Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe - Chapter 12 – The Cave Retreat

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recorded by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California,
Winter two thousand and six, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe,

(00:32):
Chapter twelve, A cave retreat. While this was doing, I
was not altogether careless of my other affairs, for I
had a great concern upon me for my little herd
of goats. They were not only already supplied to me
on every occasion, and began to be sufficient for me

(00:54):
without the expense of powder and shot, but also without
the fatigue of hunting after that wild ones. And I
was loath to lose the advantage of them, and to
have them all to nurse up over again for this purpose.
After long consideration, I could think of but two ways
to preserve them. One was to find another convenient place

(01:19):
to dig a cave underground, and to drive them into
it every night. And the other was to enclose two
or three little bits of land, remote from one another,
and as much concealed as I could, where I might
keep about a half dozen young goats in each place,
so that if any disaster happened to the flock in general,

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I might be able to raise them again with little
trouble and time. And this, though it would require a
good deal of time in labor, I thought was the
most rational design. Accordingly, I spent some time to find
out the most retired parts of the island, and I
picked upon one which was as private, indeed as my

(02:03):
heart could wish. It was a little damp piece of
ground in the middle of the hollow and thick woods,
where as is observed, I almost lost myself once before
endeavoring to come back that way from the eastern part
of the island. Here I found a clear piece of
land near three acres, so surrounded with woods that it

(02:27):
was almost an enclosure by nature. At least it did
not want near so much labor to make it so
as the other piece of ground I had worked so
hard at. I immediately went to work with this piece
of ground, and in less than a month's time I
had so fenced it round that my flock or herd

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call it what she please, which were not so wild
now as at first they might be supposed to be,
were well enough secured in it. So without any further delay,
removed ten young she goats and two he goats to
this piece, and when they were there, I continued to
perfect the fence till I had made it as secure

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as the other, which however, I did at more leisure,
and it took me up more time by a great deal.
All this labor I was at the expense of, purely
from my apprehensions, on account of the print of a
man's foot, For as yet I had never seen any
human creature come near the island, and I had now

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lived two years under this uneasiness, which indeed made my
life much less comfortable than it was before, as may
well be imagined by any who know what it is
to live in the constant snare of the fear of man.
And this I must observe with grief too, that the

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discomposure of my mind had great impression also upon the
religious part of my thoughts. The dread and terror of
falling into the hands of savages and cannibals lay so
upon my spirits that I seldom found myself in a
due temper for application to my maker, at least not

(04:13):
with the sedate calmness and resignation of soul which I
was wont to do. I rather prayed to God as
under great affliction and pressure of mind, surrounded with danger,
and in expectation every night of being murdered and devoured
before morning. And I must testify from my experience that

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a temper of peace, thankfulness, love, and affection is much
more the proper frame for prayer than that of terror
and discomposure, And that under the dread of mischief impending,
a man is no more fit for a comforting performance
of the duty of praying to God than he is

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for a repentance on a sin bed. For these discomposures
affect the mind as the others do the body, and
the discomposure of the mind must necessarily be as great
a disability as that of the body, and much greater,
praying to God being properly an act of the mind,

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not of the body. But to go on. After I
had thus secured one part of my little living stock,
I went about the whole island, searching for another private
place to make such another deposit. When wandering more to
the west point of the island than I had ever

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done yet, and looking out to the sea, I thought
I saw a boat upon the sea at a great distance.
I had found a perspective glass or two in one
of the seamen's chests, which I saved out of our ship,
But I had it not about me, and this was

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so remote that I could not tell what to make
of it, though I looked at it till my eyes
were not able to hold to look any longer. Whether
it was a boat or not, I do not know.
But as I descended from the hill, I could see
no more of it, so I gave it over. Only

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I resolved to go no more out without a prospective
glass in my pocket. When I was come down the
hill to the end of the island, where indeed I
had never been before, I was presently convinced that the
scene the print of a man's foot, was not such
a strange thing in the island as I imagined, but

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that it was a special providence that I was cast
upon the side of the island where the savages never came.
I should easily have known that nothing was more frequent
than for the canoes from the main when they happened
to be a little too far out at sea to
shoot over to that side of the island for harbor,

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And likewise as they often met and fought in their canoes.
The victors, having taken away prisoners, would bring them over
to this shore, where, according to their dreadful customs, being
all cannibals, they would kill and eat them, And of
which hereafter, when I was come down the hill to

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the shore, as I said above, being the southwest point
of the island, I was perfectly confounded and amazed. Nor
is it possible for me to express the horror of
my mind at seeing the shore spread with skulls, hands, feet,
and other bones of human bodies. And particularly I observed

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a place where there had been a fire made, and
a circle dug in the earth like a cockpit, where
I supposed the savage wretches had set down to their
human feastings upon the bodies of their fellow creatures. I
was so astonished with the sight of these things that
I entertained no notions of any danger to myself from it.

