which we were to pass, at the farther side of the plain; but we were greatly surprised, when coming nearer the lane or pass, we saw a confused number of wolves standing just at the entrance. On a sudden, at another opening of the wood, we heard the noise of a gun, and looking that way, out rushed a horse, with a saddle and a bridle on him, flying like the wind, and sixteen or seventeen wolves after him, full speed; indeed, the horse had the heels of them, but as we supposed that he could not hold it at that rate, we doubted not but they would get up with him at last; no question but they did. But here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the entrance where the horse came out, we found the carcases of another horse and of two men, devoured by the ravenous creatures; and one of the men was no doubt the same whom we heard fire the gun, for there lay a gun just by him fired off; but as to the man, his head and the upper part of his body was eaten up. This filled us with horror, and we knew not what course to take; but the creatures resolved us soon, for they gathered about us presently, in hopes of prey; and I verily believe there were three hundred of them. It happened very much to our advantage, that at the entrance into the wood, but a little way from it, there lay some large timbertrees, which had been cut down the summer before, and I suppose lay there for carriage. I drew my little troop in among those trees, and placing ourselves in a line behind one long tree, I advised them all to alight, and keeping that tree before us for a breast-work, to stand in a triangle, or three fronts, inclosing our horses in the centre. We did so, and it was well we did; for never was a more furious charge than the creatures made upon us in this place. They came on with a growling kind of noise, and mounted the piece of timber, which, as I said, was our breast-work, as if they were only rushing upon their prey; and this fury of theirs, it seems, was principally occasioned by their seeing our horses behind us. I ordered our men to fire as before, every other man ; and they took their aim so sure, that they killed several of the wolves at the first volley; but there was a necessity to keep a continual firing, for they came on like devils, those behind pushing on those before. When we had fired a second volley of our fusees, we thought they stopped a little, and I hoped they would have gone off; but it was but a moment, for others came forward again; so we fired two vollies of our pistols; and I believe in these four firings we had killed seventeen or eighteen of them, and lamed my twice as many, yet they came on again. I was loath to spend our last shot too hastily; so I called my servant, not my man Friday, for he was better employed, for, with the greatest dexterity imaginable, he had charged my fusee and his own. while we were engaged; but, as I said, I called other man, and giving him a horn of powder, I bade him lay a train all along the piece of timber, and let it be a large train. He did so: and had but just time to get away, when the wolves came up to it, and some were got upon it, when I, snapping an uncharged pistol close to the powder, set it on fire : those that were upon the timber were scorched with it; and six or seven of them fell, or rather jumped in among us, with the force and fright of the fire; we dispatched these in an instant, and the rest were so frightened with the light, which the night, for it was now very near dark, made more terrible, that they drew back a little; upon which I ordered our last pistols to be fired off in one volley, and after that we gave a shout: upon this the wolves turned tail, and we sallied immediately upon near twenty lame ones, that we found struggling on the ground, and fell a cutting them with our swords, which answered our expectation; for the crying and howling they made was better understood by their fellows; so that they all fled and left us. We had, first and last, killed about threescore of them; and had it been day-light, we had killed many more. The field of battle being thus cleared, we made forward again, for we had still near a league to go. We heard the ravenous creatures howl and yell in the woods as we went, several times, and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them, but the snow dazzling our eyes, we were not certain in about an hour more we came to the town where we were to lodge, which we found in a terrible fright, and all in arms; for, it seems, the night before, the wolves and some bears had broke into the village, and put them in such terror, that they were obliged to keep guard night and day, but especially in the night, to preserve their cattle, and, indeed, their people. The next morning our guide was so ill, and his leg swelled so much with the rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so we were obliged to take a new guide here, and go to Thoulouse, 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 Thoulouse, 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 got, who would venture to bring us that way in such a severe season; and told us it was surprising 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 which made the wolves so furious, seeing their prey; and that, at other times, they are really afraid of a gun; but 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 altogether, 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 havng 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 was 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 Thoulouse to Paris, and without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover, the 14th o January, after having 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 the beginning, and now to the end, in the unspotted integrity of this good gentlewoman age 68! age 62 240 ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. I now resolved to dispose of my plantation in the Brasils, if I could find means. For this purpose, I wrote to my old friend at Lisbon; who having offered it to the two merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brasils, they accepted the offer, and remitted thirty-three thousand pieces of eight to a correspondent of theirs at Lisbon, to pay for it. Having signed the instrument of sale, and sent it to my old friend, he remitted me bills of exchange for thirty-two thousand eight hundred pieces of eight for the estate, reserving the payment of a hundred moidores a-year to himself during his life, and fifty moidores afterwards to his son for life, which I had promised them. Though I had sold my estate in the Brasils, yet I could not keep the country out of my head; nor could I resist the strong inclination I had to see my island. My true friend, the widow, earnestly dissuaded me from it, and so far prevailed with me, that, for almost seven years, she prevented my running abroad; during which time I took my two nephews, the children of one of my brothers, into my care: the eldest having something of his own, I bred up as a gentleman, and gave him a settlement of some addition to his estate, after my decease. The other I put out to a captain of a ship; and after five years, finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising young fellow, I put him into a good ship, and sent him to sea: and this young fellow afterwards drew me in, as old as I was, to farther adventures myself. In the mean time, I in part settled myself here; for, first of all, I married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction, and had three children, two sons and one daughter; but my wife dying, and my nephew coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my inclination to go abroad, and his importunity prevailed, and engaged me to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies: this was in the Jurong year 1634. But these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new adventures of my own, for ten years more, I shall give a farther account of in another volume. E THAT homely proverb used on so many occasions in Eng- wrong |