Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the thirteenth chapter of The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

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Today we'll be continuing the life and.

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

By Daniel Defoe chapter 13 wreck of a Spanish Ship I was now in the 23rd year of my residence in this island, and was so naturalized to the place and the manner of living that could I but have.

Enjoyed the certainty that no savages would come to the place to disturb me.

I could have been content to have capitulated for spending the rest of my time there, even to the last moment till I had laid me down and died like the old goat in the cave.

I had also arrived to some little diversions and amusements, which made the time pass a great deal more pleasantly with me than it did before.

First I had taught my pole, as I noted before, to speak, and he did it so familiarly and talked so articulately and plain, that it was very pleasant to me, and he lived with me no less than six and 20 years.

How long he might have lived afterwards I know not, though I know they have a notion in the Brazils that they live a hundred years.

My dog was a pleasant and loving companion to me for no less than 16 years of my time, and then died of mere old age.

As for my cats, they multiplied, as I've observed, to that degree that I was obliged to shoot several of them at first to keep them from devouring me and all I had.

But at length, when the two old ones I brought with me were gone and after some time continually driving them from me and letting them have no provision with me, they all ran wild into the woods except two or three favorites which I kept tame and whose young, when they had any, I always drowned.

And these were part of my family.

Besides these, I always kept two or three household kids about me whom I taught to feed out of my hand.

And I had two more parrots which talked pretty and would all call robin crusoe but none like my first nor indeed did I take the pains with any of them that I had done with him.

I had also several tame sea fowls whose name I knew not, that I caught upon the shore and cut their wings.

And the little stakes which I had planted before my castle wall being now grown up to a good thick grove.

These fowls all lived among these low trees and bred there, which was very agreeable to me.

So that, as I said above, I began to be very well contented with the life I led.

If I could have been secured from the dread of the savages.

But it was otherwise directed.

And it may not be amiss for all people who shall meet with my story to make this just observation from it.

How frequently in the course of our lives the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which when we are fallen into is the most dreadful to us is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into.

I could give many examples of this in the course of my unaccountable life but in nothing was it more particularly remarkable than in the circumstances of my last years of solitary residence in this island.

It was now the month of December, as I said above, in my 23rd year and this being the southern solstice for winter I could not call it was the particular time of my harvest and required me to be pretty much abroad in the fields when going out early in the morning.

Even before it was thorough daylight, I was surprised with seeing a light of some fire upon the shore at a distance from me of about 2 miles toward that part of the island where had observed some savages had been as before, and not on the other side.

But to my great affliction, it was on my side of the island.

I was indeed terribly surprised at the sight and stopped short within my grove not daring to go out, lest I might be surprised.

And yet I had no more peace within from the apprehensions I had that if these savages and rambling over the island should find my corn standing or cut or any of my works or improvements, they would immediately conclude that there were people in the place and would then never rest till they'd found me out.

In this extremity, I went back directly to my castle, pulled up the ladder after me, and made all things without look as wild and natural as I could.

Then I prepared myself within, putting myself in a posture of defense.

I loaded all my cannon, as I called them.

That is to say, my muskets, which were mounted upon my new fortification and all my pistols and resolved to defend myself to the last gasp not forgetting seriously to commend myself to the divine protection and earnestly to pray to God to deliver me out of the hands of the barbarians.

I continued in this posture about 2 hours and began to be impatient for intelligence abroad, for I had no spies to send out.

After sitting a while longer and musing what I should do in this case, I was not able to bear sitting in ignorance longer.

So setting up my ladder to the side of the hill where there was a flat place, as I observed before and then pulling the ladder after me, I set it up again and mounted the top of the hill.

And pulling out my perspective glass, which I had taken on purpose, I laid me down flat on my belly on the ground and began to look for the place.

I presently found there were no less than nine naked savages sitting round a small fire.

They had made not to warm them, for they had no need of that, the weather being extremely hot.

But as I supposed to dress some of their barbarous diet of human flesh which they had brought with them, whether alive or dead, I could not tell.

They had two canoes with them which they had hauled upon the shore and as it was then ebb of tide, they seemed to me to wait for the return of the flood to go away again.

It is not easy to imagine what confusion the sight put me into, especially seeing them come on my side of the island and so near to me.

