Read Ebook: Robinson Crusoe Told to the Children by John Lang by Lang John Adapter Defoe Daniel Chisholm Louey Editor Robinson Will Bennett Illustrator

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Ebook has 264 lines and 21617 words, and 6 pages

-bank. In an instant the sails were blown to bits, and flapped with such uproar that no one could hear the Captain's orders. Waves poured over the decks, and the vessel bumped on the sand so terribly that the masts broke off near the deck, and fell over the side into the sea.

With great difficulty the only boat left on the ship was put in the water, and everybody got into her. They rowed for the shore, hoping to get perhaps into some bay, or to the mouth of a river, where the sea would be quiet.

But before they could reach the land, a huge grey wave, big like the side of a house, came foaming and thundering up behind them, and before any one could even cry out, it upset the boat, and they were all left struggling in the water.

Robinson was a very good swimmer, but no man could swim in such a sea, and it was only good fortune that brought him at last safely to land. Big wave after big wave washed him further and further up the beach, rolling him over and over, once leaving him helpless, and more than half-drowned, beside a rock.

But before the next wave could come up, perhaps to drag him back with it into the sea, he was able to jump up and run for his life.

And so he got safely out of the reach of the water, and lay down upon the grass. But of all on board the ship, Robinson was the only one who was not drowned.

ROBINSON WORKS HARD AT MAKING HIMSELF A HOME

When he had rested a little, Robinson got up and began to walk about very sadly, for darkness was coming on; he was wet, and cold, and hungry, and he did not know where to sleep, because he was afraid of wild beasts coming out of the woods and killing him during the night.

But he found that he still had his knife in his pocket, so he cut a big stick to protect himself with. Then he climbed into a tree which had very thick leaves, and there he fixed himself among the branches as well as he could, and fell sound asleep.

In the morning when he awoke, the storm was past, and the sea quieter. To his surprise, he saw that the ship had been carried in the night, by the great seas, much nearer to the shore than she had been when the boat left her, and was now lying not far from the rock where Robinson had first been washed up.

At last, after swimming twice round the vessel, he saw a rope hanging over, near the bow, and by its help he climbed on board.

Everything in the stern of the ship was dry, and in pretty good order, and the water had not hurt the provisions much. So he took some biscuits, and ate them as he looked about, and drank some rum, and then he felt better, and stronger, and more fit to begin work.

First of all, he took a few large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or two, that were on the deck. These he pushed overboard, tying each with a rope to keep it from drifting away. Then he went over the side of the ship, and tied all the spars together so as to make a raft, and on top he put pieces of plank across. But it was long before he could make the raft fit to carry the things he wanted to take on shore.

At last, after much hard work, he got on to it three of the seamen's chests, which he had broken open and emptied, and he filled these with bread, and rice, and cheese, and whatever he could find to eat, and with all sorts of things that he thought he might need. He found, too, the carpenter's tool chest, and put it on the raft; and nothing on the whole ship was of more use to him than that.

Then he set about looking for clothes, for while he had been on the ship, the tide had risen and had washed away his coat and waistcoat and shirt, which he had left lying on the sand.

Guns and pistols also, and powder and shot, he took, and two old rusty cutlasses.

Now the trouble was to reach land, for the raft had no mast nor sail nor rudder, and was too heavy and clumsy to be pulled by Robinson with the broken oars that he had found. But the tide was rising, and slowly she drifted nearer and nearer, and at last was carried up the mouth of a little river which Robinson had not seen when he was on shore.

There was a strong tide running up, which once carried the raft against a point of land, where she stuck for a time, and very nearly upset all the things into deep water. But as the tide rose higher, Robinson was able to push her into a little bay where the water was shallow and the ground beneath flat, and when the tide went out there she was left high and dry, and he got everything safely ashore.

The next thing that Robinson did was to climb a hill, that he might see what sort of country he was in, and find out if there were any other people in it. But when he got to the top, he saw to his sorrow that he was on an island, with no other land in sight except some rocks, and two smaller islands far over the sea. There were no signs of any people, and he saw nothing living except great numbers of birds, one of which he shot. But it was not fit to eat, being some kind of hawk.

After this, with the chests and boards that he had brought on shore, he made a kind of hut to sleep in that night, and he lay there on the sand very comfortably.

Day by day now for some time Robinson swam out to the ship, and made fresh rafts, loading them with many stores, powder and shot, and lead for bullets, seven muskets, a great barrel of bread, three casks of rum, a quantity of flour, some grain, a box of sugar, sails and ropes and twine, bags of nails, and many hatchets. With one of the sails he made himself a good tent, in which he put everything that could be spoiled by rain or sun. Around it he piled all the casks and other heavy things, so that no wild beast could very easily get at him.

In about a fortnight the weather changed; it blew very hard one night, and in the morning the ship had broken up, and was no more to be seen. But that did not so much matter, for Robinson had got out of her nearly everything that he could use.

