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, as well as he could, 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 worked not only 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 labor 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.

This was the pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place: Friday began to talk pretty well, and understand the names of almost every thing I had occasion to call for, and of every place I had to send him to, and talked a great deal to me so that, in short, I began now to have some use for my tongue again, which, indeed, I had very little occasion for before, that is to say, about speech. Besides the pleasure of talking to him, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself: his simple unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day, and I began really to love the creature; and, on his side, I Debeve he loved me more than it was possible for him ever to love any thing before.

I had a mind once to try if he had any hankering inclination

to his own country again; and having taught him English so well that he could answer me almost any question, I asked him whether the nation that he belonged to never conquered in battle? At which he smiled, and said, "Yes, yes, we always fight the better; that is, he meant, always get the bet

ter in fight; and so we began the following discourse :Master. You always fight the better; how came you to be taken prisoner, then, Friday?

Friday. My nation beat much for all that.

Master. How beat? If your nation beat them, how canie you to be taken?

Friday. They more many than my nation in the place where me was; they take one, two, three, and me; my nation overbeat them in the yonder place, where me no was: there my nation take one, two great thousand.

Master. But why did not your side recover you from the hands of your enemies, then?

Friday. They run one, two, three, and me, and make go in the canoe; my nation have no canoe that time.

Master.

Well, Friday, and what does your nation do with 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 have 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 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 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 sea, there was a current and 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, as going out or coming in; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoko, in the mouth or gulf of which river, as I found afterwards, our island lay; and that this land which I perceived to the W. and N. W. was the great island Trinidad, on the north point of the mouth of the river. I asked Friday a thousand questions about the country, the inhabitants, the sea, the coast, and what nations were near: he told me all he knew, with the greatest openness imaginable. I asked him the names of the several nations of his sort of people, but could get no other name than Caribs: from whence easily understood, that these were the Caribbees, which our maps place on the part of America which reaches from the mouth of the river Oroonoko to Guiana, and onwards to St. Martha. He told me that up a great way beyond the moon, that was, beyond the setting of the moon, which must be west from their country, there dwelt white-bearded men, like me, and pointed to my great whiskers, which I mentioned before; and that they had killed much mans (that was his word); by all which I understood, he meant the Spaniards, whose cruelties in America had been spread over the whole country, and were remembered by all the nations, from father to son.

I inquired if he could tell me how I might go from this island and get among those white men: he told me, "Yes, yes, you may go in two canoe." I could not understand what he meant, or make him describe to me what he meant by two canoe;

till, at last, with great difficulty, I found he meant it must be in a large boat, as big as two canoes. This part of Friday's discourse began to relish with me very well; and from this time I entertained some hopes that, one time or other, I might find an opportunity to make my escape from this place, and that this poor savage might be a means to help me.

During the long time that Friday had now been with me, and that he began to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay a foundation of religious knowledge in his mind particularly I asked him, one time, who made him. The poor creature did not understand me at all, but thought I had asked him who was his father: but I took it up by another handle, and asked him who made the sea, the ground we walked on, and the hills and woods? He told me, it was one old Benamuckee, that lived beyond all; he could describe nothing of this great person, but that he was very old, much older, he said, than the sea or the land, than the moon or the stars. I asked him, then, if this old person had made all things, why did not all things worship him. He looked very grave, and with a perfect look of innocence said, "All things say O to him." I asked him if the people who die in his country went away any where. He said, yes; they all went to Benamuckee: then I asked him whether these they eat up went thither too. He said, yes.

From these things I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true God: I told him that the great Maker of all things lived up there (pointing up towards heaven); that he governed the world by the same power and providence by which he made it; that he was omnipotent, and could do every thing for us, give every thing to us, take every thing from us; and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes. He listened with great attention, and received with pleasure the notion of Jesus Christ being sent to redeem us, and of the manner of making our prayers to God, and his being able to hear us, even in heaven. He told me one day, that if our God could hear us up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater God than their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet could not hear

till they went up to the great mountains, where he dwelt, to speak to him. I asked him if ever he went thither to speak to hit him. He said, No; they never went that were young men; none went thither but the old men, whom he called their Oowakee; that is, as I made him explain it to me, their religious, or clergy; and that they went to say O (so he called saying prayers), and then came back, and told them what Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there is priestcraft even among the most blinded, ignorant pagans in the world; and the policy of making a secret of religion, in order to preserve the veneration of the people to the clergy, is not only to be found in the Roman, but perhaps among all religions in the world, even among the most brutish and barbarous savages.

I endeavored to clear up this fraud to my man Friday; and told him, that the pretence of their old men going up to the mountains to say to their god Benamuckee was a cheat; and their bringing word from thence what he said was much more so; that if they met with any answer, or spake with any one there, it must be with an evil spirit: and then I entered into a long discourse with him about the devil, the original of him, his rebellion against God, his enmity to man, the reason of it, his setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be worshipped instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he made use of to delude mankind to their ruin; how he had a secret access to our passions and to our affections, and to adapt his snares to our inclinations, so as to cause us even to be our own tempters, and run upon our destruction by our own choice.

I found it was not so easy to imprint right notions in his mind about the devil, as it was about the being of a God: nature assisted all my arguments to evidence to him even the necessity of a great First Cause, and overruling, governing Power, a secret, directing Providence, and of the eruity and justice of paying homage to him that made us, and the like; but there appeared nothing of this kind in the notion of an evil spirit; of his original, his being, his nature, and, above all.