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第5章 4重境界

hat Friday would byno means agree to part with me; and I could not force him to itwithout his consent, without manifest injustice; because I hadpromised I would never send him away, and he had promised andengaged that he would never leave me, unless I sent him away.

　　When they saw what their circumstances were, the first thing theyconcluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages upto the farther part of the island, south-west, that if any morecame on shore they might not find one another; then, that theywould daily hunt and harass them, and kill as many of them as theycould come at, till they had reduced their number; and if theycould at last tame them, and bring them to anything, they wouldgive them corn, and teach them how to plant, and live upon theirdaily labour. In order to do this, they so followed them, and soterrified them with their guns, that in a few days, if any of themfired a gun at an Indian, if he did not hit him, yet he would falldown for fear. So dreadfully frightened were they that they keptout of sight farther and farther; till at last our men followedthem, and almost every day killing or wounding some of them, theykept up in the woods or hollow places so much, that it reduced themto the utmost misery for want of food; and many were af

　　I was no more able to stay behind now than I was to persuade themnot to go; so the captain ordered two men to row back the pinnace,and fetch twelve men more, leaving the long-boat at an anchor; andthat, when they came back, six men should keep the two boats, andsix more come after us; so that he left only sixteen men in theship: for the whole ship's company consisted of sixty-five men,whereof two were lost in the late quarrel which brought thismischief on.

　　As this is the only excursion of the kind which I have made in allthe accounts I have given of my travels, so I shall make no moresuch. It is none of my business, nor any part of my design; but togive an account of my own adventures through a life of inimitablewanderings, and a long variety of changes, which, perhaps, few thatcome after me will have heard the like of: I shall, therefore, sayvery little of all the mighty places, desert countries, andnumerous people I have yet to pass through, more than relates to myown story, and which my concern among them will make necessary.

　　When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, theydiscovered us all hard at work on the outside of the ship's bottomand side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaringman knows how. They stood for a while gazing at us, and we, whowere a little surprised, could not imagine what their design was;but being willing to be sure, we took this opportunity to get someof us into the ship, and others to hand down arms and ammunition tothose that were at work, to defend themselves with if there shouldbe occasion. And it was no more than need: for in less than aquarter of an hour's consultation, they agreed, it seems, that theship was really a wreck, and that we were all at work endeavouringto save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats; andwhen we handed our arms into the boat, they concluded, by that act,that we were endeavouring to save some of our goods. Upon this,they took it for granted we all belonged to them, and away theycame directly upon our men, as if it had been in

were on board atfirst might run away with the ship, yet it was not true that theyhad turned pirates; and that, in particular, these were not the menthat first went off with the ship, but innocently bought her fortheir trade; and I am persuaded they will so far believe me as atleast to act more cautiously for the time to come."

e fire, lay four menand three women, killed, and, as we thought, one or two more lay inthe heap among the fire; in short, there were such instances ofrage, altogether barbarous, and of a fury something beyond what washuman, that we thought it impossible our men could be guilty of it;or, if they were the authors of it, we thought they ought to beevery one of them put to the worst of deaths. But this was notall: we saw the fire increase forward, and the cry went on just asthe fire went on; so that we were in the utmost confusion. Weadvanced a little way farther, and behold, to our astonishment,three naked women, and crying in a most dreadful manner, cameflying as if they had wings, and after them sixteen or seventeenmen, natives, in the same terror and consternation, with three ofour English butchers in the rear, who, when they could not overtakethem, fired in among them, and one that was killed by their shotfell down in our sight. When the rest saw us, believing us to betheir enemies, and that we would mur

　　We had a prisoner, indeed, but the creature was so sullen that hewould neither cat nor speak, and we all fancied he would starvehimself to death. But I took a way to cure him: for I had madethem take him and turn him into the long-boat, and make him believethey would toss him into the sea again, and so leave him where theyfound him, if he would not speak; nor would that do, but theyreally did throw him into the sea, and came away from him. Then hefollowed them, for he swam like a cork, and called to them in histongue, though they knew not one word of what he said; however atlast they took him in again., and then he began to he moretractable: nor did I ever design they should drown him.

　　In this posture we lay by for them, and in a little while they cameup with us; but never was such a horrid sight seen by Christians;though my mate was much mistaken in his calculation of theirnumber, yet when they came up we reckoned about a hundred andtwenty-six canoes; some of them had sixteen or seventeen men inthem, and some more, and the least six or seven. When they camenearer to us, they seemed to be struck with wonder andastonishment, as at a sight which doubtless they had never seenbefore; nor could they at first, as we afterwards understood, knowwhat to make of us; they came boldly up, however, very near to us,and seemed to go about to row round us; but we called to our men inthe boats not to let them come too near them. This very orderbrought us to an engagement with them, without our designing it;for five or six of the large canoes came so near our long-boat,that our men beckoned with their hands to keep them back, whichthey understood very well, and went back: but at their retreatabout fifty