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For a long while. All my apprehensions were buried in
the thoughts of such a pitch of inhuman hellish brutality,
and the horror of the degeneracy of human nature, which
though I had heard of it often, yet I never
had so near a view of before. In short, I

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turned away my face from the horrid spectacle. My stomach
grew sick, and I was just at the point of
fainting when Nature discharged the disorder from my stomach, and
having vomited with uncommon violence, I was a little relieved,
but could not bear to stay in the place a moment,

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so I got up the hill again with all the
speed I could, and walked on towards my own habitation.
When I came a little out of that part of
the island, I stood still awhile, amazed, and then recovering myself,
I looked up with the utmost affection of my soul,

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and with a flood of tears in my eyes, gave
God thanks that had cast my first lot in a
part of the world where I was distinguished from such
dreadful creatures as these, And that though I had esteemed
my present condition very miserable, had yet given me so

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many comforts in it, that I had still more to
give thanks for than to complain of. And this above all,
that I had, even in this miserable condition, been comforted
with the knowledge of Himself and the hope of His blessing,
which was a felicity more than sufficiently equivalent to all

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the misery which I had suffered or could suffer. In
this frame of thankfulness, I went home to my castle
and began to be much easier now as to the
safety of my circumstances than ever I was before. For
I had observed that these wretches never came to this

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island in search of what they could get, perhaps not seeking,
not wanting, or not expecting anything here, and having often
no doubt been up the covered witty part of it
without finding anything to their purpose. I knew I had
been here now almost eighteen years, and never saw the
least footsteps of human creature there before. And I might

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be eighteen years more as entirely concealed as I was
now if I did not discover myself to them, which
I had no manner of occasion to do, it being
only my business to keep myself entirely concealed where I was,
unless I found a better sort of creatures than cannibals

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to make myself known to. Yet I entertained such an
abhorrence of the savage wretches that I have been speaking of,
and of the wretched inhuman custom of their devouring and
eating one another up that I continued pensive and sad,
and kept close within my own circle for almost two

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years after this. When I say my own circle, I
mean by it my three plantations, that is, my castle,
my country seat, which I called my bower, and my
enclosure in the woods. Nor did I look after this
for any other use than an enclosure for my goats.
For the aversion which nature gave me to these hellish

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wretches was such that I was as fearful of seeing
them as of seeing the devil himself. I did not
so much as go to look after my boat all
this time, but began rather to think of making another,
for I could not think of ever making any more
attempts to bring the other boat round the island to me,

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lest I should meet with some of these creatures at sea,
in which case, if I had happened to have fallen
in their hands, I knew what would have been my lot. Time, however,
and the satisfaction I had that I was in no
danger of being discovered by these people began to wear
off my uneasiness about them, and I began to live

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just the same composed manner as before, only with this
difference that I used more caution and kept my eyes
more about me than I did before, lest I should
happen to be seen by any of them, And particularly
I was more cautious of firing my gun to any
of them being on the island, should happen to hear it.

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It was therefore a very good providence to me that
I had furnished myself with a tame breed of goats,
and that I had no need to hunt any more
about the woods or shoot at them. And if I
did catch any of them after this, it was by
traps and snares, as I had done before, so that
for two years after this, I believe I never fired

(13:26):
my gun once off, though I never went out without it.
And what was more, as I had saved three pistols
out of the ship, I always carried them out with me,
or at least two of them, sticking them in my
goat skin belt. I also furbished up one of the
great cutlasses that I had out of the ship, and

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made me a belt to hang it on, also so
that I was now a most formidable fellow to look
at when I went abroad. If you add to the
former description of myself the particular of two pistols and
a broadsword hanging at my side in a belt and
without a scabbard. Things going on thus, as I have said,

