Robinson Crusoe was a good honest Englishman, who made the best of a hard situation and worked his way into comparative comfort in spite of a thousand difficulties and dangers, of which only those who read the book have any idea. He was so manly about it always, and so straightforward in his account of what he did, that it is worth any one's while to read the entire book. THE MAN FRIDAY I am now to be supposed retired in my castle, after my late voyage to the wreck, my frigate laid up and secured under water, and my condition restored to what it was before; I had more wealth than I had before, but was not at all the richer; for I had no more use for it than the Indians of Peru had before the Spaniards came there. It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, the four-and- twentieth year of my first setting foot in this island of solitariness; I was lying in my bed or hammock awake, very well in health, had no pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body, nor any uneasiness of mind more than ordinary, but could by no means close my eyes; that is, so as to sleep; no, not a wink all night long. It is impossible to set down the innumerable crowd of thoughts that whirled through that great thoroughfare of the brain, the memory, in this night's time: I ran over the whole history of my life in miniature, or by abridgment, as I may call it, to my coming to this island, and also of that part of my life since I came to this island. When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up in considering the nature of those wretched creatures, the cannibals, [Footnote: Crusoe had been much disturbed by discovering footprints and remains of fires, which showed him that his island had been visited. As he found human bones near the embers, he knew that his visitors were cannibals.] and how it came to pass in the world that the wise Governor of all things should give up any of his creatures to such inhumanity--nay, to something so much below even brutality itself--as to devour its own kind: but, as this ended in some (at that time) fruitless speculations, it occurred to me to inquire, what part of the world these wretches lived in? how far off the coast was from whence they came? what they ventured over so far from home for? what kind of boats they had? and why I might not order myself and my business so, that I might be able to go over thither, as they were to come to me?