Chapter 15: Friday's Education

by Daniel Defoe

　　After I had been two or three days returned to my castle, I thoughtthat, in order to bring Friday off from his horrid way of feeding,and from the relish of a cannibal's stomach, I ought to let himtaste other flesh; so I took him out with me one morning to thewoods. I went, indeed, intending to kill a kid out of my ownflock; and bring it home and dress it; but as I was going I saw ashe-goat lying down in the shade, and two young kids sitting byher. I catched hold of Friday. "Hold," said I, "stand still;" andmade signs to him not to stir: immediately I presented my piece,shot, and killed one of the kids. The poor creature, who had at adistance, indeed, seen me kill the savage, his enemy, but did notknow, nor could imagine how it was done, was sensibly surprised,trembled, and shook, and looked so amazed that I thought he wouldhave sunk down. He did not see the kid I shot at, or perceive Ihad killed it, but ripped up his waistcoat to feel whether he wasnot wounded; and, as I found presently, thought I was resolved tokill him: for he came and kneeled down to me, and embracing myknees, said a great many things I did not understand; but I couldeasily see the meaning was to pray me not to kill him.I soon found a way to convince him that I would do him no harm; andtaking him up by the hand, laughed at him, and pointing to the kidwhich I had killed, beckoned to him to run and fetch it, which hedid: and while he was wondering, and looking to see how thecreature was killed, I loaded my gun again. By-and-by I saw agreat fowl, like a hawk, sitting upon a tree within shot; so, tolet Friday understand a little what I would do, I called him to meagain, pointed at the fowl, which was indeed a parrot, though Ithought it had been a hawk; I say, pointing to the parrot, and tomy gun, and to the ground under the parrot, to let him see I wouldmake it fall, I made him understand that I would shoot and killthat bird; accordingly, I fired, and bade him look, and immediatelyhe saw the parrot fall. He stood like one frightened again,notwithstanding all I had said to him; and I found he was the moreamazed, because he did not see me put anything into the gun, butthought that there must be some wonderful fund of death anddestruction in that thing, able to kill man, beast, bird, oranything near or far off; and the astonishment this created in himwas such as could not wear off for a long time; and I believe, if Iwould have let him, he would have worshipped me and my gun. As forthe gun itself, he would not so much as touch it for several daysafter; but he would speak to it and talk to it, as if it hadanswered him, when he was by himself; which, as I afterwardslearned of him, was to desire it not to kill him. Well, after hisastonishment was a little over at this, I pointed to him to run andfetch the bird I had shot, which he did, but stayed some time; forthe parrot, not being quite dead, had fluttered away a gooddistance from the place where she fell: however, he found her, tookher up, and brought her to me; and as I had perceived his ignoranceabout the gun before, I took this advantage to charge the gunagain, and not to let him see me do it, that I might be ready forany other mark that might present; but nothing more offered at thattime: so I brought home the kid, and the same evening I took theskin off, and cut it out as well as I could; and having a pot fitfor that purpose, I boiled or stewed some of the flesh, and madesome very good broth. After I had begun to eat some I gave some tomy man, who seemed very glad of it, and liked it very well; butthat which was strangest to him was to see me eat salt with it. Hemade a sign to me that the salt was not good to eat; and putting alittle into his own mouth, he seemed to nauseate it, and would spitand sputter at it, washing his mouth with fresh water after it: onthe other hand, I took some meat into my mouth without salt, and Ipretended to spit and sputter for want of salt, as much as he haddone at the salt; but it would not do; he would never care for saltwith meat or in his broth; at least, not for a great while, andthen but a very little.Having thus fed him with boiled meat and broth, I was resolved tofeast him the next day by roasting a piece of the kid: this I didby hanging it before the fire on a string, as I had seen manypeople do in England, setting two poles up, one on each side of thefire, and one across the top, and tying the string to the crossstick, letting the meat turn continually. This Friday admired verymuch; but when he came to taste the flesh, he took so many ways totell me how well he liked it, that I could not but understand him:and at last he told me, as well as he could, he would never eatman's flesh any more, which I was very glad to hear.The next day I set him to work beating some corn out, and siftingit in the manner I used to do, as I observed before; and he soonunderstood how to do it as well as I, especially after he had seenwhat the meaning of it was, and that it was to make bread of; forafter that I let him see me make my bread, and bake it too; and ina little time Friday was able to do all the work for me as well asI could do it