The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another would come out to see what the matter was; but we waited so long till the third man came back to us; and then nobody coming out, we knocked again gently, and immediately out came two more, and we served them just in the same manner, but were obliged to go all with them, and lay them down by the idol some distance from one another; when going back we found two more were come out to the door, and a third stood behind them within the door. We seized the two, and immediately tied them, when the third stepping back, and crying out, my Scots merchant went in after him, and taking out a composition we had made, that would only smoke and stink, he set fire to it, and threw it in among them: by that time the other Scotsman and my man taking charge of the two men already bound, and tied together also by the arm, led them away to the idol, and left them there, to see if their idol would relieve them, making haste back to us.

When the furze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much smoke that they were almost suffocated, we then threw in a small leather bag of another kind, which flamed like a candle, and following it in, we found there were but four people left, who, it seems, were two men and two women, and, as we supposed, had been about some of their diabolic sacrifices. They appeared, in short, frighted to death, at least so as to sit trembling and stupid, and not able to speak neither, for the smoke.

In a word, we took them, bound them as we had the other, and all without any noise, I should have said, we brought them out of the house, or hut, first; for, indeed, we were not able to bear the smoke any; more than they were. When we had done this, we carried them all together to the idol: when we came there we fell to work with him; and first we daubed him all over, and his robes also, with tar, and such other stuff as we had, which was tallow mixed with brimstone; then we stopped his eyes, and ears, and, mouth full of gunpowder; then we wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet; and then sticking all the combustibles we had brought with us upon; him, we looked about to see if we could find any thing else to help to burn him; when my Scotsman remembered that by the tent, or hut, where the men were, there lay a heap of dry forage, whether straw or rushes I do not remember: away he and the other Scotsman ran, and fetched their arms full of that. When we had done this, we took all our prisoners, and brought them, having untied their feet and ungagged their mouths, and made them stand up, and set them all before their monstrous idol, and then set fire to the whole.

We stayed by it a quarter of an hour, or thereabouts, til the powder in the eyes, and mouth, and ears of the idol blew up, and, as we could perceive, had split and deformed the shape of it; and, in a word, till we saw it burnt into a mere block or log of wood; and then igniting the dry forage to it, we found it would be soon quite consumed; so we began to think of going away; but the Scotsman said, "No, we must not go, for these poor deluded wretches will all throw themselves into the fire, and burn themselves with the idol." So we resolved to stay till the forage was burnt down too, and then we came away and left them.

In the morning we appeared among our fellow-travellers, exceeding busy in getting ready for our journey; nor could any man suggest that we had been any where but in our beds, as travellers might be supposed to be, to fit themselves for the fatigues of that day's journey.

But it did not end so; for the next day came a great multitude of the country people, not only of this village, but of a hundred more, for aught I know, to the town-gates; and in a most outrageous manner demanded satisfaction of the Russian governor, for the insulting their priests, and burning their great Cham-Chi-Thaungu; such a hard name they gave the monstrous creature they worshipped. The people of Nertzinskay were at first in a great consternation; for they said the Tartars were no less than thirty thousand, and that in a few days more they would be one hundred thousand stronger.

The Russian governor sent out messengers to appease them, and gave them all the good words imaginable. He assured them he knew nothing of it, and that there had not a soul of his garrison been abroad; that it could not be from any body there; and if they would let him know who it was, he should be exemplarily punished. They returned haughtily, That all the country reverenced the great Cham-Chi-Thaungu, who dwelt in the son, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to his image, but some Christian miscreant; so they called them, it seems; and they therefore denounced war against him, and all the Russians, who, they said, were miscreants and Christians.

The governor, still patient, and unwilling to make a breach, or to have any cause of war alleged to be given by him, the czar having straitly charged him to treat the conquered country with gentleness and civility, gave them still all the good words he could; at last he told them, there was a caravan gone towards Russia that morning, and perhaps it was some of them who had done them this injury; and that, if they would be satisfied with that, he would send after them, to inquire into it. This seemed to appease them a little; and accordingly the governor sent after us, and gave us a particular account how the thing was, intimating withal, that if any in our caravan had done it, they should make their escape; but that whether they had done it or no, we should make all the haste forward that was possible; and that in the meantime he would keep them in play as long as he could.

