to this place: how I had lived
there, and how long; I let him into the mystery, for such it was to him,
of gunpowder and bullet, and taught him how to shoot. I gave him a
knife, which he was wonderfully delighted with; and I made him a belt,
with a frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear hangers in; and in
the frog, instead of a hanger, I gave him a hatchet, which was not only
as good a weapon in some cases, but much more useful upon other
occasions.

I described to him the country of Europe, particularly England, which I
came from; how we lived, how we worshipped God, how we behaved to one
another, and how we traded in ships to all parts of the world. I gave
him an account of the wreck which I had been on board of, and showed him,
as near as I could, the place where she lay; but she was all beaten in
pieces before, and gone. I showed him the ruins of our boat, which we
lost when we escaped, and which I could not stir with my whole strength
then; but was now fallen almost all to pieces. Upon seeing this boat,
Friday stood, musing a great while, and said nothing. I asked him what
it was he studied upon. At last says he, "Me see such boat like come to
place at my nation." I did not understand him a good while; but at last,
when I had examined further into it, I understood by him that a boat,
such as that had been, came on shore upon the country where he lived:
that is, as he explained it, was driven thither by stress of weather. I
presently imagined that some European ship must have been cast away upon
their coast, and the boat might get loose and drive ashore; but was so
dull that I never once thought of men making their escape from a wreck
thither, much less whence they might come: so I only inquired after a
description of the boat.

Friday described the boat to me well enough; but brought me better to
understand him when he added with some warmth, "We save the white mans
from drown." Then I presently asked if there were any white mans, as he
called them, in the boat. "Yes," he said; "the boat full of white mans."
I asked him how many. He told upon his fingers seventeen. I asked him
then what became of them. He told me, "They live, they dwell at my
nation."

This put new thoughts into my head; for I presently imagined that these
might be the men belonging to the ship that was cast away in the sight of
my island, as I now called it; and who, after the ship was struck on the
rock, and they saw her