civilities, much less how to return them in kind.
The history of their coming to, and conduct in, the island after my
going away is so very remarkable, and has so many incidents which
the former part of my relation will help to understand, and which
will in most of the particulars, refer to the account I have
already given, that I cannot but commit them, with great delight,
to the reading of those that come after me.
In order to do this as intelligibly as I can, I must go back to the
circumstances in which I left the island, and the persons on it, of
whom I am to speak. And first, it is necessary to repeat that I
had sent away Friday’s father and the Spaniard (the two whose lives
I had rescued from the savages) in a large canoe to the main, as I
then thought it, to fetch over the Spaniard’s companions that he
left behind him, in order to save them from the like calamity that
he had been in, and in order to succour them for the present; and
that, if possible, we might together find some way for our
deliverance afterwards. When I sent them away I had no visible
appearance of, or the least room to hope for, my own deliverance,
any more than I had twenty years before – much less had I any
foreknowledge of what afterwards happened, I mean, of an English
ship coming on shore there to fetch me off; and it could not be but
a very great surprise to them, when they came back, not only to
find that I was gone, but to find three strangers left on the spot,
possessed of all that I had left behind me, which would otherwise
have been their own.
The first thing, however, which I inquired into, that I might begin
where I left off, was of their own part; and I desired the Spaniard
would give me a particular account of his voyage back to his
countrymen with the boat, when I sent him to fetch them over. He
told me there was little variety in that part, for nothing
remarkable happened to them on the way, having had very calm
weather and a smooth sea. As for his countrymen, it could not be
doubted, he said, but that they were overjoyed to see him (it seems
he was the principal man among them, the captain of the vessel they
had been shipwrecked in having been dead some time): they were, he
said, the more surprised to see him, because they knew that he was
fallen into the hands of the savages, who, they were satisfied,
would devour him as they did all the rest of their prisoners; that
when he told them the story of his deliverance, and in what manner
he was furnished for carrying them away, it was like a dream to
them, and their astonishment, he said, was somewhat like that of
Joseph’s brethren when he told them who he was, and the story of
his exaltation in Pharaoh’s court; but when he showed them the
arms, the powder, the ball, the provisions that he brought them for
their journey or voyage, they were restored to themselves, took a
just share of the joy of their deliverance, and immediately
prepared to come away with him.
Their first business was to get canoes; and in this they were
obliged not to stick so much upon the honesty of it, but to
trespass upon their friendly savages, and to borrow two large
canoes, or periaguas, on pretence of going out a-fishing, or for
pleasure. In these they came away the next morning. It seems they
wanted no time to get themselves ready; for they had neither
clothes nor provisions, nor anything in the world but what they had
on them, and a few roots to eat, of which they used to make their
bread. They were in all three weeks absent; and in that time,
unluckily for them, I had the occasion offered for my escape, as I
mentioned in the other part, and to get off from the island,
leaving three of the most impudent, hardened, ungoverned,