I have now done with the island, and all manner of discourse about
it: and whoever reads the rest of my memorandums would do well to
turn his thoughts entirely from it, and expect to read of the
follies of an old man, not warned by his own harms, much less by
those of other men, to beware; not cooled by almost forty years'
miseries and disappointments--not satisfied with prosperity beyond
expectation, nor made cautious by afflictions and distress beyond
example.
CHAPTER IX-- DREADFUL OCCURRENCES IN MADAGASCAR
I had no more business to go to the East Indies than a man at full
liberty has to go to the turnkey at Newgate, and desire him to lock
him up among the prisoners there, and starve him. Had I taken a
small vessel from England and gone directly to the island; had I
loaded her, as I did the other vessel, with all the necessaries for
the plantation and for my people; taken a patent from the
government here to have secured my property, in subjection only to
that of England; had I carried over cannon and ammunition, servants
and people to plant, and taken possession of the place, fortified
and strengthened it in the name of England, and increased it with
people, as I might easily have done; had I then settled myself
there, and sent the ship back laden with good rice, as I might also
have done in six months' time, and ordered my friends to have
fitted her out again for our supply--had I done this, and stayed
there myself, I had at least acted like a man of common sense. But
I was possessed of a wandering spirit, and scorned all advantages:
I pleased myself with being the patron of the people I placed
there, and doing for them in a kind of haughty, majestic way, like
an old patriarchal monarch, providing for them as if I had been
father of the whole family, as well as of the plantation. But I
never so much as pretended to plant in the name of any government
or nation, or to acknowledge any prince, or to call my people
subjects to any one nation more than another; nay, I never so much
as gave the place a name, but left it as I found it, belonging to
nobody, and the people under no discipline or government but my
own, who, though I had influence over them as a father and
benefactor, had no authority or power to act or command one way or
other, further than voluntary consent moved them to comply. Yet
even this, had I stayed there, would have done well enough; but as
I rambled from them, and came there no more, the last letters I had
from any of them were by my partner's means, who afterwards sent
another sloop to the place, and who sent me word, though I had not
the letter till I got to London, several years after it was
written, that they went on but poorly; were discontented with their
long stay there; that Will Atkins was dead; that five of the
Spaniards were come away; and though they had not been much
molested by the savages, yet they had had some skirmishes with
them; and that they begged of him to write to me to think of the
promise I had made to fetch them away, that they might see their
country again before they died.
But I was gone a wildgoose chase indeed, and they that will have
any more of me must be content to follow me into a new variety of
follies, hardships, and wild adventures, wherein the justice of
Providence may be duly observed; and we may see how easily Heaven
can gorge us with our own desires, make the strongest of our wishes
be our affliction, and punish us most severely with those very
things which we think it would be our utmost happiness to be
allowed to possess. Whether I had business or no business, away I
went: it is no time now to enlarge upon the reason or absurdity of
my own conduct, but to come to the history--I was embarked for the
voyage, and the voyage I went.
I shall only add a word or two concerning my honest Popish
clergyman, for let their opinion of us, and all other heretics in
general, as they call us, be as uncharitable as it may, I verily
believe this man was very sincere, and wished the good of all men:
yet I believe he used reserve in many of his expressions, to
prevent giving me offence; for I scarce heard him once call on the
Blessed Virgin, or mention St. Jago, or his guardian angel, though
so common with the rest of them. However, I say I had not the
least doubt of his sincerity and pious intentions; and I am firmly
of opinion, if the rest of the Popish missionaries were like him,
they would strive to visit even the poor Tartars and Laplanders,
India, Persia, China, &c., the most wealthy of the heathen
countries; for if they expected to bring no gains to their Church
by it, it may well be admired how they came to admit the Chinese
Confucius into the calendar of the Christian saints.
A ship being ready to sail for Lisbon, my pious priest asked me
leave to go thither; being still, as he observed, bound never to
finish any voyage he began. How happy it had been for me if I had
gone with him. But it was too late now; all things Heaven appoints
for the best: had I gone with him I had never had so many things
to be thankful for, and the reader had never heard of the second
part of the travels and adventures of Robinson Crusoe: so I must
here leave exclaiming at myself, and go on with my voyage. From
the Brazils we made directly over the Atlantic Sea to the Cape of
Good Hope, and had a tolerably good voyage, our course generally
south-east, now and then a storm, and some contrary winds; but my
disasters at sea were at an end--my future rubs and cross events
were to befall me on shore, that it might appear the land was as
well prepared to be our scourge as the sea.
