Robinson Crusoe — in Words of One Syllable

by Daniel Defoe; Lucy Aikin

I could but cry out in the words of the Psalm, "They that go down to the sea in ships, these men see the works of the Lord in the deep. For at His word the storms rise, the winds blow, and lift up the waves; then do they mount to the sky, and from thence go down to the deep. My soul faints, I reel to and fro, and am at my wit's end: then the Lord brings me out of all my fears."

I felt so wrapt in joy, that all I could do was to walk up and down the coast, now lift up my hands, now fold them on my breast, and thank God for all that He had done for me, when the rest of the men were lost. All lost but I, and I was safe! I now cast my eyes round me, to find out what kind of a place it was that I had been thus thrown in, like a bird in a storm. Then all the glee I felt at first left me; for I was wet and cold, and had no dry clothes to put on, no food to eat and not a friend to help me.

There were wild beasts here, but I had no gun to shoot them with, or to keep me from their jaws. I had but a knife and a pipe. It now grew dark; and where was I to go for the night? I thought the top of some high tree would be a good place to keep me out of harm's way; and that there I might sit and think of death, for, as yet, I had no hopes of life. Well, I went to my tree, and made a kind of nest to sleep in. Then I cut a stick to keep off the beasts of prey, in case they should come, and fell to sleep just as if the branch I lay on had been a bed of down.

When I woke up it was broad day; the sky too was clear and the sea calm. But I saw from the top of the tree that in the night the ship had left the bank of sand, and lay but a mile from me; while the boat was on the beach, two miles on my right. I went some way down by the shore, to get to the boat; but an arm of the sea, half a mile broad, kept me from it. At noon, the tide went a long way out, so that I could get near the ship; and here I found that if we had but made up our minds to stay on board, we should all have been safe.

I shed tears at the thought, for I could not help it; yet, as there was no use in that, it struck me that the best thing for me to do was to swim to the ship. I soon threw off my clothes, took to the sea, and swam up to the wreck. But how was I to get on deck? I had swam twice round the ship, when a piece of rope, caught my eye, which hung down from her side so low, that at first the waves hid it. By the help of this rope I got on board. I found that there was a bulge in the ship, and that she had sprung a leak. You may be sure that my first thought was to look round for some food, and I soon made my way to the bin, where the bread was kept, and ate some of it as I went to and fro, for there was no time to lose. There was, too, some rum, of which I took a good draught, and this gave me heart. What I stood most in need of, was a boat to take the goods to shore. But it was vain to wish for that which could not be had; and as there were some spare yards in the ship, two or three large planks of wood, and a spare mast or two, I fell to work with these, to make a raft.

I put four spars side by side, and laid short bits of plank on them, cross ways, to make my raft strong. Though these planks would bear my own weight, they were too slight to bear much of my freight. So I took a saw which was on board, and cut a mast in three lengths, and these gave great strength to the raft. I found some bread and rice, a Dutch cheese, and some dry goat's flesh. There had been some wheat, but the rats had got at it, and it was all gone.

My next task was to screen my goods from the spray of the sea; and it did not take me long to do this, for there were three large chests on board which held all, and these I put on the raft. When the high tide came up it took off my coat and shirt, which I had left on the shore; but there were some fresh clothes in the ship.

"See here is a prize!" said I, out loud, (though there were none to hear me), "now I shall not starve." For I found four large guns. But how was my raft to be got to land? I had no sail, no oars; and a gust of wind would make all my store slide off. Yet there were three things which I was glad of; a calm sea, a tide which set in to the shore, and a slight breeze to blow me there.

I had the good luck to find some oars in a part of the ship, in which I had made no search till now. With these I put to sea, and for half a mile my raft went well; but soon I found it drove to one side. At length I saw a creek, to which, with some toil, I took my raft; and now the beach was so near, that I felt my oar touch the ground.

Here I had well nigh lost my freight, for the shore lay on a slope, so that there was no place to land on, save where one end of the raft would lie so high, and one end so low, that all my goods would fall off. To wait till the tide came up was all that could be done. So when the sea was a foot deep, I thrust the raft on a flat piece of ground, to moor her there, and stuck my two oars in the sand, one on each side of the raft. Thus I let her lie till the ebb of the tide, and when it went down, she was left safe on land with all her freight.