Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the eighth 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 Eight surveys his position I mentioned before that I had a great mind to see the whole island, and that I had traveled up the brook and so on to where I built my bower, and where I had an opening quite to the sea on the other side of the island.

I now resolved to travel quite across to the seashore on that side.

So taking my gun, a hatchet and my dog, and a larger quantity of power and shot than usual, with two biscuit cakes and a great bunch of raisins in my pouch for my store, I began my journey.

When I had passed the vale where my bowers stood as above, I came within view of the sea to the west, and it being a very clear day, I fairly described land.

Whether an island or a continent, I could not tell, but it lay very high, extending from the west to the west southwest at a very great distance.

By my guess it could not be less than 15 or 20 leagues off.

I could not tell what part of the world this might be otherwise than that I knew it must be a part of America and as I concluded by all my observations, must be near the Spanish dominions and perhaps was all inhabited by savages.

Or if I had landed, I had been in a worse condition than I was now.

And therefore I acquiesced in the dispositions of providence, which I began now to own and to believe.

Ordered everything for the best, I'd say.

I quieted my mind with this and left off afflicting myself with fruitless wishes of being there besides.

After some thought upon this affair, I considered that if this land was the Spanish coast, I should certainly one time or other see some vessel pass or repass one way or other.

But if not, then it was the savage coast between the Spanish country and Brazil's, where found the worst of savages, for they are cannibals or men eaters, and fail not to murder and devour all the human bodies that fall into their hands.

With these considerations, I walked very leisurely forward.

I found that side of the island where I now was much pleasanter than mine, the open or savannah field suite, adorned with flowers and grass and full of very fine woods.

I saw abundance of parrots and fain.

I would have caught one if possible to have kept it to be tame and taught it to speak to me.

I did, after some painstaking, catch a young parrot, for I knocked it down with a stick, and having recovered it, I brought it home.

But it was some years before I could make him speak.

However, at last I taught him to call me by name, very familiarly.

But the accident that followed, though it be a trifle, will be very diverting in this place.

I was exceedingly diverted with this journey.

I found in the low grounds hares, as I thought them to be, and foxes, but they differed greatly from all the other kinds I had met with, nor could I satisfy myself to eat them, though I killed several.

But I had no need to be venturous, for I had no want of food, and of that which was very good too, especially these three sorts goats, pigeons, and turtle or tortoise, which added to my grapes.

Leden hall market could not have furnished a table better than I in proportion to the company.

And though my case was deplorable enough, yet I had great cause for thankfulness that I was not driven to any extremities for food, but had rather plenty, even to Dainties.

I never traveled in this journey above 2 miles outright in a day or thereabouts, but I took so many turns and returns to see what discoveries I could make that I came weary enough to the place where I resolved to sit down all night.

And then I either reposed myself in a tree or surrounded myself with a row of stakes set up right in the ground, either from one tree to another or so, as no wild creature could come at me without waking me.

As soon as I came to the seashore, I was surprised to see that I had taken up my lot on the worst side of the island.

For here indeed the shore was covered with innumerable turtles, whereas on the other side I had found but three in a year and a half.

Here was also an infinite number of fowls of many kinds, some which I had seen and some which I had not seen before, and many of them very good meat but such as I knew not the names of except those called penguins.

I could have shot as many as I pleased, but was very sparing of my powder and shot, and therefore had more minds to kill a she goat if I could which I could better feed on.

And though there were many goats here, more than on my side of the island, yet it was with much more difficulty that I could come near them, the country being flat and even, and they saw me much sooner than when I was on the hills.

I confessed the sight of the country was much pleasanter than mine but yet I had not the least inclination to remove for as I was fixed in my habitation, it became natural to me, and I seemed all the while I was here to be, as it were, upon a journey.

And from home, however, I traveled along the shore of the sea, towards the east, I suppose about 12 miles.

