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ROBINSON CRUSOE |
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the men they 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 been here. (Points to the N.W. side of the island, which, it seems, was their side.)
By this I understood that my man Friday had formerly been among the savages who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island, on the same man-eating occasions that he was now brought for; and, some time after, when I took the courage to carry him to that side, being the same I formerly mentioned, he presently knew the place, 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, but he numbered them by laying so many stones in a row, and pointing to me to tell them over.
I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows; that after I had had this discourse with him, I asked him how far it was from our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost. He told me there was no danger, no canoes ever lost; but that, after a little way out to the sea, there was a current and a wind, always one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon.
This I understood to be no more than the sets of the tide,
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