But when I considered their coming must be always with the current of the ebb, I began afterwards to be more sedate in my mind, being satisfied that I might go abroad with safety all the time of the flood of tide if they were not on shore before.

And having made this observation, I went abroad about my harvest work with the more composure as I expected.

So it proved, for as soon as the tide made to the westward I saw them all take boat and row, or paddle, as we call it, away.

I should have observed that for an hour or more before they went off, they were dancing and I could easily discern their postures and gestures by my glass.

I could not perceive by my nicest observation but that they were stark naked and had not the least covering upon them.

But whether they were men or women I could not distinguish.

As soon as I saw them shipped and gone I took two guns upon my shoulders and two pistols at my girdle and with my great sword by my side, without a scabbard and with all the speed I was able to make, went away to the hill where I had discovered the first appearance of all.

And as soon as I got thither, which was not in less than 2 hours for I could not go quickly, being so loaded with arms as I was.

I was perceived there had been three canoes more of the savages at that place and looking out farther I saw they were all at sea together making over for the main.

This was a dreadful sight to me especially as, going down to the shore I could see the marks of horror which was the dismal work they had been about had left behind it the blood, the bones and part of the flesh of human bodies eaten and devoured by those wretches with merriment and sport.

I was so filled with indignation at the sight that I now began to premeditate the destruction of the necks that I saw there.

Let them be whom or how many so ever.

It seemed evident to me that the visits which they made thus to this island were not very frequent for it was above 15 months before any more of them came on shore.

There again, that is to say, I neither saw them nor any footsteps or signals of them in all that time.

For as to the rainy seasons then they are sure not to come abroad at least not so far.

Yet all this while I lived uncomfortably by reason of the constant apprehensions of their coming upon me by surprise from whence I observe that the expectation of evil is more bitter than the suffering especially if there is no room to shake off that expectation or those apprehensions.

During all this time I was in a murdering humor and spent most of my hours which should have been better employed in contriving how to circumvent and fall upon them the very next time I should see them especially if they should be divided as they were the last time, into two parties.

Nor did I consider at all that if I killed one party suppose ten or a dozen I was still the next day or week or month to kill another and another even at infinitum till I should be at length no less a murderer than they were in being man eaters and perhaps much more so.

I spent my days now in great perplexity and anxiety of mind expecting that I should one day or other fall into the hands of these merciless creatures.

And if I did at any time venture abroad it was not without looking around me with the greatest care and caution imaginable.

And now I found, to my great comfort how happy it was that I had provided a tame flock or herd of goats.

For I durst not upon any account fire my gun especially near that side of the island where they usually came, lest I should alarm the savages.

And if they had fled from me now I was sure to have them come again with perhaps two or 300 canoes with them in a few days, and then I knew what to expect.

However, I wore out a year and three months before I ever saw any more of the savages.

And then I found them again, as I shall soon observe.

It is true they might have been there once or twice but either they made no stay, or at least I did not see them.

But in the month of May, as near as I could calculate, and in my four and 20th year I had a very strange encounter with them of which, in its place the perturbation of my mind during this 15 or 16 months interval was very great.

I slept unquietly, dreamed always frightful dreams, and often started out of my sleep in the night.

In a day, great troubles overwhelmed my mind, and in the night I dreamed often of killing the savages and of the reasons why I might justify doing it.

But to waive all this for a while.

It was in the middle of May on the 16th day, I think, as well as my poor wooden calendar would reckon for I marked all upon the post.

Still I say it was on the 16 May that it blew a very great storm of wind all day with a great deal of lightning and thunder.

And a very foul night it was.

After it I knew not what was the particular occasion of it but as I was reading in the Bible and taken up with very serious thoughts about my present condition, I was surprised with the noise of a gun, as I thought, fired at sea.

This was, to be sure, a surprise quite of a different nature from any I'd met with before for the notions this put into my thoughts were quite of another kind.

I started up in the greatest haste imaginable and in a trice, clapped my ladder to the middle place of the rock and pulled it after me.

And mounting it the second time, got to the top of the hill.

The very moment that a flash of fire bid me listen for a second gun, which accordingly, in about half a minute, I heard, and by the sound knew that it was from that part of the sea where I was driven down the current in my boat.

I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress and that they had some comrade or some other ship in company and fired these for signals of distress and to obtain help.