myself.I began now to consider, that having two mouths to feed instead ofone, I must provide more ground for my harvest, and plant a largerquantity of corn than I used to do; so I marked out a larger pieceof land, and began the fence in the same manner as before, in whichFriday worked not only very willingly and very hard, but did itvery cheerfully: and I told him what it was for; that it was forcorn to make more bread, because he was now with me, and that Imight have enough for him and myself too. He appeared verysensible of that part, and let me know that he thought I had muchmore labour upon me on his account than I had for myself; and thathe would work the harder for me if I would tell him what to do.This was the pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place.Friday began to talk pretty well, and understand the names ofalmost everything I had occasion to call for, and of every place Ihad to send him to, and talked a great deal to me; so that, inshort, I began now to have some use for my tongue again, which,indeed, I had very little occasion for before. Besides thepleasure of talking to him, I had a singular satisfaction in thefellow himself: his simple, unfeigned honesty appeared to me moreand more every day, and I began really to love the creature; and onhis side I believe he loved me more than it was possible for himever to love anything before.I had a mind once to try if he had any inclination for his owncountry again; and having taught him English so well that he couldanswer me almost any question, I asked him whether the nation thathe belonged to never conquered in battle? At which he smiled, andsaid - "Yes, yes, we always fight the better;" that is, he meantalways get the better in fight; and so we began the followingdiscourse:-MASTER. - You always fight the better; how came you to be takenprisoner, then, Friday?FRIDAY. - My nation beat much for all that.MASTER. - How beat? If your nation beat them, how came you to betaken?FRIDAY. - They more many than my nation, in the place where me was;they take one, two, three, and me: my nation over-beat them in theyonder place, where me no was; there my nation take one, two, greatthousand.MASTER. - But why did not your side recover you from the hands ofyour enemies, then?FRIDAY. - They run, one, two, three, and me, and make go in thecanoe; my nation have no canoe that time.MASTER. - Well, Friday, and what does your nation do with the menthey take? Do they carry them away and eat them, as these did?FRIDAY. - Yes, my nation eat mans too; eat all up.MASTER. - Where do they carry them?FRIDAY. - Go to other place, where they think.MASTER. - Do they come hither?FRIDAY. - Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.MASTER. - Have you been here with them?FRIDAY. - Yes, I have been here (points to the NW. side of theisland, which, it seems, was their side).By this I understood that my man Friday had formerly been among thesavages who used to come on shore on the farther part of theisland, on the same man-eating occasions he was now brought for;and some time after, when I took the courage to carry him to thatside, being the same I formerly mentioned, he presently knew theplace, and told me he was there once, when they ate up twenty men,two women, and one child; he could not tell twenty in English, buthe numbered them by laying so many stones in a row, and pointing tome to tell them over.I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows: thatafter this discourse I had with him, I asked him how far it wasfrom our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not oftenlost. He told me there was no danger, no canoes ever lost: butthat after a little way out to sea, there was a current and wind,always one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon. This Iunderstood to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out orcoming in; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by thegreat draft and reflux of the mighty river Orinoco, in the mouth orgulf of which river, as I found afterwards, our island lay; andthat this land, which I perceived to be W. and NW., was the greatisland Trinidad, on the north point of the mouth of the river. Iasked Friday a thousand questions about the country, theinhabitants, the sea, the coast, and what nations were near; hetold me all he knew with the greatest openness imaginable. I askedhim the names of the several nations of his sort of people, butcould get no other name than Caribs; from whence I easilyunderstood that these were the Caribbees, which our maps place onthe part of America which reaches from the mouth of the riverOrinoco to Guiana, and onwards to St. Martha. He told me that up agreat way beyond the moon, that was beyond the setting of the moon,which must be west from their country, there dwelt white beardedmen, like me, and pointed to my great whiskers, which I mentionedbefore; and that they had killed much mans, that was his word: byall which I understood he meant the Spaniards, whose cruelties inAmerica had been spread over the whole country, and were rememberedby all the nations from father to son.I inquired if he could tell me how I might go from this island, andget among those white