Our ship was on a trading voyage, and had a supercargo on board,
who was to direct all her motions after she arrived at the Cape,
only being limited to a certain number of days for stay, by
charter-party, at the several ports she was to go to. This was
none of my business, neither did I meddle with it; my nephew, the
captain, and the supercargo adjusting all those things between them
as they thought fit. We stayed at the Cape no longer than was
needful to take in-fresh water, but made the best of our way for
the coast of Coromandel. We were, indeed, informed that a French
man-of-war, of fifty guns, and two large merchant ships, were gone
for the Indies; and as I knew we were at war with France, I had
some apprehensions of them; but they went their own way, and we
heard no more of them.
I shall not pester the reader with a tedious description of places,
journals of our voyage, variations of the compass, latitudes,
trade-winds, &c.; it is enough to name the ports and places which
we touched at, and what occurred to us upon our passages from one
to another. We touched first at the island of Madagascar, where,
though the people are fierce and treacherous, and very well armed
with lances and bows, which
they use with inconceivable dexterity,
yet we fared very well with them a while. They treated us very
civilly; and for some trifles which we gave them, such as knives,
scissors, &c., they brought us eleven good fat bullocks, of a
middling size, which we took in, partly for fresh provisions for
our present spending, and the rest to salt for the ship's use.
We were obliged to stay here some time after we had furnished
ourselves with provisions; and I, who was always too curious to
look into every nook of the world wherever I came, went on shore as
often as I could. It was on the east side of the island that we
went on shore one evening: and the people, who, by the way, are
very numerous, came thronging about us, and stood gazing at us at a
distance. As we had traded freely with them, and had been kindly
used, we thought ourselves in no danger; but when we saw the
people, we cut three boughs out of a tree, and stuck them up at a
distance from us; which, it seems, is a mark in that country not
only of a truce and friendship, but when it is accepted the other
side set up three poles or boughs, which is a signal that they
accept the truce too; but then this is a known condition of the
truce, that you are not to pass beyond their three poles towards
them, nor they to come past your three poles or boughs towards you;
so that you are perfectly secure within the three poles, and all
the space between your poles and theirs is allowed like a market
for free converse, traffic, and commerce. When you go there you
must not carry your weapons with you; and if they come into that
space they stick up their javelins and lances all at the first
poles, and come on unarmed; but if any violence is offered them,
and the truce thereby broken, away they run to the poles, and lay
hold of their weapons, and the truce is at an end.
It happened one evening, when we went on shore, that a greater
number of their people came down than usual, but all very friendly
and civil; and they brought several kinds of provisions, for which
we satisfied them with such toys as we had; the women also brought
us milk and roots, and several things very acceptable to us, and
all was quiet; and we made us a little tent or hut of some boughs
or trees, and lay on shore all night. I know not what was the
occasion, but I was not so well satisfied to lie on shore as the
rest; and the boat riding at an anchor at about a stone's cast from
the land, with two men in her to take care of her, I made one of
them come on shore; and getting some boughs of trees to cover us
also in the boat, I spread the sail on the bottom of the boat, and
lay under the cover of the branches of the trees all night in the
boat.
About two o'clock in the morning we heard one of our men making a
terrible noise on the shore, calling out, for God's sake, to bring
the boat in and come and help them, for they were all like to be
murdered; and at the same time I heard the fire of five muskets,
which was the number of guns they had, and that three times over;
for it seems the natives here were not so easily frightened with
guns as the savages were in America, where I had to do with them.
All this while, I knew not what was the matter, but rousing
immediately from sleep with the noise, I caused the boat to be
thrust in, and resolved with three fusees we had on board to land
and assist our men. We got the boat soon to the shore, but our men
were in too much haste; for being come to the shore, they plunged
into the water, to get to the boat with all the expedition they
could, being pursued by between three and four hundred men. Our
men were but nine in all, and only five of them had fusees with
them; the rest had pistols and swords, indeed, but they were of
small use to them.
We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too, three
of them being very ill wounded; and that which was still worse was,
that while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in as
much danger as they were in on shore; for they poured their arrows
in upon us so thick that we were glad to barricade the side of the
boat up with the benches, and two or three loose boards which, to
our great satisfaction, we had by mere accident in the boat. And
yet, had it been daylight, they are, it seems, such exact marksmen,
that if they could have seen but the least part of any of us, they
would have been sure of us. We had, by the light of the moon, a
little sight of them, as they stood pelting us from the shore with
darts and arrows; and having got ready our firearms, we gave them a
volley that we could hear, by the cries of some of them, had
wounded several; however, they stood thus in battle array on the
shore till break of day, which we supposed was that they might see
the better to take their aim at us.