I had the presence of mind at that minute to think that though I could not help them it might be that they might help me.

So I brought together all the dry wood I could get at hand and making a good handsome pile, I set it on fire upon the hill.

The wood was dry and blazed freely and though the wind blew very hard yet it burned fairly out so that I was certain if there was any such thing as a ship, they must need see it.

And no doubt they did.

For as soon as ever my fire blazed up I heard another gun and after that several others, all from the same quarter.

I applied my fire all night long till daybreak.

And when it was broad day and the air cleared up I saw something at a great distance at sea, full east of the island.

Whether a sail or a hole, I could not distinguish.

No, not with my glass.

The distance was so great and the weather still something hazy also.

At least it was so out at sea.

I looked frequently at it all that day and soon perceived that it did not move.

So I presently concluded that it was a ship at anchor.

And being eager, you may be sure to be satisfied.

I took my gun in my hand and ran towards the south side of the island to the rocks where I had formerly been carried away by the current and getting up there.

The weather by this time being perfectly clear I could plainly see to my great sorrow the wreck of a ship cast away in the night upon those concealed rocks which I found when I was out in my boat.

And which rocks, as they checked the violence of the stream and made a kind of counterStream or eddie were the occasion of my recovering from the most desperate, hopeless condition that ever I had been in all my life.

Thus what is one man's safety is another man's destruction.

For it seems these men, whoever they were, being out of their knowledge and the rocks being wholly underwater had been driven upon them in the night.

The wind blowing hard at east northeast.

Had they seen the island, as I must necessarily suppose they did not, they must, as I thought, have endeavored to have saved themselves on shore by the help of their boat.

But their firing off guns for help especially when they saw, as I imagined my fire, filled me with many thoughts.

First, I imagined that upon seeing my light they might have put themselves into their boat and endeavored to make the shore.

But that the sea running very high, they might have been cast away.

Other times, I imagine that they might have lost their boat before as might be the case many ways particularly by the breaking of the sea upon their ship which many times obliged men to stave or take in pieces their boat and sometimes to throw it overboard with their own hands.

Other times I imagined they had some other ship or ships in company who, upon the signals of distress they made, had taken them up and carried them off.

Other times I fancied they were all gone off to sea in their boat and being hurried away by the current that I had been formerly in or carried out into the great ocean where there was nothing but misery.

And perishing, and that perhaps they might by this time think of starving and of being in a condition to eat one another, as all these were but conjectures at best.

So, in the condition I was in I could do no more than look on upon the misery of the poor men and pity them which had still this good effect upon my side that it gave me more and more cause to give thanks to God who had so happily and comfortably provided for me in my desolate condition and that of two ships company who were now cast away upon this part of the world.

Not one life should be spared but mine.

I learned here again to observe that it is very rare that the providence of God casts us into any condition so low, or any misery so great but we may see something or other to be thankful for and may see others in worse circumstances than our own.

Such certainly was the case of these men of whom I could not so much as see room to suppose any were saved.

Nothing could make it rational so much as to wish or expect that they did not all perish there except the possibility only of their being taken up by another ship in company.

And this was but mere possibility indeed for I saw not the least sign or appearance of any such thing.

I cannot explain by any possible energy of words what a strange longing I felt in my soul upon this sight, breaking out sometimes thus.

Oh, that there had been but one or two nay, or but one soul saved out of this ship to have escaped to me that I might have had one companion, one fellow creature to have spoken to me and to have conversed with.

In all the time of my solitary life I never felt so earnest, so strong a desire after the society of my fellow creatures, or so deep a regret at the want of it.

There are some secret springs and the affections which, when they are set, are going by some object in view or though not in view, yet rendered present to the mind by the power of imagination.

That motion carries out the soul by its impetuosity to such violent, eager embracings of the object that the absence of it is insupportable.

Such were these earnest wishings that but one man had been saved.

I believe I repeated the words.

Oh, that it had been but one a thousand times.

And my desires were so moved by it that when I spoke the words my hands would clench together and my fingers would press the palms of my hands so that if I had had any soft thing in my hand I should have crushed it involuntarily.

And the teeth in my head would strike together and set against one another so strong that for some time I could not part them again.

Let the naturalists explain these things, and the reason and manner of them.

