I Call Him Friday
HE WAS a comely, handsome fellow, perfectly well
made, with straight strong limbs, not too large, tall and
well-shaped, and, as I reckon, about twenty-six years of age. He
had a very good countenance, not a fierce and surly aspect, but
seemed to have something very manly in his face, and yet he had all
the sweetness and softness of an European in his countenance too,
especially when he smiled. His hair was long and black, not curled
like wool; his forehead very high and large; and a great vivacity
and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. The colour of his skin was not
quite black, but very tawny; and yet not of an ugly yellow,
nauseous tawny, as the Brazilians and Virginians, and other natives
of America are; but of a bright kind of a dun olive colour that had
in it something very agreeable, though not very easy to describe.
His face was round and plump; his nose small, not flat like the
Negroes’, a very good mouth, thin lips, and his fine teeth well
set, and white as ivory. After he had slumbered, rather than slept,
about half an hour, he waked again, and comes out of the cave to
me, for I had been milking my goats, which I had in the enclosure
just by. When he espied me, he came running to me, laying himself
down again upon the ground, with all the possible signs of an
humble, thankful disposition, making a many antic gestures to show
it. At last he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to my
foot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as he had done before;
and after this, made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude,
and submission imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me as
long as he lived; I understood him in many things and let him know
I was very well pleased with him; in a little time I began to speak
to him and teach him to speak to me; and first, I made him know his
name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life; I called
him so for the memory of the time; I likewise taught him to say
‘‘Master,’’ and then let him know that was to be my name; I
likewise taught him to say ‘‘yes’’ and ‘‘no’’ and to know the
meaning of them; I gave him some milk in an earthen pot and let him
see me drink it before him and sop my bread in it; and I gave him a
cake of bread to do the like, which he quickly complied with, and
made signs that it was very good for him.
I kept there with him all that night, but as soon
as it was day, I beckoned to him to come with me, and let him know
I would give him some clothes, at which he seemed very glad, for he
was stark naked. As we went by the place where he had buried the
two men, he pointed exactly to the place, and showed me the marks
that he had made to find them again, making signs to me that we
should dig them up again and eat them; at this I appeared very
angry, expressed my abhorrence of it, made as if I would vomit at
the thoughts of it, and beckoned with my hand to him to come away,
which he did immediately, with great submission. I then led him up
to the top of the hill, to see if his enemies were gone; and
pulling out my glass, I looked, and saw plainly the place where
they had been, but no appearance of them or of their canoes; so
that it was plain they were gone, and had left their two comrades
behind them, without any search after them.
But I was not content with this discovery, but
having now more courage, and consequently more curiosity, I took my
man Friday with me, giving him the sword in his hand, with the bow
and arrows at his back, which I found he could use very
dexterously, making him carry one gun for me, and I two for myself,
and away we marched to the place where these creatures had been;
for I had a mind now to get some fuller intelligence of them. When
I came to the place, my very blood ran chill in my veins, and my
heart sunk within me at the horror of the spectacle. Indeed, it was
a dreadful sight, at least it was so to me, though Friday made
nothing of it. The place was covered with human bones, the ground
dyed with their blood, great pieces of flesh left here and there,
half eaten, mangled and scorched; and in short, all the tokens of
the triumphant feast they had been making there, after a victory
over their enemies. I saw three skulls, five hands, and the bones
of three or four legs and feet, and abundance of other parts of the
bodies; and Friday, by his signs, made me understand that they
brought over four prisoners to feast upon; that three of them were
eaten up, and that he, pointing to himself, was the fourth; that
there had been a great battle between them and their next king,
whose subjects it seems he had been one of; and that they had taken
a great number of prisoners, all which were carried to several
places by those that had taken them in the fight, in order to feast
upon them, as was done here by these wretches upon those they
brought hither.
I caused Friday to gather all the skulls, bones,
flesh, and whatever remained, and lay them together on a heap, and
make a great fire upon it and burn them all to ashes. I found
Friday had still a hankering stomach after some of the flesh, and
was still a cannibal in his nature; but I discovered7 so much abhorrence at the very thoughts of
it, and at the least appearance of it, that he durst not discover
it; for I had, by some means, let him know that I would kill him if
he offered it.