This was very friendly in the governor. However, when it came to the caravan, there was nobody knew any thing of the matter; and, as for us that were guilty, we were the least of all suspected; none so much as asked us the question; however, the captain of the caravan, for the time, took the hint that the governor gave us, and we marched or travelled two days and two nights without any considerable stop, and then we lay at a village called Plothus; nor did we make any long stop here, but hastened on towards Jarawena, another of the czar of Muscovy's colonies, and where we expected we should be safe; but it is to be observed, that here we began, for two or three days march, to enter upon a vast nameless desert, of which I shall say more in its place; and which if we had now been upon it, it is more than probable we had been all destroyed. It was the second day's march from Plothus that by the clouds of dust behind us at a great distance, some of our people began to be sensible we were pursued; we had entered the desert, and had passed by a great lake, called Schanks Osier, when we perceived a very great body of horse appear on the other side of the lake to the north, we travelling west. We observed they went away west, as we did; but had supposed we should have taken that side of the lake, whereas we very happily took the south side: and in two days more we saw them not, for they, believing we were still before them, pushed on, till they came to the river Udda: this is a very great river when it passes farther north, but when we came to it, we found it narrow and fordable.

The third day they either found their mistake, or had intelligence of us, and came pouring in upon us towards the dusk of the evening. We had, to our great satisfaction, just pitched upon a place for our camp, which was very convenient for the night; for as we were upon a desert, though but at the beginning of it, that was above five hundred miles over, we had no towns to lodge at, and, indeed, expected none but the city of Jarawena, which we had yet two days march to; the desert, however, had some few woods in it on this side, and little river, which ran all into the great river Udda. It was in a narrow strait, between two small but very thick woods, that we pitched our little camp for that night, expecting to be attacked in the night.

Nobody knew but ourselves what we were pursued for; but as it was usual for the Mogul Tartars to go about in troops in that desert, so the caravans always fortify themselves every night against them, as against armies of robbers; and it was therefore no new thing to be pursued.

But we had this night, of all the nights of our travels, a most advantageous camp; for we lay between two woods, with a little rivulet running just before our front; so that we could not be surrounded or attacked any way, but in our front or rear: we took care also to make our front as strong as we could, by placing our packs, with our camels and horses, all in a line on the side of the river, and we felled some trees in our rear.

In this posture we encamped for the night; but the enemy was upon us before we had finished our situation: they did not come on us like thieves, as we expected, but sent three messengers to us, to demand the men to be delivered to them, that had abused their priests, and burnt their god Cham-Chi-Thaungu, that they might burn them with fire; and, upon this, they said, they would go away, and do us no farther harm, otherwise they would burn us all with fire. Our men looked very blank at this message, and began to stare at one another, to see who looked with most guilt in their faces, but, nobody was the word, nobody did it. The leader of the caravan sent word, he was well assured it was not done, by any of our camp; that we were peaceable merchants, travelling on our business; that we had done no harm to them, or to any one else; and therefore they must look farther for their enemies, who had injured them, for we were not the people; so desired them not to disturb us; for, if they did, we should defend ourselves.

They were far from being satisfied with this for an answer, and a great crowd of them came down in the morning, by break of day, to our camp; but, seeing us in such an advantageous situation, they durst come no farther than the brook in our front, where they stood, and shewed us such a number, as, indeed, terrified us very much; for those that spoke least of them, spoke of ten thousand. Here they stood, and looked at us awhile, and then setting up a great howl, they let fly a cloud of arrows among us; but we were well enough fortified for that, for we were sheltered under our baggage; and I do not remember that one man of us was hurt.

