Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe - Chapter 7 – Agricultural Experience

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Dream Audiobooks Present Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Chapter seven,
Agricultural Experience.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
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 believed that no
human shape had ever set foot upon that place. Having
now secured my habitation, as I thought fully to my mind,

(00:40):
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 fifteenth 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

(01:02):
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

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run in any stream. So as it could be perceived.
On the banks of this brook, I found many pleasant
savannahs or meadows, plains smooth and covered with grass, and
on the rising parts of them, next to the higher grounds,

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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

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could not find out. I searched for the cassavar 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

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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

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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 somewhat further than I had
gone the day before, I found the brook and the
savannahs cease, and the country become more woody than before.

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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

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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

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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

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evening there and went 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,
traveling nearly four miles, as I might judge by the

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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

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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

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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

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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

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not only pleasant to eat, but very wholesome, and I
mixed their juice afterwards with water and 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

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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 lime and lemons in another place, and taking a

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few of each with me, I traveled homewards, resolving to
come again and bring a bag or sack, or what
I can make to carry the rest home. Accordingly, having
spent three days in this journey, I came home. So
I must now call my tent in my cave my home.

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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,

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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,

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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,

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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 trees that they might cure and

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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 in this journey, I contemplated
with great pleasure the fruitfulness of that valley, and the
pleasantness of the situation, the security from storms on that

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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 situated, if possible, in that pleasant,

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fruitful part of the island. This thought ran long in
my head, and I was exceedingly 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 sea side, where
it was at least possible that something might happen to

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my advantage, and by the same ill fate that brought
me hither might bring some other unhappy wretches to.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
The same place.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
And though it was scarce probable that any such thing
should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among the hills
and woods and the center 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

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by any means to remove. However, I was so enamored
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 move, yet I built me a little kind
of a bower, and surrounded it at a distance with

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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 seacoast house.

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And this work took me up to the beginning of August.
I had but newly finished my fence and begun to
enjoy my labor 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

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piece of 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 third of August, I found the

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grapes I had hung up perfectly dried, and indeed were
her 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

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taken them down and carried the most of them home
to my cave. And then it began to rain, and
from Hents, which was the fourteenth 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

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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 astonish she came home about the end
of August with three kittens. This was the more strange

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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,

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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 fourteenth of August to the twenty sixth, incessant
rain so that I could not stir, and was now
very thankful not to be much wet. In this confinement,

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I began to be straightened for food, but venturing out twice,
I one day killed a goat, and the last day,
which was the twenty sixth, 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

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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

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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

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perfect enclosure, whereas now I thought I lay exposed and
opened 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. September thirtieth, I was

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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

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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,
I had a bunch of grapes, and went to bed,
finishing the day as I began it. I had all

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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,

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I found I had been there a year. So I
divided it in two 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

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memorable events of my life without continuing a daily memoran
them of other things. The rainy season and the dry
season began now to appear regular to me, and I
learned to divide them to provide for them accordingly. But

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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 years of barley and rice,
which I had so surprisingly found spring up as I
thought of themselves, and I believe there were about thirty

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stocks of rice at about twelve of barley, and now
I thought it a proper time to sow it. After
the rains, the sunbeam 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. As I was sowing

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it casually occurred to my thoughts that I would not
sow it all at first, because I did not know
what was the proper time for it. So I sewed
about two thirds of the seed, and leaving about a
handful of each It was a great comfort to me
afterwards that I did so, for not one grain of

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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 little moisture to assist
its growth, and never came up at all till the
wet season had come again. And then it grew as
much as if it had been but newly sown. Finding

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my first seed did not grow, which I easily imagined
was by the drought, I sought out for a moisture
piece of ground to make another trial, 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

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of March and April toward, it sprung up very pleasantly
and yielded a very good crop. And 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

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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

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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

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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 well pleased to see the young

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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

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trees for such as 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 steaks and make me a hedge
like this, in a semicircle round my wall, I mean
that of my first dwelling, which I did in placing

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the trees or steaks 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 defense, also, as I shall
observe in its order, I found now that the seasons

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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,

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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,

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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

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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

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to the time, for I found great occasion for many
things which I had no way to furnish myself with,
but by hard labor 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

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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 wear, and being as boys usually
are very officious to help, and a great observer of

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the manner in which they worked these 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 steaks
that grew might possibly be as tough as the sallows,

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willows and ossiers in England, and I resolved to try accordingly.
The next day I went to my country house, as
I called it, and cutting down 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

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a hatchet to cut down a quantity which I soon found,
for there was a 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

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many baskets, both to carry earth or 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

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ware decayed, I made more, especially strong, deep baskets to
place my cornin 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 Once

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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,
et cetera. I had not so much as a pot

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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, that is, 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 make me one. However, I

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found a contrivance for that too.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
At last I.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Employed myself in planting my second rows of steaks 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 and of Chapter
seven