鲁宾孙飘流记 英文版 Robinson Crusoe
丹尼尔.笛福 Daniel Defoe
CHAPTER IX - A BOAT Page 1
BUT first I was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough tosow above an acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week'swork at least to make me a spade, which, when it was done, was buta sorry one indeed, and very heavy, and required double labour towork with it. However, I got through that, and sowed my seed intwo large flat pieces of ground, as near my house as I could findthem to my mind, and fenced them in with a good hedge, the stakesof which were all cut off that wood which I had set before, andknew it would grow; so that, in a year's time, I knew I should havea quick or living hedge, that would want but little repair. Thiswork did not take me up less than three months, because a greatpart of that time was the wet season, when I could not go abroad.Within-doors, that is when it rained and I could not go out, Ifound employment in the following occupations - always observing,that all the while I was at work I diverted myself with talking tomy parrot, and teaching him to speak; and I quickly taught him toknow his own name, and at last to speak it out pretty loud, "Poll,"which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by anymouth but my own. This, therefore, was not my work, but anassistance to my work; for now, as I said, I had a great employmentupon my hands, as follows: I had long studied to make, by somemeans or other, some earthen vessels, which, indeed, I wantedsorely, but knew not where to come at them. However, consideringthe heat of the climate, I did not doubt but if I could find outany clay, I might make some pots that might, being dried in thesun, be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to holdanything that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this wasnecessary in the preparing corn, meal, &c., which was the thing Iwas doing, I resolved to make some as large as I could, and fitonly to stand like jars, to hold what should be put into them.
It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tellhow many awkward ways I took to raise this paste; what odd,misshapen, ugly things I made; how many of them fell in and howmany fell out, the clay not being stiff enough to bear its ownweight; how many cracked by the over-violent heat of the sun, beingset out too hastily; and how many fell in pieces with onlyremoving, as well before as after they were dried; and, in a word,how, after having laboured hard to find the clay - to dig it, totemper it, to bring it home, and work it - I could not make abovetwo large earthen ugly things (I cannot call them jars) in abouttwo months' labour.
However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I liftedthem very gently up, and set them down again in two great wickerbaskets, which I had made on purpose for them, that they might notbreak; and as between the pot and the basket there was a littleroom to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw; andthese two pots being to stand always dry I thought would hold mydry corn, and perhaps the meal, when the corn was bruised.
Though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots, yet I madeseveral smaller things with better success; such as little roundpots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any things my handturned to; and the heat of the sun baked them quite hard.
But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthenpot to hold what was liquid, and bear the fire, which none of thesecould do. It happened after some time, making a pretty large firefor cooking my meat, when I went to put it out after I had donewith it, I found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels inthe fire, burnt as hard as a stone, and red as a tile. I wasagreeably surprised to see it, and said to myself, that certainlythey might be made to burn whole, if they would burn broken.
This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burnsome pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in,or of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with;but I placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile,one upon another, and placed my firewood all round it, with a greatheap of embers under them. I plied the fire with fresh fuel roundthe outside and upon the top, till I saw the pots in the insidered-hot quite through, and observed that they did not crack at all.When I saw them clear red, I let them stand in that heat about fiveor six hours, till I found one of them, though it did not crack,did melt or run; for the sand which was mixed with the clay meltedby the violence of the heat, and would have run into glass if I hadgone on; so I slacked my fire gradually till the pots began toabate of the red colour; and watching them all night, that I mightnot let the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three verygood (I will not say handsome) pipkins, and two other earthen pots,as hard burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly glazedwith the running of the sand.
After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort ofearthenware for my use; but I must needs say as to the shapes ofthem, they were very indifferent, as any one may suppose, when Ihad no way of making them but as the children make dirt pies, or asa woman would make pies that never learned to raise paste.
No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, whenI found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire; and Ihad hardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one onthe fire again with some water in it to boil me some meat, which itdid admirably well; and with a piece of a kid I made some very goodbroth, though I wanted oatmeal, and several other ingredientsrequisite to make it as good as I would have had it been.
My next concern was to get me a stone mortar to stamp or beat somecorn in; for as to the mill, there was no thought of arriving atthat perfection of art with one pair of hands. To supply thiswant, I was at a great loss; for, of all the trades in the world, Iwas as perfectly unqualified for a stone-cutter as for anywhatever; neither had I any tools to go about it with. I spentmany a day to find out a great stone big enough to cut hollow, andmake fit for a mortar, and could find none at all, except what wasin the solid rock, and which I had no way to dig or cut out; norindeed were the rocks in the island of hardness sufficient, butwere all of a sandy, crumbling stone, which neither would bear theweight of a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without fillingit with sand. So, after a great deal of time lost in searching fora stone, I gave it over, and resolved to look out for a great blockof hard wood, which I found, indeed, much easier; and getting oneas big as I had strength to stir, I rounded it, and formed it onthe outside with my axe and hatchet, and then with the help of fireand infinite labour, made a hollow place in it, as the Indians inBrazil make their canoes. After this, I made a great heavy pestleor beater of the wood called the iron-wood; and this I prepared andlaid by against I had my next crop of corn, which I proposed tomyself to grind, or rather pound into meal to make bread.