Some time after this we saw them move a little to our right, and expected them on the rear, when a cunning fellow, a Cossack, as they call them, of Jarawena, in the pay of the Muscovites, calling to the leader of the caravan, said to him, "I will send all these people away to Sibeilka." This was a city four or five days journey at least to the south, and rather behind us. So he takes his bow and arrows, and, getting on horseback, he rides away from our rear directly, as it were, back to Nertzinskay; after this, he takes a great circuit about, and comes to the army of the Tartars, as if he had been sent express to tell them a long story, that the people who had burnt their Cham-Chi-Thaungu were gone to Sibeilka, with a caravan of miscreants, as he called them; that is to say, Christians; and that they were resolved to burn the god Seal Isarg, belonging to the Tonguses.

As this fellow was a mere Tartar, and perfectly spoke their language, he counterfeited so well, that they all took it from him, and away they drove, in a most violent hurry, to Sibeilka, which, it seems, was five days journey to the south; and in less than three hours they were entirely out of our sight, and we never heard any more of them, nor ever knew whether they went to that other place called Sibeilka or no.

So we passed safely on to the city of Jarawena, where there was a garrison of Muscovites; and there we rested five days, the caravan being exceedingly fatigued with the last day's march, and with want of rest in the night.

From this city we had a frightful desert, which held us three-and-twenty days march. We furnished ourselves with some tents here, for the better accommodating ourselves in the night; and the leader of the caravan procured sixteen carriages, or waggons, of the country, for carrying our water and provisions; and these carriages were our defence every night round our little camp; so that had the Tartars appeared, unless they had been very numerous indeed, they would not have been able to hurt us.

We may well be supposed to want rest again after this long journey; for in this desert we saw neither house or tree, or scarce a bush: we saw, indeed, abundance of the sable-hunters, as they called them. These are all Tartars of the Mogul Tartary, of which this country is a part; and they frequently attack small caravans; but we saw no numbers of them together. I was curious to see the sable skins they catched; but I could never speak with any of them; for they durst not come near us; neither durst we straggle from our company to go near them.

After we had passed this desert, we came into a country pretty well inhabited; that is to say, we found towns and castles settled by the czar of Muscovy, with garrisons of stationary soldiers to protect the caravans, and defend the country against the Tartars, who would otherwise make it very dangerous travelling; and his czarish majesty has given such strict orders for the well guarding the caravans and merchants, that if there are any Tartars heard of in the country, detachments of the garrison are always sent to see travellers safe from station to station.

And thus the governor of Adinskoy, whom I had an opportunity to make a visit to, by means of the Scots merchant, who was acquainted with him, offered us a guard of fifty men, if we thought there was any danger, to the next station.

I thought long before this, that as we came nearer to Europe we should find the country better peopled, and the people more civilized; but I found myself mistaken in both, for we had yet the nation of the Tonguses to pass through; where we saw the same tokens of paganism and barbarity, or worse, than before; only as they were conquered by the Muscovites, and entirely reduced, they were not so dangerous; but for the rudeness of manners, idolatry, and polytheism, no people in the world ever went beyond them. They are clothed all in skins of beasts, and their houses are built of the same. You know not a man from a woman, neither by the ruggedness of their countenances, or their clothes; and in the winter, when the ground is covered with snow, they live under ground, in houses like vaults, which have cavities or caves going from one to another.

If the Tartars had their Cham-Chi-Thaungu for a whole village, or country, these had idols in every hut and every cave; besides, they worship the stars, the sun, the water, the snow; and, in a word, every thing that they do not understand, and they understand but very little; so that almost every element, every uncommon thing, sets them a-sacrificing.

But I am no more to describe people than countries, any farther than my own story comes to be concerned in them. I met with nothing peculiar to myself in all this country, which I reckon was, from the desert which I spoke of last, at least four hundred miles, half of it being another desert, which took us up twelve days severe travelling, without house, tree, or bush; but we were obliged again to carry our own provisions, as well water as bread. After we were out of this desert, and had travelled two days, we came to Janezay, a Muscovite city or station, on the great river Janezay. This river, they told us, parted Europe from Asia, though our map-makers, as I am told, do not agree to it; however, it is certainly the eastern boundary of the ancient Siberia, which now makes a province only of the vast Muscovite empire, but is itself equal in bigness to the whole empire of Germany.