And then, setting up a great pole upon the shore for a mark, I concluded I would go home again and that the next journey I took should be on the other side of the island, east from my dwelling, and so round till I came to my post again.

I took another way to come back than that I went, thinking I could easily keep all the islands so much in my view that I could not miss finding my first dwelling by viewing the country.

But I found myself mistaken for being come about two or 3 miles.

I found myself descended into a very large valley, but so surrounded with hills and those hills covered with wood, that I could not see which was my way by any direction but that of the sun nor even then, unless I knew very well the position of the sun at that time of the day.

It happened to my further misfortune, that the weather proved hazy for three or four days while I was in the valley and not being able to see the sun, I wandered about very uncomfortably and at last was obliged to find the seaside, look for my post, and come back the same way I went.

And then, by easy journeys, I turned homeward, the weather being exceeding hot and my gun, ammunition hatchet, and other things very heavy.

In this journey my dog surprised a young kid and seized upon it, and I, running in to take hold of it, caught it and saved it alive from the dog.

I had a great mind to bring it home if I could for I had often been musing whether it might not be possible to get a kid or two and so raise a breed of tame goats which might supply me when my powder and shot should be all spent.

I made a collar for this little creature and with a string which I made of some rope yarn which I always carried about me.

I led him along, though, with some difficulty, till I came to my bower and there I enclosed him and left him, for I was very impatient to be at home from once.

I had been absent above a month.

I could not express what a satisfaction it was to me to come into my old hutch and lie down in my hammock bed.

This little wandering journey without settled place of abode had been so unpleasant to me that my own house, as I called it to myself, was a perfect settlement to me compared to that and it rendered everything about me so comfortable that I resolved I would never go a great way from it again.

While it should be my lot to stay on the island, I reposed myself here a week to rest and regale myself after my long journey during which most of the time was taken up in the weighty affair of making a cage for my pole, which began now to be a mere domestic and to be well acquainted with me.

Then I began to think of the poor kid which I had pinned in within my little circle and resolved to go and fetch it home or give it some food.

Accordingly, I went and found it where I left it, for indeed it could not get out but was almost starved for want of food.

I went and cut boughs of trees and branches of such shrubs as I could find and threw it over, and having fed it, I tied it as I did before, to lead it away.

But it was so tame with being hungry that I had no need to have tied it, for it followed me like a dog.

And as I continually fed it, the creature became so loving, so gentle and so fond that it became from that time one of my domestics also and would never leave me afterwards.

The rainy season of the autumn Noel Equinox was now come and I kept the 30 September in the same solemn manner as before being the anniversary of my landing on the island.

Having now been there two years and no more prospect of being delivered than the first day I came there.

I spent the whole day in humble and thankful acknowledgments of the many wonderful mercies which my solitary condition was attended with and without which it might have been infinitely more miserable.

I gave humble and hearty thanks that God had been pleased to discover to me that it was possible I might be more happy in the solitary condition than I should have been in the liberty of society and in all the pleasures of the world that he could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state and the want of human society by his presence and the communications of his grace to my soul supporting, comforting and encouraging me to depend upon his providence here and hope for his eternal presence hereafter.

It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now led was with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days.

And now I changed both my sorrows and my joys.

My very desires altered, my affections changed their gusts, and my delights were perfectly new from what they were at my first coming.

Or indeed for the first two years past.

Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting or for viewing the country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me.

To think of the woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in, and how I was a prisoner, locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption.

In the midst of the greatest composure of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm and make me wring my hands and weep like a child.

Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh and look upon the ground for an hour or two together.

And this was still worse to me, for if I could burst out into tears or vent myself by words, it would go off, and the grief, having exhausted itself, would abate.

But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts.

I daily read the word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state.

One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon these words I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Immediately it occurred that these words were to me.

Why else should they be directed in such a manner, just at the moment when I was mourning over my condition as one forsaken of God and man?

Well then, said I, if God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be?

Or what matters it, though the world should all forsake me seeing.