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for some time, I seemed accepting these cautions to be
reduced to my former calm, sedate way of living. All
these things tended to show me more and more how
far my condition was from being miserable compared to some others, nay,
to many other particulars of life, which it might have

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been pleasing to God to have made my lot. It
put me upon reflecting how little repining there would be
among mankind at any condition of life. If people would
rather compare their condition with those that were worse in
order to be thankful, then be always comparing them with

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those which are better to assist their murmurings and complain.
As in my present condition, there were not really many
things which I wanted. So indeed, I thought that the
frights I had been in about these wretched savages, and
the concern I had been in for my own preservation,

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had taken off the edge of my invention for my
own conveniences, and I had dropped a good design which
I had once spent my thoughts upon, and that was
to try if I could not make some of my
barley into malt and then try to brew myself some beer.
This was really a whimsical thought, and I reproved myself

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often for the simplicity of it. For I presently saw
that there would be the want of several things necessary
to the making of my beer, that it would be
impossible for me to supply as first casks to preserve
it in, which was a thing that, as I have
observed already, I could never compass. Now though I spent

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not only many days, but weeks, nay months, in attempting it,
but to no purpose. In the next place, I had
no hops to make it keep, no use to make
it work, no copper or kettle to make it boil.
And yet with all these things wanting, I verily believe
had not the frights and terrors I was in about

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the savages intervened. I had undertaken it and perhaps brought
it to pass two. For I seldom gave anything over
without accomplishing it when once I had it in my
head to begin it. But my invention now ran quite
another way. For night and day I could think of
nothing but how I might destroy some of the monsters

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in their cruel, bloody entertainment, and if possible save the
victim they should bring hither to destroy, it would take
up a larger volume than this. Whole work is intended
to be to set down all the contrivances I hatched,
or rather brooded upon in my thoughts, for the destroying

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these creatures, or at least frightening them, so as to
prevent their coming hither any more. But all this was abortive.
Nothing could be possible to take effect unless I was
to be there to do it myself. And what could
one man do among them, when perhaps there might be
twenty or thirty of them, together with their darts or

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their bows and arrows, with which they could shoot as
true to a mark as I could with my gun.
Sometimes I thought if digging a hole unto the place
where they made their fire, and putting in five or
six pounds of gunpowder, which when they kindled their fire,
would consequently take fire and blow up all that was

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near it. But as in the first place, I should
be unwilling to waste so much powder upon them, my
store being now within the quantity of one barrel, so
neither could I be sure of its going off at
any certain time when it might surprise them, and at
best that it would do little more than just blow

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the fire about their ears and fright them, but not
sufficient to make them forsake the place. So I laid
it aside, and then proposed that I would place myself
in ambush in some convenient place, with my three guns,
all double loaded, and in the middle of their bloody ceremony,

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let fly at them when I should be sure to
kill or wound, perhaps two or three at every shot,
and then falling in among them with my three pistols
at my sword. I made no doubt but that if
there were twenty, I should kill them all. This fancy

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pleased my thoughts for some weeks, and I was so
full of it that I often dreamed of it, and
sometimes that I was just going to let fly at
them in my sleep. I went so far with it
in my imagination that I employed myself several days to
find out proper places to put myself in ambuscade, as

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I said, to watch for them, and I went frequently
to that place itself, which was now grown more familiar
to me. But while my mind was thus filled with
thoughts of revenge and a bloody putting twenty or thirty
of them to the sword, as I may call it.

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The horror I had at the place, and the signals
of the barbarous wretches devouring one another abeedded my malice well.
At length I found a place in the side of
the hill where I was satisfied I might securely wait
till I saw any of their boats coming, and might, then,
even before they would be ready to come on shore,

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convey myself unseen into some thickets of trees, in one
of which there was a hollow large enough to conceal
me entirely, And there I might sit and observe all
their bloody doings, and take my full aim at their heads,
when they were so close together as that it would
be next to impossible that I should miss my shot,

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or that I would fail wounding three or four of
them at the first shot. In this place, then I
resolved to fulfill my design, and accordingly I prepared two
muskets and my ordinary fowling piece. The two muskets I
loaded with a brace of slugs each and four or

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five smaller bullets about the size of pistol bullets. And
the folling piece I loaded with near a handful of
swan shot of the largest size. I also loaded my
pistols with about four bullets each, and in this posture
well provided with ammunition for a second and third charge.