And yet here I observed ignorance and paganism, still prevailed, except in the Muscovite garrisons. All the country between the river Oby and the river Janezay is as entirely pagan, and the people as barbarous, as the remotest of the Tartars; nay, as any nation, for aught I know, in Asia or America. I also found, which I observed to the Muscovite governors, whom I had opportunity to converse with, that the pagans are not much the wiser, or the nearer Christianity, for being under the Muscovite government; which they acknowledged was true enough, but, they said, it was none of their business; that if the czar expected to convert his Siberian, or Tonguese, or Tartar subjects, it should be done by sending clergymen among them, not soldiers; and they added, with more sincerity than I expected, that they found it was not so much the concern of their monarch to make the people Christians, as it was to make them subjects.

From this river to the great river Oby, we crossed a wild uncultivated country; I cannot say 'tis a barbarous soil; 'tis only barren of people, and wants good management; otherwise it is in itself a most pleasant, fruitful, and agreeable country. What inhabitants we found in it are all pagans, except such as are sent among them from Russia; for this is the country, I mean on both sides the river Oby, whither the Muscovite criminals, that are not put to death, are banished, and from whence it is next to impossible they should ever come away.

I have nothing material to say of my particular affairs, till I came to Tobolski, the capital of Siberia, where I continued some time on the following occasion: -

We had been now almost seven months on our journey, and winter began to come on apace; whereupon my partner and I called a council about our particular affairs, in which we found it proper, considering that we were bound for England, and not for Moscow, to consider how to dispose of ourselves. They told us of sledges and rein-deer to carry us over the snow in the winter-time; and, indeed, they have such things, as it would be incredible to relate the particulars of, by which means the Russians travel more in the winter than they can in summer; because in these sledges they are able to run night and day: the snow being frozen, is one universal covering to nature, by which the hills, the vales, the rivers, the lakes, are all smooth, and hard as a stone; and they run upon the surface, without any regard to what is underneath.

But I had no occasion to push at a winter journey of this kind; I was bound to England, not to Moscow, and my route lay two ways: either I must go on as the caravan went, till I came to Jarislaw, and then go off west for Narva, and the gulf of Finland, and so either by sea or land to Dantzic, where I might possibly sell my China cargo to good advantage; or I must leave the caravan at a little town on the Dwina, from whence I had but six days by water to Archangel, and from thence might be sure of shipping, either to England, Holland, or Hamburgh.

Now to go any of these journies in the winter would have been preposterous; for as to Dantzic, the Baltic would be frozen up, and I could not get passage; and to go by land in those countries, was far less safe than among the Mogul Tartars; likewise to Archangel, in October all the ships would be gone from thence, and even the merchants, who dwell there in summer, retire south to Moscow in the winter, when the ships are gone; so that I should have nothing but extremity of cold to encounter, with a scarcity of provisions, and must lie there in an empty town all the winter: so that, upon the whole, I thought it much my better way to let the caravan go, and to make provision to winter where I was, viz. at Tobolski, in Siberia, in the latitude of sixty degrees, where I was sure of three things to wear out a cold winter with, viz. plenty of provisions, such as the country afforded, a warm house, with fuel enough, and excellent company; of all which I shall give a full account in its place.

I was now in a quite different climate from my beloved island, where I never felt cold, except when I had my ague; on the contrary, I had much to do to bear my clothes on my back, and never made any fire but without doors, for my necessity, in dressing my food, &c. Now I made me three good vests, with large robes or gowns over them, to hang down to the feet, and button close to the wrists, and all these lined with furs, to make them sufficiently warm.

As to a warm house, I must confess, I greatly dislike our way in England, of making fires in every room in the house, in open chimnies, which, when the fire was out, always kept the air in the room cold as the climate. But taking an apartment in a good house in the town, I ordered a chimney to be built like a furnace, in the centre of six several rooms, like a stove; the funnel to carry the smoke went up one way, the door to come at the fire went in another, and all the rooms were kept equally warm, but no fire seen; like as they heat the bagnios in England.

