Robinson Crusoe — in Words of One Syllable

by Daniel Defoe; Lucy Aikin

This change in the face of things, and the loss of such a friend, quite struck me down. Yet I was glad to think that I had brought to shore all that could be of use to me. I had now to look out for some spot where I could make my home. Half way up a hill there was a small plain, four or five score feet long, and twice as broad; and as it had a full view of the sea, I thought that it would be a good place for my house.

I first dug a trench round a space which took in twelve yards; and in this I drove two rows of stakes, till they stood firm like piles, five and a half feet from the ground. I made the stakes close and tight with bits of rope; and put small sticks on the top of them in the shape of spikes. This made so strong a fence that no man or beast could get in.

The door of my house was on the top, and I had to climb up to it by steps, which I took in with me, so that no one else might come up by the same way. Close to the back of the house stood a high rock, in which I made a cave, and laid all the earth that I had dug out of it round my house, to the height of a foot and a half. I had to go out once a day in search of food. The first time, I saw some goats, but they were too shy and swift of foot, to let me get near them.

At last I lay in wait for them close to their own haunts. If they saw me in the vale, though they might be on high ground, they would run off, wild with fear; but if they were in the vale, and I on high ground, they took no heed of me. The first goat I shot had a kid by her side, and when the old one fell, the kid stood near her, till I took her off on my back, and then the young one ran by my side. I put down the goat, and brought the kid home to tame it; but as it was too young to feed, I had to kill it.

At first I thought that, for the lack of pen and ink, I should lose all note of time; so I made a large post, in the shape of a cross, on which I cut these words, "I came on these shores on the 8th day of June, in the year 1659" On the side of this post I made a notch each day as it came, and this I kept up till the last.

I have not yet said a word of my four pets, which were two cats, a dog, and a bird. You may guess how fond I was of them, for they were all the friends left to me. I brought the dog and two cats from the ship. The dog would fetch things for me at all times, and by his bark, his whine, his growl, and his tricks, he would all but talk to me; yet he could not give me thought for thought.

If I could but have had some one near me to find fault with, or to find fault with me, what a treat it would have been! Now that I had brought ink from the ship, I wrote down a sketch of each day as it came; not so much to leave to those who might read it, when I was dead and gone, as to get rid of my own thoughts, and draw me from the fears which all day long dwelt on my mind, till my head would ache with the weight of them.

I was a long way out of the course of ships: and oh, how dull it was to be cast on this lone spot with no one to love, no one to make me laugh, no one to make me weep, no one to make me think. It was dull to roam, day by day, from the wood to the shore; and from the shore back to the wood, and feed on my own thoughts all the while.

So much for the sad view of my case; but like most things it had a bright side as well as a dark one. For here was I safe on land, while all the rest of the ship's crew were lost. Well, thought I, God who shapes our ways, and led me by the hand then, can save me from this state now, or send some one to be with me; true, I am cast on a rough and rude part of the globe, but there are no beasts of prey on it to kill or hurt me. God has sent the ship so near to me, that I have got from it all things to meet my wants for the rest of my days. Let life be what it may, there is sure to be much to thank God for; and I soon gave up all dull thoughts, and did not so much as look out for a sail.

My goods from the wreck had been in the cave for more than ten months; and it was time now to put them right, as they took up all the space, and left me no room to turn in: so I made my small cave a large one, and dug it out a long way back in the sand rock. Then I brought the mouth of it up to the fence, and so made a back way to my house. This done, I put shelves on each side, to hold my goods, which made my cave look like a shop full of stores. To make these shelves I cut down a tree, and with the help of a saw, an axe, a plane, and some more tools, I made boards.