On the other hand, if I had all the world and should lose the favor and blessing of God, there would be no comparison in the loss.

From this moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition than it was probable I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world.

And with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place.

I know not what it was, but something shocked my mind at that thought, and I durst not speak the words.

How canst thou become such a hypocrite?

Said I, even audibly to pretend to be thankful for a condition which, however thou mayest endeavour to be contented with, thou wouldst rather pray heartily to be delivered from.

So I stopped there, but though I could not say I thanked God for being there, yet I sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes by whatever afflicting providence is to see the former condition of my life, and to mourn for my wickedness and repent.

I never opened the Bible or shut it, but my very soul within me blessed God for directing my friend in England, without any order of mine to pack it up among my goods, and for assisting me afterwards to save it out of the wreck of the ship.

Thus, and in its disposition of mind, I began my third year and though I have not given the reader the trouble of so particular an account of my works this year as the first, yet in general it may be observed that I was very seldom idle.

But having regularly divided my time according to the several daily employments that were before me, such as first, my duty to God and the reading the scriptures which I constantly set apart sometime for thrice every day.

Secondly, the going abroad with my gun for food which generally took me up 3 hours in every morning when it did not rain.

Thirdly, the ordering, cutting, preserving, and cooking what I had killed or caught for my supply.

These took up great part of the day.

Also it is to be considered, that in the middle of the day, when the sun was in the zenith, the violence of the heat was too great to stir out, so that about 4 hours in the evening was all the time I could be supposed to work in.

With this exception, that sometimes I changed my hours of hunting and working, and went to work in the morning and abroad with my gun in the afternoon, to this short time allowed for labor I desire may be added to the exceeding laboriousness of my work.

The many hours which for want of tools, want of help, and want of skill, everything I did took up out of my time.

For example, I was full two and 40 days, and making a board for a long shelf which I wanted in my cave, whereas two sawyers with their tools and a saw pit would have cut six of them out of the same tree in half a day.

My case was this it was to be a large tree, which was to be cut down, because my board was to be a broad one.

This tree I was three days in cutting down, and two more in cutting off the boughs and reducing it to a log or piece of timber.

With inexpressible hacking and hewing, I reduced both the sides of it into chips till it began to be light enough to move.

Then I turned it and made one side of it smooth and flat as a board from end to end, then, turning that side downward, cut the other side till I brought the plank to be about three inches thick and smooth on both sides.

Anyone may judge the labor of my hands in such a piece of work.

But labor and patience carried me through that and many other things.

I only observed this in particular to show the reason why so much of my time went away with so little work, that what might be a little to be done with help and tools was a vast labor and required a prodigious time to do alone and by hand.

But notwithstanding this, with patience and labor, I got through everything that my circumstances made necessary to me to do as will appear by what follows.

I was now, in the months of November and December, expecting my crop of barley and rice.

The ground I had manured and dug up for them was not great, for, as I observed, my seed of each was not above the quantity of half a peck.

For I had lost one whole crop by sowing in the dry season.

But now my crop promised very well.

When on a sudden, I found I was in danger of losing it all again by enemies of several sorts which it was scarcely possible to keep from it as first, the goats and wild creatures, which I called hares.

Who, tasting the sweetness of the blade, lay in it night and day as soon as it came up and eat it so close that it could get no time to shoot up into stock.

This I saw no remedy for, but making an enclosure about it with a hedge, which I did with a great deal of toil, and the more because it required speed.

However, as my arable land was but small suited to my crop, I got it totally well fenced in about three weeks time and shooting some of the creatures in the daytime, I set my dog to guard it in the night, tying him up to a stake at the gate where he would stand and bark all night long.

So in a little time, the enemies forsook the place and the corn grew very strong and well and began to ripen a pace.

But as the beasts ruined me before, well, my corn was in the blade, so the birds were as likely to ruin me.