men. He told me, "Yes, yes, you may go intwo canoe." I could not understand what he meant, or make himdescribe to me what he meant by two canoe, till at last, with greatdifficulty, I found he meant it must be in a large boat, as big astwo canoes. This part of Friday's discourse I began to relish verywell; and from this time I entertained some hopes that, one time orother, I might find an opportunity to make my escape from thisplace, and that this poor savage might be a means to help me.During the long time that Friday had now been with me, and that hebegan to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay afoundation of religious knowledge in his mind; particularly I askedhim one time, who made him. The creature did not understand me atall, but thought I had asked who was his father - but I took it upby another handle, and asked him who made the sea, the ground wewalked on, and the hills and woods. He told me, "It was oneBenamuckee, that lived beyond all;" he could describe nothing ofthis great person, but that he was very old, "much older," he said,"than the sea or land, than the moon or the stars." I asked himthen, if this old person had made all things, why did not allthings worship him? He looked very grave, and, with a perfect lookof innocence, said, "All things say O to him." I asked him if thepeople who die in his country went away anywhere? He said, "Yes;they all went to Benamuckee." Then I asked him whether those theyeat up went thither too. He said, "Yes."From these things, I began to instruct him in the knowledge of thetrue God; I told him that the great Maker of all things lived upthere, pointing up towards heaven; that He governed the world bythe same power and providence by which He made it; that He wasomnipotent, and could do everything for us, give everything to us,take everything from us; and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes.He listened with great attention, and received with pleasure thenotion of Jesus Christ being sent to redeem us; and of the mannerof making our prayers to God, and His being able to hear us, evenin heaven. He told me one day, that if our God could hear us, upbeyond the sun, he must needs be a greater God than theirBenamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet could not heartill they went up to the great mountains where he dwelt to speak tothem. I asked him if ever he went thither to speak to him. Hesaid, "No; they never went that were young men; none went thitherbut the old men," whom he called their Oowokakee; that is, as Imade him explain to me, their religious, or clergy; and that theywent to say O (so he called saying prayers), and then came back andtold them what Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there ispriestcraft even among the most blinded, ignorant pagans in theworld; and the policy of making a secret of religion, in order topreserve the veneration of the people to the clergy, not only to befound in the Roman, but, perhaps, among all religions in the world,even among the most brutish and barbarous savages.I endeavoured to clear up this fraud to my man Friday; and told himthat the pretence of their old men going up to the mountains to sayO to their god Benamuckee was a cheat; and their bringing word fromthence what he said was much more so; that if they met with anyanswer, or spake with any one there, it must be with an evilspirit; and then I entered into a long discourse with him about thedevil, the origin of him, his rebellion against God, his enmity toman, the reason of it, his setting himself up in the dark parts ofthe world to be worshipped instead of God, and as God, and the manystratagems he made use of to delude mankind to their ruin; how hehad a secret access to our passions and to our affections, and toadapt his snares to our inclinations, so as to cause us even to beour own tempters, and run upon our destruction by our own choice.I found it was not so easy to imprint right notions in his mindabout the devil as it was about the being of a God. Natureassisted all my arguments to evidence to him even the necessity ofa great First Cause, an overruling, governing Power, a secretdirecting Providence, and of the equity and justice of payinghomage to Him that made us, and the like; but there appearednothing of this kind in the notion of an evil spirit, of hisorigin, his being, his nature, and above all, of his inclination todo evil, and to draw us in to do so too; and the poor creaturepuzzled me once in such a manner, by a question merely natural andinnocent, that I scarce knew what to say to him. I had beentalking a great deal to him of the power of God, His omnipotence,His aversion to sin, His being a consuming fire to the workers ofiniquity; how, as He had made us all, He could destroy us and allthe world in a moment; and he listened with great seriousness to meall the while. After this I had been telling him how the devil wasGod's enemy in the hearts of men, and used all his malice and skillto defeat the good designs of Providence, and to ruin the kingdomof Christ in the world, and the like. "Well," says Friday, "butyou say God is so strong, so great; is He not much strong, muchmight as the devil?" "Yes, yes," says