Now, Robinson thought it time to find some better place for his tent. The land where it then stood was low and near the sea, and the only water he could get to drink tasted rather salt. Looking about, he found a little plain, about a hundred yards across, on the side of a hill, and at the end of the plain was a great rock partly hollowed out, but not so as quite to make a cave. Here he pitched his tent, close to the hollow place in the rock. Round in front of the tent he drove two rows of strong stakes, about eighteen inches apart, sharpened at top; and he made this fence so strong that when it was finished he was sure that nothing could get at him, for he left no door, but climbed in and out by a ladder, which he always hauled up after him.

Before closing up the end, Robinson hauled inside this fence all his stores, his food and his guns, his powder and shot, and he rigged inside a double tent, so better to keep off the hot sun and the rain.

Then he began to dig into the rock, which was not very hard, and soon behind his tent he had a cave in which he thought it wise to stow his gunpowder, about one hundred and forty pounds in all, packed in small parcels; for, he thought, if a big thunderstorm were to come, a flash of lightning might explode it all, and blow him to bits, if he kept the whole of it in his tent.

Robinson was now very comfortable, and as he had saved from the wreck two cats and a dog, he did not feel quite so lonely. He had got, also, ink and pens and paper, so that he could keep a diary; and he set up a large wooden cross, on which he cut with his knife the date of his landing on the island--30th September 1659; and every day he cut a notch on the post, with a longer one each Sunday, so that he might always know how the months and years passed.

As for food, he found that there were many goats on the island, and numbers of pigeons, and he had no difficulty in shooting as many as he needed.

But now he saw that his tent and cave were too small for all the things he had stowed in them, so he began to make the cave bigger, bringing out all the rock and soil that he cut down, and making with it a kind of terrace round the inside of his stockade. And as he was sure that there were no wild beasts on the island to harm him, he went on tunnelling to the right hand till he broke through the rock outside his fence.

Then he began to hang things up against the side of the cave, and he even made shelves, and a door for the outside entrance. This was a very difficult job, and took him a long time; for, to make a board, he was forced to cut down a whole tree, and chop away with his axe till one side was flat, and then cut at the other side till the board was thin enough, when he smoothed it with his adze. But in this way, out of each tree he would only get one plank. He made for himself also a table and a chair, and finally got his castle, as he called it, in very good order.

With all his care, however, there was one thing that he forgot, and that was, when he had made the cave so much bigger, to prop it, so as to keep the roof from falling in. And so one day he got a terrible fright, and was nearly killed, by a huge bit of the soft rock which fell and buried many of his things. It took weeks of hard work afterwards to clear away the fallen rubbish, and to cut beams strong enough to prop the roof.

THE EARTHQUAKE AND HURRICANE; AND HOW ROBINSON BUILT A BOAT

Now about this time, when Robinson had been some months on the island, heavy and constant rain began to fall, and sometimes weeks would pass without a single dry day. He found that instead of there being Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, as in England, the seasons in his island were divided into the wet and the dry. There was no cold weather, no winter. It chanced that just before this first rain began, Robinson had emptied out some refuse from bags which had once held rice, and other grain, and he had forgotten all about having emptied them. So he was very much astonished to find, some time afterwards, both barley and rice growing near his tent, in the shade of the rock. The ears, when ripe, he kept to sow again, and from this very small beginning, in the course of a few seasons, he had a great quantity of grain, both for food and for sowing. But this meant every year much hard work, for he had no plough nor harrow, and all the ground had to be dug with a clumsy spade, made from a very hard, heavy wood that grew on the island.

At first Robinson could not grind the grain that he grew, nor make bread from it. If he could have found a large stone, slightly hollow on top, he might, by pounding the grain on it with another round stone, have made very good meal. But all the stones he could find were too soft, and in the end he had to make a sort of mill of hard wood, in which he burnt a hollow place, and on that he pounded the grain into meal with a heavy stick.

Baking he did by building a big fire, then raking away the ashes, and putting the dough on the hot place, covered with a kind of basin made of clay, over which he heaped the red ashes. In this way very good bread can be made.

Before the rainy season was over, and just after he had finished the fence round his tent, one day when Robinson was at work in the cave, all of a sudden the earth began to fall from the roof, and the strong props he had put in cracked in a way which frightened him terribly. At the same time there was a curious moaning, rumbling noise, that he could not understand. He rushed out, and so afraid was he that the roof was falling in, and that he should be buried, that he got over the fence and began to run.

But he was even more frightened when he found that all the ground was shaking. Then he knew that this was an earthquake.

Three times there came violent shocks; a huge rock about half a mile away fell with a great noise like thunder, and the sea was churned up as if by a whirlwind. Robinson was sick with the movement of the ground, and trembling with the dread of being swallowed by the earth as it cracked and gaped; and after the noise and shaking were over, he was too frightened to go back to his tent, but sat where he was, all the time expecting another shock.