Now, when it was in the ear for going along by the place to see how it throve I saw my little crop surrounded with fowls of I know not how many swords who stood, as it were watching till I should be gone I immediately let fly among them for I always had my gun with me.

I had no sooner shot.

But there rose up a little cloud of fowls which I had not seen at all from among the corn itself.

This touched me sensibly, for I saw that in a few days they would devour all my hopes that I should be starved and never be able to raise a crop at all, and what to do I could not tell.

However, I resolved not to lose my corn if possible, though I should watch it night and day in the first place.

I went among it to see what damage was already done, and found they had spoiled a good deal of it, but that as it was yet too green for them, the loss was not so great, but that the remainder was likely to be a good crop if it could be saved.

I stayed by it to load my gun, and then coming away, I could easily see the thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they only waited till I was gone away.

And the event proved it to be so, for as I walked off as if I was gone, I was no sooner out of their sight than they dropped down one by one to the corn again.

I was so provoked that I could not have patience to stay till more came on, knowing that every grain that they ate now was, as it may be said, a peck loaf to me.

In the consequence, when coming up to the hedge, I fired again and killed three of them.

This was what I wished for, so I took them up and served them as we served notorious thieves in England, hang them in chains for a terror to others.

It is impossible to imagine that this should have such an effect as it had, for the fowls would not only not come at the corn, but in short, they forsook all that part of the island, and I could never see a bird near the place as long as my scarecrows hung there.

This I was very glad of, you may be sure.

And about the latter end of December, which was our second harvest of the year, I reaped my corn.

I was sadly put to it for a sigh, or sickle to cut it down, and all I could do was to make one as well as I could out of one of the broad swords, or cutlasses, which I saved among the arms out of the ship.

However, as my first crop was but small, I had no great difficulty to cut it down.

In short, I reaped it in my way, for I cut nothing off but the ears and carried it away in a great basket which I had made, and so rubbed it out with my hands.

And at the end of all my harvesting, I found that out of my half peck of seed I had near two bushels of rice and about two bushels and a half of barley.

That is to say, by my guess, for I had no measure at that time.

However, this was a great encouragement to me, and I foresaw that in time it would please God to supply me with bread.

And yet here I was, perplexed again.

For I neither knew how to grind or make meal of my corn, or indeed how to clean it and part it, nor, if made into meal, how to make bread of it, and, if how to make it, yet I knew not how to bake it.

These things being added to my desire of having a good quantity for store and to secure a constant supply.

I resolved not to taste any of this crop, but to preserve it all for seed against the next season.

And in the meantime, to employ all my study and hours of working to accomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread.

It might be truly said that now I worked for my bread, I believe few people have thought much upon the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing, producing, curing, dressing, making and finishing this one article of bread.

I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to my daily discouragement, and was made more sensible of it every hour, even after I had got the first handful of seed corn, which, as I have said, came up unexpectedly and indeed to a surprise.

First, I had no plow to turn up the earth, no spade or shovel to dig it, while this I conquered by making me a wooden spade, as I observed before.

But this did my work but in a wooden manner.

And though it cost me a great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out soon, but made my work the harder and made it to be performed much worse.

However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out with patience and bear with the badness of the performance.

When the corn was sown, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself and drag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch it, as it may be called, rather than rake or harrow it.

When it was growing and grown, I have observed already how many things I wanted to fence it, secure it, mow or reap it, cure and carry it home, thrash part of it from the chaff and save it.

Then I wanted a mill to grind it, seeds to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into bread, and an oven to bake it.

But all these things I did without, as shall be observed.

And yet the corn was an inesteemable comfort and advantage to me too.

All this, as I said, made everything laborious and tedious to me, but that there was no help, for neither was my time so much lost to me because as I had divided it, a certain part of it was every day appointed to these works.

And as I had resolved to use none of the corn for bread till I had a greater quantity by me, I had the next six months to apply myself wholly by labor and invention to furnish myself with utensils proper for the performing all the operations necessary for making the corn when I had it fit for my youth.

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Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

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