All I can do is to describe the fact which was even surprising to me when I found it, though I knew not from whence it proceeded.

It was doubtless.

The effect of ardent wishes and of strong ideas formed in my mind, realizing the comfort which the conversation of one of my fellow Christians would have been to me.

But it was not to be.

Either their fate or mine, or both forbade it.

For till the last year of my being on this island I never knew whether any were saved out of that ship or no and had only the affliction some days after to see the corpse of a drowned boy come on shore at the end of the island which was next to the shipwreck.

He had no clothes on but a seamen's waistcoat, a pair of open need linen drawers and a blue linen shirt, but nothing to direct me so much as to guess what nation he was of.

He had nothing in his pockets but two pieces of eight and a tobacco pipe.

The last was to me of ten times more value than the first.

It was now calm, and I had a great mind to venture out at my boat to this wreck.

Not doubting, but I might find something on board that might be useful to me but that did not altogether press me so much as the possibility that there might be yet some living creature on board whose life I might not only save, but might, by saving that life, comfort my own to the last degree.

And this thought clung so to my heart that I could not be quiet night or day but I must venture out in my boat on board this rack, and committing the rest to God's providence.

I thought the impression was so strong upon my mind that it could not be resisted that it must come from some invisible direction, and that I should be wanting to myself if I did not go under the power of this impression.

I hastened back to my castle, prepared everything for my voyage, took a quantity of bread, a great pot of fresh water, a compass to steer by, a bottle of rum, for I had still a great deal of that left, and a basket of raisins.

And thus loading myself with everything necessary, I went down to my boat, got the water out of her, got her afloat, loaded all my cargo in her and then went home again for more.

My second cargo was a great bag of rice, the umbrella to set up over my head for a shade, another large pot of water, and about two dozen of small loaves or barley cakes, more than before, with a bottle of goat's milk and a cheese, all which, with great labor and sweat I carried to my boat and praying to God to direct my voyage, I put out and rowing or paddling the canoe along the shore, came at last to the utmost point of the island on the northeast side.

And now I was to launch out into the ocean and either to venture or not to venture I looked on the rapid currents which ran constantly on both sides of the island at a distance and which were very terrible to me from the remembrance of the hazard I had been in before.

And my heart began to fail me.

For I foresaw that if I was driven into either of those currents, I should be carried a great way out to sea and perhaps out of my reach or sight of the island again.

And that then, as my boat was but small, if any little gale of wind should rise, I should be inevitably lost.

These thoughts so oppressed my mind that I began to give over my enterprise.

And having hauled my boat into a little creek on the shore, I stepped out and sat down upon a rising bit of ground.

Very pensive.

And anxious between fear and desire about my voyage when, as I was musing, I could perceive that the tide was turned and the flood come on upon which my going was impracticable for so many hours.

Upon this presently, it occurred to me that I should go up to the highest piece of ground I could find and observe, if I could, how the sets of the tide or currents lay when the flood came in.

That I might judge whether if I was driven one way out, I might not expect to be driven another way home with the same rapidity of the currents.

This thought was no sooner in my head than I cast my eye upon a little hill which sufficiently overlooked the sea both ways and from whence I had a clear view of the currents or sets of the tide in which way I was to guide myself in my return.

Here.

I found that as the current of Ebb set out close by the south point of the island, so the current of the flood set in close by the shore of the north side.

And that I had nothing to do but to keep to the north side of the island in my return.

And I should do well enough.

Encouraged by this observation, I resolved the next morning to set out with the first of the tide and reposing myself for the night in my canoe under the watchcoat I mentioned, I launched out.

I first made a little out to sea full north, till I began to feel the benefit of the current which set eastward and which carried me at a great rate, and yet did not so hurry me as the current on the south side had done before, so as to take from me all government of the boat.

But having a strong steerage with my paddle, I went at a great rate directly for the wreck, and in less than 2 hours I came up to it.

It was a dismal sight to look at.

The ship, which by its building was Spanish, stuck fast, jammed in between two rocks.

All the stern and quarter of her were beaten to pieces by the sea, and as her forecastle, which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her main mast and foremast were brought by the board, that is to say, broken short off, but her bow sprit was sound, and the head and bough appeared firm.

When I came close to her, a dog appeared upon her who was seeing me coming yelped, and cried, and as soon as I called him, jumped into the sea to come to me.