In this condition we lay, and could not tell how to weigh our
anchor, or set up our sail, because we must needs stand up in the
boat, and they were as sure to hit us as we were to hit a bird in a
tree with small shot. We made signals of distress to the ship, and
though she rode a league off, yet my nephew, the captain, hearing
our firing, and by glasses perceiving the posture we lay in, and
that we fired towards the shore, pretty well understood us; and
weighing anchor with all speed, he stood as near the shore as he
durst with the ship, and then sent another boat with ten hands in
her, to assist us. We called to them not to come too near, telling
them what condition we were in; however, they stood in near to us,
and one of the men taking the end of a tow-line in his hand, and
keeping our boat between him and the enemy, so that they could not
perfectly see him, swam on board us, and made fast the line to the
boat: upon which we slipped out a little cable, and leaving our
anchor behind, they towed us out of reach of the arrows; we all the
while lying close behind the barricade we had made. As soon as we
were got from between the ship and the shore, that we could lay her
side to the shore, she ran along just by them, and poured in a
broadside among them, loaded with pieces of iron and lead, small
bullets, and such stuff, besides the great shot, which made a
terrible havoc among them.
When we were got on board and out of danger, we had time to examine
into the occasion of this fray; and indeed our supercargo, who had
been often in those parts, put me upon it; for he said he was sure
the inhabitants would not have touched us after we had made a
truce, if we had not done something to provoke them to it. At
length it came out that an old woman, who had come to sell us some
milk, had brought it within our poles, and a young woman with her,
who also brought us some roots or herbs; and while the old woman
(whether she was mother to the young woman or no they could not
tell) was selling us the milk, one of our men offered some rudeness
to the girl that was with her, at which the old woman made a great
nois
e: however, the seaman would not quit his prize, but carried
her out of the old woman's sight among the trees, it being almost
dark; the old woman went away without her, and, as we may suppose,
made an outcry among the people she came from; who, upon notice,
raised that great army upon us in three or four hours, and it was
great odds but we had all been destroyed.
One of our men was killed with a lance thrown at him just at the
beginning of the attack, as he sallied out of the tent they had
made; the rest came off free, all but the fellow who was the
occasion of all the mischief, who paid dear enough for his
brutality, for we could not hear what became of him for a great
while. We lay upon the shore two days after, though the wind
presented, and made signals for him, and made our boat sail up
shore and down shore several leagues, but in vain; so we were
obliged to give him over; and if he alone had suffered for it, the
loss had been less. I could not satisfy myself, however, without
venturing on shore once more, to try if I could learn anything of
him or them; it was the third night after the action that I had a
great mind to learn, if I could by any means, what mischief we had
done, and how the game stood on the Indians' side. I was careful
to do it in the dark, lest we should be attacked again: but I
ought indeed to have been sure that the men I went with had been
under my command, before I engaged in a thing so hazardous and
mischievous as I was brought into by it, without design.
We took twenty as stout fellows with us as any in the ship, besides
the supercargo and myself, and we landed two hours before midnight,
at the same place where the Indians stood drawn up in the evening
before. I landed here, because my design, as I have said, was
chiefly to see if they had quitted the field, and if they had left
any marks behind them of the mischief we had done them, and I
thought if we could surprise one or two of them, perhaps we might
get our man again, by way of exchange.
We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two bodies,
whereof the boatswain commanded one and I the other. We neither
saw nor heard anybody stir when we landed: and we marched up, one
body at a distance from another, to the place. At first we could
see nothing, it being very dark; till by-and-by our boatswain, who
led the first party, stumbled and fell over a dead body. This made
them halt a while; for knowing by the circumstances that they were
at the place where the Indians had stood, they waited for my coming
up there. We concluded to halt till the moon began to rise, which
we knew would be in less than an hour, when we could easily discern
the havoc we had made among them. We told thirty-two bodies upon
the ground, whereof two were not quite dead; some had an arm and
some a leg shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded, we
supposed, they had carried away. When we had made, as I thought, a
full discovery of all we could come to the knowledge of, I resolved
on going on board; but the boatswain and his party sent me word
that they were resolved to make a visit to the Indian town, where
these dogs, as they called them, dwelt, and asked me to go along
with them; and if they could find them, as they still fancied they
should, they did not doubt of getting a good booty; and it might be
they might find Tom Jeffry there: that was the man's name we had
lost.
Had they sent to ask my leave to go, I knew well enough what answer
to have given them; for I should have commanded them instantly on
board, knowing it was not a hazard fit for us to run, who had a
ship and ship-loading in our charge, and a voyage to make which
depended very much upon the lives of the men; but as they sent me
word they were resolved to go, and only asked me and my company to
go along with them, I positively refused it, and rose up, for I was
sitting on the ground, in order to go to the boat. One or two of
the men began to importune me to go; and when I refused, began to
grumble, and say they were not under my command, and they would go.