My next difficulty was to make a sieve or searce, to dress my meal,and to part it from the bran and the husk; without which I did notsee it possible I could have any bread. This was a most difficultthing even to think on, for to be sure I had nothing like thenecessary thing to make it - I mean fine thin canvas or stuff tosearce the meal through. And here I was at a full stop for manymonths; nor did I really know what to do. Linen I had none leftbut what was mere rags; I had goat's hair, but neither knew how toweave it or spin it; and had I known how, here were no tools towork it with. All the remedy that I found for this was, that atlast I did remember I had, among the seamen's clothes which weresaved out of the ship, some neckcloths of calico or muslin; andwith some pieces of these I made three small sieves proper enoughfor the work; and thus I made shift for some years: how I didafterwards, I shall show in its place.
The baking part was the next thing to be considered, and how Ishould make bread when I came to have corn; for first, I had noyeast. As to that part, there was no supplying the want, so I didnot concern myself much about it. But for an oven I was indeed ingreat pain. At length I found out an experiment for that also,which was this: I made some earthen-vessels very broad but notdeep, that is to say, about two feet diameter, and not above nineinches deep. These I burned in the fire, as I had done the other,and laid them by; and when I wanted to bake, I made a great fireupon my hearth, which I had paved with some square tiles of my ownbaking and burning also; but I should not call them square.
When the firewood was burned pretty much into embers or live coals,I drew them forward upon this hearth, so as to cover it all over,and there I let them lie till the hearth was very hot. Thensweeping away all the embers, I set down my loaf or loaves, andwhelming down the earthen pot upon them, drew the embers all roundthe outside of the pot, to keep in and add to the heat; and thus aswell as in the best oven in the world, I baked my barley-loaves,and became in little time a good pastrycook into the bargain; for Imade myself several cakes and puddings of the rice; but I made nopies, neither had I anything to put into them supposing I had,except the flesh either of fowls or goats.
It need not be wondered at if all these things took me up most partof the third year of my abode here; for it is to be observed thatin the intervals of these things I had my new harvest and husbandryto manage; for I reaped my corn in its season, and carried it homeas well as I could, and laid it up in the ear, in my large baskets,till I had time to rub it out, for I had no floor to thrash it on,or instrument to thrash it with.
And now, indeed, my stock of corn increasing, I really wanted tobuild my barns bigger; I wanted a place to lay it up in, for theincrease of the corn now yielded me so much, that I had of thebarley about twenty bushels, and of the rice as much or more;insomuch that now I resolved to begin to use it freely; for mybread had been quite gone a great while; also I resolved to seewhat quantity would be sufficient for me a whole year, and to sowbut once a year.
Upon the whole, I found that the forty bushels of barley and ricewere much more than I could consume in a year; so I resolved to sowjust the same quantity every year that I sowed the last, in hopesthat such a quantity would fully provide me with bread, &c.
All the while these things were doing, you may be sure my thoughtsran many times upon the prospect of land which I had seen from theother side of the island; and I was not without secret wishes thatI were on shore there, fancying that, seeing the mainland, and aninhabited country, I might find some way or other to convey myselffurther, and perhaps at last find some means of escape.
But all this while I made no allowance for the dangers of such anundertaking, and how I might fall into the hands of savages, andperhaps such as I might have reason to think far worse than thelions and tigers of Africa: that if I once came in their power, Ishould run a hazard of more than a thousand to one of being killed,and perhaps of being eaten; for I had heard that the people of theCaribbean coast were cannibals or man-eaters, and I knew by thelatitude that I could not be far from that shore. Then, supposingthey were not cannibals, yet they might kill me, as many Europeanswho had fallen into their hands had been served, even when they hadbeen ten or twenty together - much more I, that was but one, andcould make little or no defence; all these things, I say, which Iought to have considered well; and did come into my thoughtsafterwards, yet gave me no apprehensions at first, and my head ranmightily upon the thought of getting over to the shore.
Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long-boat with shoulder-of-mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on thecoast of Africa; but this was in vain: then I thought I would goand look at our ship's boat, which, as I have said, was blown upupon the shore a great way, in the storm, when we were first castaway. She lay almost where she did at first, but not quite; andwas turned, by the force of the waves and the winds, almost bottomupward, against a high ridge of beachy, rough sand, but no waterabout her. If I had had hands to have refitted her, and to havelaunched her into the water, the boat would have done well enough,and I might have gone back into the Brazils with her easily enough;but I might have foreseen that I could no more turn her and set herupright upon her bottom than I could remove the island; however, Iwent to the woods, and cut levers and rollers, and brought them tothe boat resolving to try what I could do; suggesting to myselfthat if I could but turn her down, I might repair the damage shehad received, and she would be a very good boat, and I might go tosea in her very easily.