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I prepared myself for my expedition. After I had thus
laid the scheme of my design, and in my imagination
put it in practice, I continually made my tour every
morning to the top of the hill, which was from
my castle, as I called it, about three miles or more,
to see if I could observe any boats upon the sea,

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coming near the island, or standing over towards it. But
I began to tire of this hard duty after I had,
for two or three months constantly kept my watch, but
came always back without any discovery, there having not in
all that time been the least appearance, not only on

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or near the shore, but on the whole ocean, so
far as my eye or glass could reach every way.
As long as I kept my daily tour to the
hill to look out, so long also I kept up
the vigor of my design, and my spirits seemed to
be all the while in a suitable frame for so
outrageous an execution as the killing twenty or thirty naked

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savages for an offense which I had not at all
entered into any discussion of in my thoughts any farther
than my passions were at first fired by the horror
I conceived at the unnatural custom of the people of
that country, who, it seems had been suffered by Providence
in his wise disposition of the world, to have no

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other guide than that of their own abominable and vitiated passions,
and consequently were left, and perhaps had been so for
some ages to act such horrid things and receive such
horrid customs, as nothing but nature, entirely abandoned by Heaven

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and actuated by some hellish degeneracy, could have run them into.
But now, when as I have said, I began to
be weary of the fruitless excursion which I had made
so long and so far every morning in vain, so
my opinion of the action itself began to alter, and

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I began, with cooler and calmer thoughts to consider what
I was going to engage in, what authority or call
I had to pretend to be judge and executioner upon
these men as criminals whom Heaven had thought fit for
so many ages to suffer unpunished, to go on, and

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to be, as it were, the executioners of His judgments
one upon another. How far these people were offenders against me?
And what right I had to engage in the quarrel
of that blood which they shed promiscuously upon one another.
I debated this very often with myself. Thus, how do

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I know what God himself judges in this particular case?
It is certain these people do not commit this as
a crime. It is not against their own consciences reproving
or their light reproaching them. They do not know it
to be in offense, and then commit it in defiance

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of divine justice, as we do in almost all the
sins we commit. They think it no more a crime
to kill a captive taken in war than we do
to kill an ox, or to eat human flesh than
we do to eat mutton. When I consider this a little,

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it followed necessarily that I was certainly in the wrong.
That these people were not murderers in the sense that
I had before condemned them in my thoughts, anymore than
those Christians were murderers who often put to death the
prisoners taken in battle, or more frequently upon many occasions
put whole troops of men to the sword without giving quarter,

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though they threw down their arms and submitted in the
next place. It occurred to me that although the usage
they gave one another was thus brutish and inhuman, yet
it was really nothing to me. These people had done
me no injury. That if they attempted, or I saw
it necessary for my immediate preservation to fall upon them,

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something might be said for it, but that I was
yet out of their power, and they really had no
knowledge of me, and consequently no design upon me, And
therefore it could not be just for me to fall
upon them. That this would justify the conduct of the
Spaniards and all their barbarities practiced in America, where they

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destroyed millions of these people, who, however, they were idolaters
and barbarians and had several bloody and barbarous rights in
their customs, such as sacrificing human bodies to their idols,
were yet, as to the Spaniards, very innocent people, and
that the routine of them out of the country is

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spoken of with the utmost abhorrence and detestation by even
its Spaniards themselves at this time and by all other
Christian nations of Europe as a mere butchery, a bloody
and unnatural peace of cruelty, unjustifiable either to God or man,

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and for which the very name of a Spaniard is
reckoned to be frightful and terrible to all people of
humanity or of Christian compassion, as if the Kingdom of
Spain were particularly imminent for the produce of a race
of men who were without principles of tenderness, or the

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common bowels of pity to the miserable, which is reckoned
to be a mark of generous temper. In the mind,
these considerations really put me to a pause and to
a kind of full stop. And I began, by little
and little to be off my design, and to conclude

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that I had taken wrong measures in my resolution to
attack the savages, and that it was not my business
to meddle with them unless they first attacked me, and
this it was my business, if possible, to prevent, but
that if I were discovered and attacked by them, I
knew my duty. On the other hand, I argued with

