The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 427 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Volume 1.

The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 427 pages of information about The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Volume 1.
but very wholesome; and I mixed their juice afterwards with water, which made it very wholesome, and very cool and refreshing.  I found now I had business enough to gather and carry home; and I resolved to lay up a store, as well of grapes as limes and lemons to furnish myself for the wet season, which I knew was approaching.  In order to this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, a lesser heap in another place; and a great parcel of limes and melons in another place; and, taking a few of each with me, I travelled homeward; and resolved to come again, and bring a bag or sack, or what I could make to carry the rest home.  Accordingly, having spent three days in this journey, I came home (so I must now call my tent and my cave:) but before I got thither, the grapes were spoiled; the richness of the fruits, and the weight of the juice, having broken and bruised them, they were good for little or nothing:  as to the limes, they were good, but I could bring only a few.

The next day, being the 19th, I went back, having made me two small bags to bring home my harvest; but I was surprised, when, coming to my heap of grapes, which were so rich and fine when I gathered them, I found them all spread about, trod to pieces, and dragged about, some here, some there, and abundance eaten and devoured.  By this I concluded there were some wild creatures thereabouts which had done this, but what they were I knew not.  However, as I found there was no laying them up in heaps, and no carrying them away in a sack; but that one way they would be destroyed, and the other way they would be crushed with their own weight; I took another course:  I then gathered a large quantity of the grapes, and hung them upon the out-branches of the trees, that they might cure and dry in the sun; and as for the limes and lemons, I carried as many back as I could well stand under.

When I came home from this journey, I contemplated with great pleasure the fruitfulness of that valley, and the pleasantness of the situation; the security from storms on that side; the water and the wood:  and concluded that I had pitched upon a place to fix my abode in, which was by far the worst part of the country.  Upon the whole, I began to consider of removing my habitation, and to look out for a place equally safe as where I was now situate; if possible, in that pleasant fruitful part of the island.

This thought ran long in my head; and I was exceeding fond of it for some time, the pleasantness of the place tempting me:  but when I came to a nearer view of it, I considered that I was now by the sea-side, where it was at least possible that something might happen to my advantage, and, by the same ill fate that brought me hither, might bring some other unhappy wretches to the same place; and though it was scarce probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among the hills and woods in the centre of the island, was to anticipate my bondage,

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The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.