country.
As I had been one voyage to this coast before,
I knew very well that the islands of the Canaries
and the Cape de Verde Islands also lay not far
off from the coast. But as I had no instruments
to take an observation to know what latitude we were in,

(28:32):
and not exactly knowing or at least remembering what latitude
they were in, I knew not where to look for them,
or when to stand off to sea towards them. Otherwise
I might now easily have found some of these islands.
But my hope was that if I stood along this
coast till I came to that part where the English traded,

(28:55):
I should find some of their vessels upon their usual
design of trade, that would relieve and take us in.
By the best of my calculation, that place where I
now was must be that country which, lying between the
Emperor of Morocco's dominions and the Negroes, lies waste and

(29:16):
uninhabited except by wild beasts, the Negroes having abandoned it
and gone farther south for fear of the Moors, and
the moor Is, not thinking it worth inhabiting by reason
of its barrenness, and indeed both forsaking it because of
the prodigious numbers of tigers, lions, leopards, and other furious

(29:37):
creatures which harbor there, so that the Moors use it
for their hunting only where they go like an army
two or three thousand men at a time, and indeed
for near a hundred miles together upon this coast, we
saw nothing but a waste, uninhabited country by day, and
heard nothing but howlings and roaring of wild beasts by night.

(30:01):
Once or twice in the daytime I thought I saw
the Pico of Tenerife, being the high top of the
mountain Tenerife in the Canaries, and had a great mind
to venture out in hopes of reaching thither. But having
tried twice, I was forced again in by contrary winds,

(30:21):
the sea also going too high for my little vessel.
So I resolved to pursue my first design and keep
along the shore. Several times I was obliged to land
for fresh water after we had left this place, and
once in particular, being early in the morning, we came
to an anchor under a little point of land which

(30:43):
was pretty high, and the tide beginning to flow. We
lay still to go further in. Shurrey, whose eyes were
more about him than it seems mine were, called softly
to me and tells me that we had best go
farther off the shore. Four says he look yonder lies

(31:04):
a dreadful monster on the side of that hillock fast asleep.
I looked where he pointed, and saw a dreadful monster. Indeed,
for it was a terrible, great lion that lay on
the side of the shore, under the shade of a
piece of the hill that hung as if it were
a little over him. Sure, he says, I, you shall

(31:25):
on shore and kill him. Shuri looked frightened and said
me kill he eat me one mouth one mouthful he meant. However,
I said no more to the boy, but bade him
lie still, and I took our biggest gun, which was
almost musket bore, and loaded it with a good charge

(31:46):
of powder and with two slugs, and laid it down.
Then I loaded another gun with two bullets, and the third,
for we had three pieces, I loaded with five smaller bullets.
I took the best aim I could with the first
piece to have shot him in the head, but he
lay so with his leg raised a little above his

(32:08):
nose that the slug hit his knee and broke the bone.
He started up, growling at first, but finding his leg broken,
fell down again, and then got up upon three legs
and gave the most hideous roar that ever I heard.

(32:28):
I was a little surprised that I had not hit
him on the head. However, I took up the second
piece in immediately, and though he began to move off,
fired again and shot him in the head, and had
the pleasure to see him drop and make but little noise,
but lie struggling for life. Then Shurey took heart and

(32:51):
would have me let him go. On shore. Well go,
said I. So the boy jumped into the water, and,
taking a little gun in one hand, swam to shore
with the other, and, coming close to the creature, put
the muzzle of the piece to his ear and shot
him in the head again, which despatched him. Quite This

(33:12):
was game, indeed to us, but this was not food,
and I was very sorry to lose three charges of
powder and shot upon a creature that was good for
nothing to us. However, SURREI said he would have some
for him. So he comes on board and asks me
to give him the hatchet. For what, sure, he said,

(33:33):
I me cut off his head, said he. However, sure
he could not cut off his head, But he cut
off a foot and brought it with him, and it
was a monstrous, great one. I bethought myself, however, that
perhaps the skin of him might, one way or another,
be of some value to us, and I resolved to

(33:55):
take off his skin if I could so. Shury and
I went to work with him. But sure he was
much better the workman at it, for I knew very
ill how to do it. Indeed, it took both of
us up the whole day, but at last we got
off the hide of him, and spreading it on the

(34:15):
top of our cabin. The sun effectually dried it in
two days time, and it afterwards served me to lie.
Upon end of chapter two,