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myself that this was really the way, not to deliver myself,
but entirely to ruin and destroy myself, for unless I
was sure to kill every one of them, that not
only should be on the shore at that time, but
that should ever come on shore afterwards. If but one
of them escaped to tell their country people what had happened,

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they would come over again by thousands to revenge the
death of their fellows, and I should only bring upon
myself a certain destruction which at present I had no
manner of occasion for. Upon the whole I concluded that
I ought neither in principle nor in policy, one way
or other, to concern myself in this affair. That my

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business was by all possible means to conceal myself from them,
and not to leave the least sign for them to
guess by that there were any living creatures upon the island,
I mean of human shape. Religion joined in with this
prudential resolution, and I was convinced now many ways that

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I was perfectly out of my duty when I was
laying all my bloody schemes for the destruction of innocent creature,
I mean innocent as to me. As to the crimes
they were guilty of towards one another, I had nothing
to do with them. They were national, and I ought
to leave them to the justice of God, who is
the governor of nations, and knows how by national punishments,

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to make a just retribution for national offenses, and to
bring public judgments upon those who offend in a public manner,
by such ways as best please him. This appeared so
clear to me now that nothing was a greater satisfaction
to me than that I had not been suffered to

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do a thing which I now saw so much reason
to believe would have been no less a sin than
that of wilful murder if I had committed it. And
I gave most humble thanks on my knees to God
that he had thus delivered me from blood guiltiness, beseeching

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him to grant me the protection of his providence, that
I might not fall into the hands of the barbarians,
or that I might not lay my hands upon them,
unless I had a more clear call from Heaven to
do it in defense of my own life. In this
disposition I continued for near a year after this, and

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so far was I from desiring an occasion for falling
upon these wretches, that in all that time I never
once went up to the hill to see whether there
were any of them in sight, or to know whether
any of them had been on shore there or not,
that I might not be tempted to renew any of

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my contrivances against them, or be provoked by any advantage
that might present itself to fall upon them. Only this
I did. I went and removed my boat, which I
had on the other side of the island, and carried
it down to the east end of the whole island,
where I ran it into a little cove which I

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found under some high rocks, and where I knew, by
reason of the currents, the savages Durst not at least
would not come with their boats upon any account whatsoever.
With my boat I carried away everything that I had
left there belonging to her, though not necessary for the

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bear going thither. That is a mast and sail which
I had made for her, and a thing like an anchor,
but which indeed could not be called either anchor or
a grapnel. However, it was the best I could make
of its kind. All these I removed that there might
not be the least shadow for discovery or appearance of

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any boat, or of any human habitation upon the island.
Besides this, I kept myself more to myself, as I said,
more retired than ever, and seldom went from my cell
except upon my constant employment to milk my she goats
and manage my little flock in the wood, which, as

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it was quite on the other part of the island,
was out of danger. For certain it is that these
savage people who sometimes haunted this island never came with
any thoughts of finding anything here, and consequently never wandered
off from the coast. And I doubt not, but they
might have been several times on shore after my apprehensions

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of them had made me cautious as well as before. Indeed,
I looked back with some horror upon the thoughts of
what my condition would have been if I had chopped
upon them and been discovered. Before that, when naked and
unarmed except with one gun, and that loaded off and
only with small shot, I walked everywhere, peeping and peering

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about the island to see what I could get. What
a surprise should I have been in if, when I
discovered the print of a man's foot, I had, instead
of that, seen fifteen or twenty savages and found them
pursuing me, and by the swiftness of their running, no

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possibility of my escaping them. The thoughts of this sometimes
sank my very soul within me, and distressed my mind
so much that I could not soon recover it to
think what I should have done, and how I should
not only have been unable to resist them, but even
should not have had presence of mind enough to do

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what I might have done, much less, what now, after
so much consideration and preparation I might be able to do. Indeed,
after serious thinking of these things, I would be melancholy,
and sometimes it would last a great while. But I
resolved it all at last into thankfulness to that providence

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which had delivered me and had kept me from so
many unseen dangers, and from those mischiefs which I could
have no way been the agent in delivering myself from,
because I had not the least notion of any such
thing depending or the least supposition of its being possible.