When we had done this, we came back to our castle,
and there I fell to work for my man Friday; and first of all I gave
him a pair of linen drawers, which I had out of the poor gunner’s
chest I mentioned, and which I found in the wreck; and which, with
a little alteration, fitted him very well; then I made him a jerkin
of goat’s skin, as well as my skill would allow; and I was now
grown a tolerable good tailor; and I gave him a cap, which I had
made of a hare-skin, very convenient and fashionable enough; and
thus he was clothed, for the present, tolerably well, and was
mighty well pleased to see himself almost as well clothed as his
master. It istrue, he went awkwardly in these things at first;
wearing the drawers was very awkward to him, and the sleeves of the
waistcoat galled his shoulders and the inside of his arms; but a
little easing them, where he complained they hurt him, and using
himself to them, at length he took to them very well.
The next day after I came home to my hutch with
him, I began to consider where I should lodge him; and that I might
do well for him, and yet be perfectly easy myself, I made a little
tent for him in the vacant place between my two fortifications, in
the inside of the last and in the outside of the first. And as
there was a door or entrance there into my cave, I made a formal
framed door-case, and a door to it of boards, and set it up in the
passage, a little within the entrance; and causing the door to open
on the inside, I barred it up in the night, taking in my ladders
too; so that Friday could no way come at me in the inside of my
innermost wall without making so much noise in getting over that it
must needs waken me; for my first wall had now a complete roof over
it of long poles, covering all my tent and leaning up to the side
of the hill, which was again laid across with smaller sticks
instead of laths, and then thatched over a great thickness with the
rice straw, which was strong like reeds; and at the hole or place
which was left to go in or out by the ladder I had placed a kind of
trapdoor, which, if it had been attempted on the outside, would not
have opened at all, but would have fallen down and made a great
noise; and as to weapons, I took them all into my side every
night.
But I needed none of all this precaution; for never
man had a more faithful, loving, sincere servant than Friday was to
me; without passions, sullenness, or designs, perfectly obliged and
engaged; his very affections were tied to me, like those of a child
to a father; and I dare say he would have sacrificed his life for
the saving mine upon any occasion whatsoever; the many testimonies
he gave me of this put it out of doubt and soon convinced me that I
needed to use no precautions as to my safety on his account.
This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and
that with wonder, that however it had pleased God, in His
providence, and in the government of the works of His hands, to
take from so great a part of the world of His creatures the best
uses to which their faculties and the powers of their souls are
adapted; yet that He has bestowed upon them the same powers, the
same reason, the same affections, the same sentiments of kindness
and obligation, the same passions and resentments of wrongs, the
same sense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the
capacities of doing good and receiving good that He has given to
us; and that when He pleases to offer to them occasions of exerting
these, they are as ready, nay, more ready to apply them to the
right uses for which they were bestowed than we are. And this made
me very melancholy sometimes, in reflecting, as the several
occasions presented, how mean a use we make of all these, even
though we have these powers enlightened by the great lamp of
instruction, the Spirit of God, and by the knowledge of His Word,
added to our understanding; and why it has pleased God to hide the
like saving knowledge from so many millions of souls, who (if I
might judge by this poor savage) would make a much better use of it
than we did.
From hence I sometimes was led too far to invade
the sovereignty of Providence and, as it were, arraign the justice
of so arbitrary a disposition of things that should hide that light
from some and reveal it to others, and yet expect a like duty from
both. But I shut it up and checked my thoughts with this
conclusion, first, that we did not know by what light and law these
should be condemned; but that, as God was necessarily, and by the
nature of His being, infinitely holy and just, so it could not be
but that if these creatures were all sentenced to absence from
Himself, it was on account of sinning against that light which, as
the Scripture says, was a law to themselves, and by such rules as
their consciences would acknowledge to be just, though the
foundation was not discovered to us. And secondly, that still, as
we are all the clay in the hand of the Potter, no vessel could say
to Him, ‘‘Why hast Thou formed me thus?’’
But to return to my new companion: I was greatly
delighted with him, and made it my business to teach him everything
that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but
especially to make him speak and understand me when I spoke; and he
was the aptest scholar that ever was, and particularly was so
merry, so constantly diligent, and so pleased when he could but
understand me or make me understand him, that it was very pleasant
to me to talk to him; and now my life began to be so easy that I
began to say to myself that could I but have been safe from more
savages, I cared not if I was never to remove from the place while
I lived.