By this means we had always the same climate in all the rooms, and an equal heat was preserved; and how cold soever it was without, it was always warm within; and yet we saw no fire, nor were ever incommoded with any smoke.

The most wonderful thing of all was, that it should be possible to meet with good company here, in a country so barbarous as that of the most northerly part of Europe, near the Frozen ocean, and within but a very few degrees of Nova Zembla.

But this being the country where the state criminals of Muscovy, as I observed before, are all banished; this city was full of noblemen, princes, gentlemen, colonels, and, in short, all degrees of the nobility, gentry, soldiery, and courtiers of Muscovy. Here were the famous prince Galilfken, or Galoffken, and his son; the old general Robostisky, and several other persons of note, and some ladies.

By means of my Scots merchant, whom, nevertheless, I parted with here, I made an acquaintance with several of these gentlemen, and some of them of the first rank; and from these, in the long winter nights, in which I staid here, I received several agreeable visits. It was talking one night with a certain prince, one of the banished ministers of state belonging to the czar of Muscovy, that my talk of my particular case began. He had been telling me abundance of fine things, of the greatness, the magnificence, and dominions, and the absolute power of the emperor of the Russians. I interrupted him, and told him, I was a greater and more powerful prince than ever the czar of Muscovy was, though my dominions were not so large, or my people so many. The Russian grandee looked a little surprised, and fixing his eyes steadily upon me, began to wonder what I meant.

I told him his wonder would cease when I had explained myself. First, I told him, I had the absolute disposal of the lives and fortunes of all my subjects: that notwithstanding my absolute power, I had not one person disaffected to my government or to my person, in all my dominions. He shook his head at that, and said, there, indeed, I outdid the czar of Muscovy. I told him, that all the lands in my kingdom were my own, and all my subjects were not only my tenants, but tenants at will; that they would all fight for me to the last drop; and that never tyrant, for such I acknowledged myself to be, was ever so universally beloved, and yet so horribly feared, by his subjects.

After amusing them with these riddles in government for awhile, I opened the case, and told them the story at large of my living in the island, and how I managed both myself and the people there that were under me, just as I have since minuted it down. They were exceedingly taken with the story, and especially the prince, who told me with a sigh, that the true greatness of life was to be master of ourselves; that he would not have changed such a state of life as mine, to have been czar of Muscovy, and that he found more felicity in the retirement he seemed to be banished to there, than ever he found in the highest authority he enjoyed in the court of his master the czar: that the height of human wisdom was to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm, without. When he came first hither, he said, he used to tear the hair from his head, and the clothes from his back, as others had done before him; but a little time and consideration had made him look into himself, as well as round himself, to things without: that he found the mind of man, if it was but once brought to reflect upon the state of universal life, and how little this world was concerned in its true felicity, was perfectly capable of making a felicity for itself, fully satisfying to itself, and suitable to its own best ends and desires, with but very little assistance from the world; that air to breathe in, food to sustain life, clothes for warmth, and liberty for exercise, in order to health, completed, in his opinion, all that the world could do for us: and though the greatness, the authority, the riches, and the pleasures, which some enjoyed in the world, and which he had enjoyed his share of, had much in them that was agreeable to us, yet he observed, that all those things chiefly gratified the coarsest of our affections; such as our ambition, our particular pride, our avarice, our vanity, and our sensuality; all which were, indeed, the mere product of the worst part of man, were in themselves crimes, and had in them the seeds of all manner of crimes; but neither were related to, or concerned with, any of those virtues that constituted us wise men, or of those graces which distinguished us as Christians; that being now deprived of all the fancied felicity which he enjoyed in the full exercise of all those vices, he said, he was at leisure to look upon the dark side of them, where he found all manner of deformity; and was now convinced, that virtue only makes a man truly wise, rich, and great, and preserves him in the way to a superior happiness in a future state; and in this, he said, they were more happy in their banishment, than all their enemies were, who had the full possession of all the wealth and power that they (the banished) had left behind them.