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This renewed a contemplation which often had come into my
thoughts in former times, when first I began to see
the merciful dispositions of Heaven in the dangers we run
through in this life. How wonderfully we are delivered when
we know nothing of it. How when we are in
a quandary, as we call it, a doubt or hesitation,

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whether to go this way or that way. A secret
hint will direct us this way when we intended to
go that way, Nay, when sense, our own inclination, and
perhaps business has called us to go the other way.
Yet a strange impression upon the mind, from we know

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not what springs, and by we know not what power,
shall overrule us to go this way, and it shall
afterwards appear that had we gone that way which we
should have gone, and even to our imagination ought to
have gone, we should have been ruined and lost. Upon

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those and many like reflections, I afterwards made it a
certain rule with me that whenever I found those secret
hints or pressings of mind to doing or not doing
anything that presented or going this way or that way,
I never failed to obey the secret dictate, though I

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knew no other reason for it than such a pressure
or such a hint hung upon my mind. I could
give many examples of the success of this conduct in
the course of my life, but more especially in the
latter part of my inhabiting this unhappy island. Besides many
occasions which it is very likely I might have taken

(36:15):
notice of if I had seen with the same eyes
then that I see with now. But it is never
too late to be wise, and I cannot but advise
all considering men whose lives are attended with such extraordinary
incidents as mine, or even though not so extraordinary, not

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to slight such secret intimations of providence. Let them come
from what invisible intelligence they will, that I shall not discuss,
and perhaps cannot account for. But certainly they are a
proof of the converse of spirits, and a secret communication
between those embodied in those unembodied, and such a proof

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as can never be understood, of which I shall have
occasion to give some remarkable instances in the remainder of
my solitary residence in this dismal place. I believe the
reader of this will not think it strange if I
confess that these anxieties, these constant dangers, I lived in,

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and the concern that was now upon me, put an
end to all invention into all the contrivances that I
laid for my future accommodations and conveniences. I had the
care of my safety more now upon my hands than
that of my food. I cared not to drive a
nail or chop a stick of wood now, for fear

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the noise I might make should be heard. Much less
would I fire a gun for the same reason. And
above all I was intolerably uneasy at making any fire,
less the smoke, which is visible at a great distance
in the day, should betray me. For this reason I
removed that part of my business which required fire, such

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as burning of pots and pipes, et cetera, into my
new apartment in the woods, where after I had been
for some time, I found to my unspeakable consolation a
mere natural cave in the earth, which went in a
vast way in where I dare say, no savage had
he been at the mouth of it, would be so

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hearty as to venture in. Nor indeed would any man
else but one who like me wanted nothing so much
as a safe retreat. The mouth of this hollow was
at the bottom of a great rock, where by a
mere accident, I would say, if I did not see
abundant reason to ascribe all such things. Now to providence.

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I was cutting down some thick branches of trees to
make charcoal. And before I go on, I must observe
the reason of my making this charcoal, which was this?
I was afraid of making a smoke about my habitation,
as I said before, And yet I could not live
there without baking my bread, cooking my meat, et cetera.

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So I contrived to burn some wood here, as I
had seen done in England under turf, till it became
chark or dry coal, and then putting the fire out,
I preserved the coal to carry home and perform the
other services for which fire was wanting, without danger of smoke.

(39:37):
But this is by the bye. While I was cutting
down some wood here I perceived that behind a very
thick branch of low brushwood or underwood, there was a
kind of hollow place. I was curious to look in it,
and getting with difficulty into the mouth of it, I
found it was pretty large, that is to say, sufficient

(39:58):
for me to stand upright in, and perhaps another with me.
But I must confess to you that I made more
haste out than I did in. When looking farther into
the place, which was perfectly dark, I saw two broad
shining eyes of some creature, whether devil or man I

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knew not, which twinkled like two stars. The dim light
from the cave's mouth shining directly in and making the reflection. However,
after some pause, I recovered myself and began to call
myself a thousand fools, and to think that he that
was afraid to see the devil was not fit to

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live twenty years in an island all alone, and that
I might well think there was nothing in this cave
that was more frightful than myself. Upon this, plucking up
my courage, I took up a firebrand, and and I
rushed again, with the stick flaming in my hand. I
had not gone three stone in before I was almost

