The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs so swelled with the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so we were obliged to take a new guide there, and go to Tholouse, where we found a warm climate, a fruitful pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves, or any thing like them; but when we told our story at Tholouse, they told us it was nothing but what was ordinary in the great forest at the foot of the mountains, especially when the snow lay on the ground; but they inquired much what kind of a guide we had gotten, that would venture to bring us that way in such a severe season; and told us, it was very much we were not all devoured. When we told them how we placed ourselves, and the horses in the middle, they blamed us exceedingly, and told us it was fifty to one but we had been all destroyed; for it was the sight of the horses that made the wolves so furious, seeing their prey; and that at other times they are really afraid of a gun; but they being excessive hungry, and raging on that account, the eagerness to come at the horses had made them senseless of danger; and that if we had not by the continued fire, and at last by the stratagem of the train of powder, mastered them, it had been great odds but that we had been torn to pieces; whereas, had we been content to have sat still on horseback, and fired as horsemen, they would not have taken the horses so much for their own, when men were on their backs, as otherwise; and withal they told us, that at last, if we had stood all together, and left our horses, they would have been so eager to have devoured them, that we might have come off safe, especially having our fire-arms in our hands, and being so many in number.
For my part, I was never so sensible of danger in my life; for seeing above three hundred devils come roaring and open-mouthed to devour us, and having nothing to shelter us, or retreat to, I gave myself over for lost; and as it was, I believe, I shall never care to cross those mountains again; I think I would much rather go a thousand leagues by sea, though I were sure to meet with a storm once a week.
I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through France; nothing but what other travellers have given an account of, with much more advantage than I can. I travelled from Tholouse to Paris, and without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover, the fourteenth of January, after having had a severe cold season to travel in.
I was now come to the centre of my travels, and had in a little time all my new-discovered estate safe about me, the bills of exchange, which I brought with me, having been very currently paid.
My principal guide and privy-counsellor was my good ancient widow, who, in gratitude for the money I had sent her, thought no pains too much, or care too great, to employ for me; and I trusted her so entirely with every thing, that I was perfectly easy as to the security of my effects; and indeed I was very happy from my beginning, and now to the end, in the unspotted integrity of this good gentlewoman.
And now I began to think of leaving my effects with this woman, and setting out for Lisbon, and so to the Brasils. But now another scruple came in the way, and that was religion; for as I had entertained some doubts about the Roman religion, even while I was abroad, especially in my state of solitude; so I knew there was no going to the Brasils for me, much less going to settle there, unless I resolved to embrace the Roman Catholic religion, without any reserve; except on the other hand I resolved to be a sacrifice to my principles, be a martyr for religion, and die in the Inquisition: so I resolved to stay at home, and, if I could find means for it, to dispose of my plantation.
To this purpose I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon, who in return gave me notice, that he could easily dispose of it there: but that if I thought fit to give him leave to offer it in my name to the two merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brasils, who must fully understand the value of it, who lived just upon the spot, and who I knew to be very rich, so that he believed they would be fond of buying it; he did not doubt, but I should make 4 or 5000 pieces of eight the more of it.
Accordingly I agreed, gave him orders to offer it to them, and he did so; and in about eight months more, the ship being then returned, he sent me an account, that they had accepted the offer, and had remitted 33,000 pieces of eight to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon, to pay for it.
In return, I signed the instrument of sale in the form which they sent from Lisbon, and sent it to my old man, who sent me the bills of exchange for 32,800 pieces of eight for the estate; reserving the payment of 100 moidores a year, to him (the old man) during his life, and 50 moidores afterwards to his son for his life, which I had promised them; and which the plantation was to make good as a rent charge. And thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adventure, a life of Providence’s chequer-work, and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to shew the like of: beginning foolishly, but closing much more happily than any part of it ever gave me leave to much as to hope for.
Any one would think, that in this state of complicated good fortune, I was past running any more hazards, and so indeed I had been, if other circumstances had concurred: but I was inured to a wandering life, had no family, nor many relations; nor, however rich, had I contracted much acquaintance; and though I had sold my estate in the Brasils, yet I could not keep that country out of my head, and had a great mind to be upon the wing again; especially I could not resist the strong inclination I had to see my island, and to know if the poor Spaniards were in being there; and how the rogues I left there had used them.