I spared no pains, indeed, in this piece of fruitless toil, andspent, I think, three or four weeks about it; at last finding itimpossible to heave it up with my little strength, I fell todigging away the sand, to undermine it, and so to make it falldown, setting pieces of wood to thrust and guide it right in thefall.
But when I had done this, I was unable to stir it up again, or toget under it, much less to move it forward towards the water; so Iwas forced to give it over; and yet, though I gave over the hopesof the boat, my desire to venture over for the main increased,rather than decreased, as the means for it seemed impossible.
This at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible tomake myself a canoe, or periagua, such as the natives of thoseclimates make, even without tools, or, as I might say, withouthands, of the trunk of a great tree. This I not only thoughtpossible, but easy, and pleased myself extremely with the thoughtsof making it, and with my having much more convenience for it thanany of the negroes or Indians; but not at all considering theparticular inconveniences which I lay under more than the Indiansdid - viz. want of hands to move it, when it was made, into thewater - a difficulty much harder for me to surmount than all theconsequences of want of tools could be to them; for what was it tome, if when I had chosen a vast tree in the woods, and with muchtrouble cut it down, if I had been able with my tools to hew anddub the outside into the proper shape of a boat, and burn or cutout the inside to make it hollow, so as to make a boat of it - if,after all this, I must leave it just there where I found it, andnot be able to launch it into the water?
One would have thought I could not have had the least reflectionupon my mind of my circumstances while I was making this boat, butI should have immediately thought how I should get it into the sea;but my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it,that I never once considered how I should get it off the land: andit was really, in its own nature, more easy for me to guide it overforty-five miles of sea than about forty-five fathoms of land,where it lay, to set it afloat in the water.
I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever mandid who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with thedesign, without determining whether I was ever able to undertakeit; not but that the difficulty of launching my boat came ofteninto my head; but I put a stop to my inquiries into it by thisfoolish answer which I gave myself - "Let me first make it; Iwarrant I will find some way or other to get it along when it isdone."
This was a most preposterous method; but the eagerness of my fancyprevailed, and to work I went. I felled a cedar-tree, and Iquestion much whether Solomon ever had such a one for the buildingof the Temple of Jerusalem; it was five feet ten inches diameter atthe lower part next the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameterat the end of twenty-two feet; after which it lessened for a while,and then parted into branches. It was not without infinite labourthat I felled this tree; I was twenty days hacking and hewing at itat the bottom; I was fourteen more getting the branches and limbsand the vast spreading head cut off, which I hacked and hewedthrough with axe and hatchet, and inexpressible labour; after this,it cost me a month to shape it and dub it to a proportion, and tosomething like the bottom of a boat, that it might swim upright asit ought to do. It cost me near three months more to clear theinside, and work it out so as to make an exact boat of it; this Idid, indeed, without fire, by mere mallet and chisel, and by thedint of hard labour, till I had brought it to be a very handsomeperiagua, and big enough to have carried six-and-twenty men, andconsequently big enough to have carried me and all my cargo.
When I had gone through this work I was extremely delighted withit. The boat was really much bigger than ever I saw a canoe orperiagua, that was made of one tree, in my life. Many a wearystroke it had cost, you may be sure; and had I gotten it into thewater, I make no question, but I should have begun the maddestvoyage, and the most unlikely to be performed, that ever wasundertaken.
But all my devices to get it into the water failed me; though theycost me infinite labour too. It lay about one hundred yards fromthe water, and not more; but the first inconvenience was, it was uphill towards the creek. Well, to take away this discouragement, Iresolved to dig into the surface of the earth, and so make adeclivity: this I began, and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains(but who grudge pains who have their deliverance in view?); butwhen this was worked through, and this difficulty managed, it wasstill much the same, for I could no more stir the canoe than Icould the other boat. Then I measured the distance of ground, andresolved to cut a dock or canal, to bring the water up to thecanoe, seeing I could not bring the canoe down to the water. Well,I began this work; and when I began to enter upon it, and calculatehow deep it was to be dug, how broad, how the stuff was to bethrown out, I found that, by the number of hands I had, being nonebut my own, it must have been ten or twelve years before I couldhave gone through with it; for the shore lay so high, that at theupper end it must have been at least twenty feet deep; so atlength, though with great reluctancy, I gave this attempt overalso.
This grieved me heartily; and now I saw, though too late, the follyof beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judgerightly of our own strength to go through with it.
In the middle of this work I finished my fourth year in this place,and kept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as muchcomfort as ever before; for, by a constant study and seriousapplication to the Word of God, and by the assistance of His grace,I gained a different knowledge from what I had before. Ientertained different notions of things. I looked now upon theworld as a thing remote, which I had nothing to do with, noexpectations from, and, indeed, no desires about: in a word, I hadnothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely to have, so Ithought it looked, as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter - viz.as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it; and well might Isay, as Father Abraham to Dives, "Between me and thee is a greatgulf fixed."