I took him into the boat, but found him almost dead with hunger and thirst.

I gave him a cake of my bread, and he devoured it like a ravenous wolf that had been starving a fortnight in the snow.

I then gave the poor creature some fresh water, from which, if I would have let him, he would have burst himself.

After this I went on board, but the first side I met with was two men drowned in the cook room, or forecastle of the ship with their arms fast about one another.

I concluded, as is indeed probable, that when the ship struck, it being in a storm, the sea broke so high and so continually over her that the men were not able to bear it and were strangled with a constant rushing in of the water as much as if they had been underwater.

Besides the dog, there was nothing left in the ship that had life, nor any goods that I could see but what were spoiled by the water.

There were some casks of liquor, whether wine or brandy, I knew not which.

Lay lower in the hold in which the water being ebbed out, I could see, but they were too big to meddle with.

I saw several chests which I believe belonged to some of the seamen, and I got two of them into the boat without examining what was in them.

Had the stern of the ship been fixed and the four part broken off, I am persuaded I might have made a good voyage, for by what I found in those two chests, I had room to suppose the ship had a great deal of wealth on board.

And if I may guess from the course she steered.

She must have been bound from Buenos Aires or the Rio de la Plata in the south part of America, beyond the Brazils to the Havana in the Gulf of Mexico, and so perhaps, to Spain.

She had no doubt, a great treasure in her but of no use at that time to anybody.

And what became of the crew I then knew not.

I found, besides these chests a little cask full of liquor of about 20 gallons, which I got into my boat with much difficulty.

There were several muskets in the cabin and a great powder horn with about four pounds of powder in it.

As for the muskets, I had no occasion for them, so I left them, but took the powder horn.

I took a fire shovel in tongs, which I wanted extremely as.

Also two little brass kettles, a copper pot to make chocolate and a grid iron.

And with this cargo and the dog I came away, the tide beginning to make home again in the same evening, about an hour within night I reached the island again, weary and fatigued to the last degree.

I reposed that night in the boat and in the morning I resolved to harbor what I had gotten my new cave and not carry it home to my castle.

After refreshing myself, I got all my cargo on shore and began to examine the particulars.

The cask of liquor I found to be a kind of rum but not such as we had in the Brazils and in a word, not at all good.

But when I came to open the chests I found several things of great use to me.

For example, I found in one a fine case of bottles of an extraordinary kind and filled with cordial waters.

Fine and very good.

The bottles held about three pints each and were tipped with silver.

I found two pots of very good Sacades or sweet meats so fastened also on the top that the salt water had not hurt them and two more of the same which the water had spoiled.

I found some very good shirts which were very welcome to me and about a dozen and a half of white linen handkerchiefs and colored neckcloths.

The former were also very welcome, being exceedingly refreshing to wipe my face on a hot day.

Besides this, when I came to the till in the chest I found their three great bags of pieces of eight which held about 1100 pieces in all.

And in one of them, wrapped up in a paper, six doubloons of gold and some small bars or wedges of gold.

I suppose they might all weigh near a pound.

In the other chest were some clothes, but of little value.

But by the circumstances, it must have belonged to the gunners mate, though there was no powder in it except two pounds of fine glazed powder and three flasks, kept, I suppose, for charging their fouling pieces on occasion.

Upon the whole, I got very little by this voyage that was of any use to me.

For as to the money, I had no manner of occasion for it.

It was to me as the dirt under my feet and I would have given it all for three or four pair of English shoes and stockings, which were things I greatly wanted, but it had none on my feet for many years.

I had indeed got two pair of shoes now which I took off the feet of two drowned men whom I saw in the wreck and I found two pair more in one of the chests which were very welcome to me.

But they were not like our English shoes, either for ease or service, being rather what we call pumps than shoes.

I found in this seamen's chest about 50 pieces of eight in reels, but no gold.

I suppose this belonged to a poor man than the other, which seemed to belong to some officer.

While, however, I lugged this money home to my cave and laid it up as I had done that before which I had brought from our own ship.

But it was a great pity, as I said, that the other part of this ship had not come to my share.

For I am satisfied I might have loaded my canoe several times over with money and, thought I, if I ever escaped to England, it might lie here safe enough till I come again and fetch it.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for.

The next bite of the life and.

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

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