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as frightened as before, for I heard a very loud sigh,
like that of a man in some pain, and it
was followed by a broken noise, as of words half expressed,
and then a deep sigh again. I stepped back, and
was indeed struck with such a surprise that it put

(41:22):
me into a cold sweat. And if I had had
a hat upon my head, I will not answer for
it that my hair might not have lifted it off.
But still plucking up my spirits as well as I could,
and encouraging myself a little with considering that the power
and presence of God was everywhere and was able to

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protect me. I stepped forward again, and by the light
of the firebrand, holding it up a little over my head,
I saw lying on the ground a monstrous, frightful old
he goat just make his will, as we say, and
gasping for life, and dying indeed of mere old age.

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I stirred him a little to see if I could
get him out, and he essayed to get up, but
was not able to raise himself. And I thought with
myself he might even lie there, for if he had
frightened me, so, he would certainly fright away any of
the savages, if any of them should be so hearty
as to come in there while he had life in him.

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I was now recovered from my surprise, and began to
look around me, when I found the cave was but
very small. That is to say, it might be about
twelve feet over, but in no manner of shape, neither
round or square, no hands having ever been employed in
making it, but those of mere nature. I observed also

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that there was a place at the farther side of
it that went in further, but was so low that
it required me to creep upon my hands and knees
to go into it, and whither it went I knew
not so, having no candle, I gave it over for
that time, but resolved to go again the next day,
provided with candles and a tinder box which I had

(43:15):
made of the lock of one of the muskets, with
some wildfire in the pan. Accordingly, the next day I
came provided with six large candles of my own making,
for I had very good candles now of goat's tallow,
but was hard set for a candle wick, using sometimes

(43:36):
rags or rope yarn, and sometimes the dried rind of
a weed like nettles. And going into this low place,
I was obliged to creep upon all fours, as I
have said, almost ten yards, which by the way, I
thought was a venture bold enough, considering that I knew
not how far it might go, nor what was beyond it.

(44:01):
When I had got through the strait, I found the
roof rose higher up, I believe near twenty feet. But
never was such a glorious sight seen in the island,
I dare say, as it was to look round the
sides and roof of this vault or cave. The wall
reflected one hundred thousand lights to me from my two candles.

(44:25):
What was in the rock, whether diamonds or any other
precious stones or gold, which I rather supposed it to be,
I knew not. The place I was in was a
most delightful cavity or grotto. Though perfectly dark, the floor
was dry and level, and had a sort of a

(44:46):
small loose gravel upon it, so that there was no
nauseous or venomous creature to be seen. Neither was there
any damp or wet on the sides of roof. The
only difficulty in it was the entrance, which, however, as
it was a place of security and such a retreat
as I wanted, I thought was a convenience, so that

(45:09):
I was really rejoiced at the discovery, and resolved without
any delay to bring some of the things which I
was most anxious about to this place. Particularly, I resolved
to bring hinder my magazine of powder, and all my
spare arms, that is two falling pieces, for I had

(45:29):
three in all, and three muskets four of them I
had eight in all, so I kept in my castle
only five, which stood ready mounted like pieces of cannon
on my utmost fence, and were ready also to take
out upon any expedition. Upon this occasion of removing my ammunition,

(45:50):
I happened to open the barrel of powder which I
took up out of the sea, and which had been wet,
And I found that the water had penetrated about three
three or four inches into the powder on every side,
which caking and growing hard, had preserved the inside like
a kernel in the shell, so that I had near

(46:11):
sixty pounds of very good powder in the center of
the cask. This was a very agreeable discovery to be
at that time. So I carried all away thither, never
keeping above two or three pounds of powder with me
in my castle, for fear of a surprise of any kind.
I also carried thither all the lead I had left

(46:33):
for bullets. I fancied myself now like one of the
ancient giants who were said to live in caves and
holes in the rocks, where none could come at them.
For I persuaded myself while I was here, that if
five hundred savages were to hunt me, they could never
find me out, or if they did, they would not

(46:56):
venture to attack me. Here. The old goat, whom I
found expiring, died in the mouth of the cave. The
next day after I made this discovery, and I found
it much easier to dig a great hole there and
throw him in and cover him with earth, than to
drag him out. So I interared him there to prevent

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offense to my nose. End of Chapter twelve,