After I had been two or three days returned to my
castle, I thought that, 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 him taste other flesh; so I took him out with me one
morning to the woods. I went, indeed, intending to kill a kid out
of my own flock and bring it home and dress it. But as I was going,
I saw a she-goat lying down in the shade, and two young kids
sitting by her; I caught hold of Friday. ‘‘Hold,’’ says I, ‘‘stand
still’’; and made signs to him not to stir; immediately I presented
my piece, shot and killed one of the kids. The poor creature, who
had at a distance, indeed, seen me kill the savage, his enemy, but
did not know or could imagine how it was done, was sensibly
surprised, trembled and shook, and looked so amazed that I thought
he would have sunk down. He did not see the kid I had shot at, or
perceive I had killed it, but ripped up his waistcoat to feel if he
was not wounded, and, as I found presently, thought I was resolved
to kill him; for he came and kneeled down to me and, embracing my
knees, said a great many things I did not understand; but I could
easily see that 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 and, taking him up by the hand, laughed at him and,
pointing to the kid which I had killed, beckoned to him to run and
fetch it, which he did; and while he was wondering and looking to
see how the creature was killed, I loaded my gun again, and by and
by I saw a great fowl, like a hawk, sit upon a tree within shot;
so, to let Friday understand a little what I would do, I called him
to me again, pointing at the fowl, which was indeed a parrot,
though I thought it had been a hawk; I say, pointing to the parrot,
and to my gun, and to the ground under the parrot, to let him see I
would make it fall, I made him understand that I would shoot and
kill that bird; accordingly I fired and bade him look, and
immediately he saw the parrot fall; he stood like one frighted
again, notwithstanding all I had said to him; and I found he was
the more amazed because he did not see me put anything into the
gun; but thought that there must be some wonderful fund of death
and destruction in that thing, able to kill man, beast, bird, or
anything near or far off; and the astonishment this created in him
was such as could not wear off for a long time; and I believe, if I
would have let him, he would have worshipped me and my gun. As for
the gun itself, he would not so much as touch it for several days
after; but would speak to it, and talk to it as if it had answered
him, when he was by himself; which, as I afterwards learned of him,
was to desire it not to kill him.
Well, after his astonishment was a little over at
this, I pointed to him to run and fetch the bird I had shot, which
he did, but stayed some time; for the parrot, not being quite dead,
was fluttered away a good way off from the place where she fell;
however, he found her, took her up, and brought her to me; and as I
had perceived his ignorance about the gun before, I took this
advantage to charge the gun again, and not let him see me do it,
that I might be ready for any other mark that might present; but
nothing more offered at that time; so I brought home the kid, and
the same evening I took the skin off and cut it out as well as I
could; and having a pot for that purpose, I boiled, or stewed, some
of the flesh, and made some very good broth; and after I had begun
to eat some, I gave some to my man, who seemed very glad of it, and
liked it very well; but that which was strangest to him was to see
me eat salt with it; he made a sign to me that the salt was not
good to eat, and putting a little into his own mouth, he seemed to
nauseate it, and would spit and sputter at it, washing his mouth
with fresh water after it; on the other hand, I took some meat in
my mouth without salt, and I pretended to spit and sputter for want
of salt, as fast as he had done at the salt; but it would not do,
he would never care for salt with his meat, or in his broth; at
least, not a great while, and then but a very little.
Having thus fed him with boiled meat and broth, I
was resolved to feast him the next day with roasting a piece of the
kid; this I did by hanging it before the fire in a string, as I had
seen many people do in England, setting two poles up, one on each
side the fire, and one across on the top, and tying the string to
the cross stick, letting the meat turn continually. This Friday
admired very much; but when he came to taste the flesh, he took so
many ways to tell me how well he liked it that I could not but
understand him; and at last he told me he would never eat man’s
flesh any more, which I was very glad to hear.
The next day I set him to work to beating some corn
out, and sifting it in the manner I used to do, as I observed
before; and he soon understood how to do it as well as I,
especially after he had seen what the meaning of it was, and that
it was to make bread of; for after that I let him see me make my
bread, and bake it too, and in a little time Friday was able to do
all the work for me, as well as I could do it myself.
I began now to consider that, having two mouths to
feed instead of one, I must provide more ground for my harvest and
plant a larger quantity of corn than I used to do; so I marked out
a larger piece of land, and began the fence in the same manner as
before, in which Friday not only worked very willingly and very
hard, but did it very cheerfully; and I told him what it was for,
that it was for corn to make more bread, because he was now with
me, and that I might have enough for him and myself too. He
appeared very sensible of that part, and let me know that he
thought I had much more labour upon me on his account than I had
for myself; and that he would work the harder for me, if I would
tell him what to do.