I, "Friday; God is strongerthan the devil - God is above the devil, and therefore we pray toGod to tread him down under our feet, and enable us to resist histemptations and quench his fiery darts." "But," says he again, "ifGod much stronger, much might as the wicked devil, why God no killthe devil, so make him no more do wicked?" I was strangelysurprised at this question; and, after all, though I was now an oldman, yet I was but a young doctor, and ill qualified for a casuistor a solver of difficulties; and at first I could not tell what tosay; so I pretended not to hear him, and asked him what he said;but he was too earnest for an answer to forget his question, sothat he repeated it in the very same broken words as above. Bythis time I had recovered myself a little, and I said, "God will atlast punish him severely; he is reserved for the judgment, and isto be cast into the bottomless pit, to dwell with everlastingfire." This did not satisfy Friday; but he returns upon me,repeating my words, "'Reserve at last!' me no understand - but whynot kill the devil now; not kill great ago?" "You may as well askme," said I, "why God does not kill you or me, when we do wickedthings here that offend Him - we are preserved to repent and bepardoned." He mused some time on this. "Well, well," says he,mighty affectionately, "that well - so you, I, devil, all wicked,all preserve, repent, God pardon all." Here I was run down againby him to the last degree; and it was a testimony to me, how themere notions of nature, though they will guide reasonable creaturesto the knowledge of a God, and of a worship or homage due to thesupreme being of God, as the consequence of our nature, yet nothingbut divine revelation can form the knowledge of Jesus Christ, andof redemption purchased for us; of a Mediator of the new covenant,and of an Intercessor at the footstool of God's throne; I say,nothing but a revelation from Heaven can form these in the soul;and that, therefore, the gospel of our Lord and Saviour JesusChrist, I mean the Word of God, and the Spirit of God, promised forthe guide and sanctifier of His people, are the absolutelynecessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving knowledgeof God and the means of salvation.I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man,rising up hastily, as upon some sudden occasion of going out; thensending him for something a good way off, I seriously prayed to Godthat He would enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage;assisting, by His Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creatureto receive the light of the knowledge of God in Christ, reconcilinghim to Himself, and would guide me so to speak to him from the Wordof God that his conscience might be convinced, his eyes opened, andhis soul saved. When he came again to me, I entered into a longdiscourse with him upon the subject of the redemption of man by theSaviour of the world, and of the doctrine of the gospel preachedfrom Heaven, viz. of repentance towards God, and faith in ourblessed Lord Jesus. I then explained to him as well as I could whyour blessed Redeemer took not on Him the nature of angels but theseed of Abraham; and how, for that reason, the fallen angels had noshare in the redemption; that He came only to the lost sheep of thehouse of Israel, and the like.I had, God knows, more sincerity than knowledge in all the methodsI took for this poor creature's instruction, and must acknowledge,what I believe all that act upon the same principle will find, thatin laying things open to him, I really informed and instructedmyself in many things that either I did not know or had not fullyconsidered before, but which occurred naturally to my mind uponsearching into them, for the information of this poor savage; and Ihad more affection in my inquiry after things upon this occasionthan ever I felt before: so that, whether this poor wild wretch wasbetter for me or no, I had great reason to be thankful that ever hecame to me; my grief sat lighter, upon me; my habitation grewcomfortable to me beyond measure: and when I reflected that in thissolitary life which I have been confined to, I had not only beenmoved to look up to heaven myself, and to seek the Hand that hadbrought me here, but was now to be made an instrument, underProvidence, to save the life, and, for aught I knew, the soul of apoor savage, and bring him to the true knowledge of religion and ofthe Christian doctrine, that he might know Christ Jesus, in whom islife eternal; I say, when I reflected upon all these things, asecret joy ran through every part of My soul, and I frequentlyrejoiced that ever I was brought to this place, which I had sooften thought the most dreadful of all afflictions that couldpossibly have befallen me.I continued in this thankful frame all the remainder of my time;and the conversation which employed the hours between Friday and mewas such as made the three years which we lived there togetherperfectly and completely happy, if any such thing as completehappiness can be formed in a sublunary state. This savage was nowa good Christian, a much better than I; though I have reason tohope, and bless God for it, that we were equally penitent, andcomforted, restored penitents. We had here the Word of God toread, and no farther off from His Spirit to instruct than if we hadbeen in England. I always applied myself, in reading theScripture, to let him know, as well as I could, the meaning of whatI read; and he again, by his serious inquiries and questionings,made me, as I said before, a much better scholar in the Scriptureknowledge than I should ever have been by my own mere privatereading. Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here also,from experience in this retired part of my life, viz. how infiniteand inexpressible a blessing it is that the knowledge of God, andof the doctrine of salvation by Christ Jesus, is so plainly laiddown in the Word of God, so easy to be received and understood,that, as the bare reading the Scripture made me capable ofunderstanding enough of my duty to carry me directly on to thegreat work of sincere repentance for my sins, and laying hold of aSaviour for life and salvation, to a stated reformation inpractice, and obedience to all God's commands, and this without anyteacher or instructor, I mean human; so the same plain instructionsufficiently served to the enlightening this savage creature, andbringing him to be such a Christian as I have known few equal tohim in my life.As to all the disputes, wrangling, strife, and contention whichhave happened in the world about religion, whether niceties indoctrines or schemes of church government, they were all perfectlyuseless to us, and, for aught I can yet see, they have been so tothe rest of the world. We had the sure guide to heaven, viz. theWord of God; and we had, blessed be God, comfortable views of theSpirit of God teaching and instructing by His word, leading us intoall truth, and making us both willing and obedient to theinstruction of His word. And I cannot see the least use that thegreatest knowledge of the disputed points of religion, which havemade such confusion in the world, would have been to us, if wecould have obtained it. But I must go on with the historical partof things, and take every part in its order.After Friday and I became more intimately acquainted, and that hecould understand almost all I said to him, and speak prettyfluently, though in broken English, to me, I acquainted him with myown history, or at least so much of it as related to my coming tothis place: how I had lived there, and how long; I let him into themystery, for such it was to him, of gunpowder and bullet, andtaught him how to shoot. I gave him a knife, which he waswonderfully delighted with; and I made him a belt, with a froghanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in thefrog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not onlyas good a weapon in some cases, but much more useful upon otheroccasions.I described to him the country of Europe, particularly England,which I came from; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how webehaved to one another, and how we traded in ships to all parts ofthe world. I gave him an account of the wreck which I had been onboard of, and showed him, as near as I could, the place where shelay; but she was all beaten in pieces before, and gone. I showedhim the ruins of our boat, which we lost when we escaped, and whichI could not stir with my whole strength then; but was now fallenalmost all to pieces. Upon seeing this boat, Friday stood, musinga great while, and said nothing. I asked him what it was hestudied upon. At last says he, "Me see such boat like come toplace at my nation." I did not understand him a good while; but atlast, when I had examined further into it, I understood by him thata boat, such as that had been, came on shore upon the country wherehe lived: that is, as he explained it, was driven thither by stressof weather. I presently imagined that some European ship must havebeen cast away upon their coast, and the boat might get loose anddrive ashore; but was so dull that I never once thought of menmaking their escape from a wreck thither, much less whence theymight come: so I only inquired after a description of the boat.Friday described the boat to me well enough; but brought me betterto understand him when he added with some warmth, "We save thewhite mans from drown." Then I presently asked if there were anywhite mans, as he called them, in the boat. "Yes," he said; "theboat full of white mans." I asked him how many. He told upon hisfingers seventeen. I asked him then what became of them. He toldme, "They live, they dwell at my nation."This put new thoughts into my head; for I presently imagined thatthese might be the men belonging to the ship that was cast away inthe sight of my island, as I now called it; and who, after the shipwas struck on the rock, and they saw her inevitably lost, had savedthemselves in their boat, and were landed upon that wild shoreamong the savages. Upon this I inquired of him more criticallywhat was become of them. He assured me they lived still there;that they had been there about four years; that the savages leftthem alone, and gave them victuals to live on. I asked him how itcame to pass they did not kill them and eat them. He said, "No,they make brother with them;" that