Suddenly a furious wind began to blow, tearing up trees by the roots, and lashing the water till nothing could be seen but foam and flying spray. The air was full of branches and leaves torn off by the hurricane, and birds in hundreds were swept helpless out to sea. In about three hours, as suddenly as it had begun, the wind fell, and there was a dead calm, followed by rain such as Robinson had never before seen, which soaked him to the skin, and forced him to return to the cave, where he sat in great fear.

For long after this he was very uneasy, and made up his mind to shift his quarters as soon as he could find a better place for his tent. But the earthquake had one good result, for what remained of the wreck was again thrown up by the sea, and Robinson got more things out of it which were useful to him, and for days he worked hard at that. One day, too, when he was on his way to the remains of the ship, he came on a large turtle, which he killed, and this gave him plenty of good food, for besides the flesh, there were, inside the animal, many eggs, which she had come to the shore to lay in the sand, as is the habit of turtles, and which Robinson thought were even better than hen's eggs.

Now a few days after he had got so wet in the heavy rain, though the weather was hot, Robinson felt very cold and shivery, and had pains all over his body, and at night he dreamed terrible dreams. The following day, and many days, he lay very ill with fever and ague, and hardly knew what he was doing. So weak was he, that he believed he was dying, and there was no one to give him water to quench his thirst, nor to help him in any way. His only medicine was rum, in which he had soaked tobacco. It was very nasty, and made him sick, but it also made him sleep for more than a whole day and a night, and he woke much better, and able to walk about a little, though for a fortnight he was too weak to work. From this illness he learned not to go out more than he could help during the rainy season.

When he was again quite strong, Robinson started to explore the island better than he had yet done, and he found many things growing, of which he made great use afterwards, tobacco, sugar-cane, and all manner of fruits, amongst them grapes, which he used to dry to raisins in the sun in great quantities.

Near the spot where the most fruit grew, he built a hut, and round it, for safety, he put a double fence made of stakes cut from some of the trees near at hand. During the next rainy season these stakes took root, and grew so fast that soon nothing of the hut could be seen from outside the hedge, and it made so good a hiding-place, that Robinson cut more stakes of the same kind, and planted them outside the fence around his first dwelling; and in a year or two that also was quite hidden from view. The twigs of this tree, too, were good for making baskets, of which he had been in great need.

When he had finished all this work, he started again to go over the rest of the island, and on his way across, from a hill, the day being very clear, he saw high land a great way off over the water, but whether it was another island, or the coast of America, he could not be sure.

When he reached the other side of his island Robinson found the beach covered with turtles in astonishing numbers, and he thought how much better off he would have been if he had been cast ashore here, for not only would the turtles have supplied him with plenty of food, but there were far more birds than on the part of the island where he had been living, and far more goats.

During the journey back to his castle he caught a young parrot, which, after a long time, he taught to speak and to call him by his name. It was so long since he had heard any voice, that it was a comfort to listen even to a parrot talking.

Now, the sight which Robinson had had of the far distant land raised in him again the great longing to get away from this island where he had been so long alone, and he wished greatly for a boat. He went over to the remains of the boat in which he and the others had tried to come ashore when their ship struck on the sand-bank, and which had been flung far up on the beach by the sea, and he worked for weeks trying to repair her and to get her into the water. But it was all of no use; he could not move her.

Then, he thought, 'I'll cut down a tree, and make a new boat.' This he fancied would be easy, for he had heard how the Indians make canoes by felling a tree and burning out the inside. 'If they can do it, then surely I can do it even better,' he thought. So he looked about, and chose a huge tree which stood about a hundred yards from the water, and with great labour in about three weeks he had cut it down.

Four months Robinson worked at this boat, thinking all the time of what he would do when he reached the far distant land, and much pleased with himself for the beautiful boat he was making. Day after day he trimmed and shaped it, and very proud he was when it was finished and lay there on the ground, big enough to carry twenty men.

ROBINSON BUILDS A SECOND BOAT, IN WHICH HE IS SWEPT OUT TO SEA

Now he had kept all the skins of the goats, and other animals, such as hares and foxes, that he had shot; and from these, after many failures, at last he made a hat and coat of goatskin, and a pair of short trousers, all with the hair outside, so as to shoot off the wet when it rained. The hat was very tall, and came to a sharp peak on top, and it had a flap which hung down the back of his neck. Robinson also, with much trouble, made of the skins an umbrella which he could open and shut; and if his clothes and his umbrella, and especially his hat, were not very good to look at, they were useful, and he could now go about in any weather.

During the next five years nothing out of the common happened, and Robinson's time was mostly taken up with the getting of food, the yearly sowing and reaping of his crops, and the curing of his raisins. But towards the end of that time he made another attempt to build a boat, and this time he made one much smaller than the first, and though it took him nearly two years to finish, in the end he got her into the sea. She was not big enough for him to try to sail in to the far-off land that he had seen, and he used her only for cruising about the shores of his own island, and for fishing. In her he fixed a little mast, on which he rigged a small sail, made from a bit of one of the old ship's sails, and, using a paddle to steer with, he found that she sailed very well. Over the stern he fixed his big umbrella, to shade him from the sun, like an awning.

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