is, as I understood him, atruce; and then he added, "They no eat mans but when make the warfight;" that is to say, they never eat any men but such as come tofight with them and are taken in battle.It was after this some considerable time, that being upon the topof the hill at the east side of the island, from whence, as I havesaid, I had, in a clear day, discovered the main or continent ofAmerica, Friday, the weather being very serene, looks veryearnestly towards the mainland, and, in a kind of surprise, falls ajumping and dancing, and calls out to me, for I was at somedistance from him. I asked him what was the matter. "Oh, joy!"says he; "Oh, glad! there see my country, there my nation!" Iobserved an extraordinary sense of pleasure appeared in his face,and his eyes sparkled, and his countenance discovered a strangeeagerness, as if he had a mind to be in his own country again.This observation of mine put a great many thoughts into me, whichmade me at first not so easy about my new man Friday as I wasbefore; and I made no doubt but that, if Friday could get back tohis own nation again, he would not only forget all his religion butall his obligation to me, and would be forward enough to give hiscountrymen an account of me, and come back, perhaps with a hundredor two of them, and make a feast upon me, at which he might be asmerry as he used to be with those of his enemies when they weretaken in war. But I wronged the poor honest creature very much,for which I was very sorry afterwards. However, as my jealousyincreased, and held some weeks, I was a little more circumspect,and not so familiar and kind to him as before: in which I wascertainly wrong too; the honest, grateful creature having nothought about it but what consisted with the best principles, bothas a religious Christian and as a grateful friend, as appearedafterwards to my full satisfaction.While my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every daypumping him to see if he would discover any of the new thoughtswhich I suspected were in him; but I found everything he said wasso honest and so innocent, that I could find nothing to nourish mysuspicion; and in spite of all my uneasiness, he made me at lastentirely his own again; nor did he in the least perceive that I wasuneasy, and therefore I could not suspect him of deceit.One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy atsea, so that we could not see the continent, I called to him, andsaid, "Friday, do not you wish yourself in your own country, yourown nation?" "Yes," he said, "I be much O glad to be at my ownnation." "What would you do there?" said I. "Would you turn wildagain, eat men's flesh again, and be a savage as you were before?"He looked full of concern, and shaking his head, said, "No, no,Friday tell them to live good; tell them to pray God; tell them toeat corn-bread, cattle flesh, milk; no eat man again." "Why,then," said I to him, "they will kill you." He looked grave atthat, and then said, "No, no, they no kill me, they willing lovelearn." He meant by this, they would be willing to learn. Headded, they learned much of the bearded mans that came in the boat.Then I asked him if he would go back to them. He smiled at that,and told me that he could not swim so far. I told him I would makea canoe for him. He told me he would go if I would go with him."I go!" says I; "why, they will eat me if I come there." "No, no,"says he, "me make they no eat you; me make they much love you." Hemeant, he would tell them how I had killed his enemies, and savedhis life, and so he would make them love me. Then he told me, aswell as he could, how kind they were to seventeen white men, orbearded men, as he called them who came on shore there in distress.From this time, I confess, I had a mind to venture over, and see ifI could possibly join with those bearded men, who I made no doubtwere Spaniards and Portuguese; not doubting but, if I could, wemight find some method to escape from thence, being upon thecontinent, and a good company together, better than I could from anisland forty miles off the shore, alone and without help. So,after some days, I took Friday to work again by way of discourse,and told him I would give him a boat to go back to his own nation;and, accordingly, I carried him to my frigate, which lay on theother side of the island, and having cleared it of water (for Ialways kept it sunk in water), I brought it out, showed it him, andwe both went into it. I found he was a most dexterous fellow atmanaging it, and would make it go almost as swift again as I could.So when he was in, I said to him, "Well, now, Friday, shall we goto your nation?" He looked very dull at my saying so; which itseems was because he thought the boat was too small to go so far.I then told him I had a bigger; so the next day I went to the placewhere the first boat lay which I had made, but which I could notget into the water. He said that was big enough; but then, as Ihad taken no care of it, and it had lain two or three and twentyyears there, the sun had so split and dried it, that it was rotten.Friday told me such a boat would do very well, and would carry"much enough vittle, drink, bread;" this was his way of talking.