"Children's Books - Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

the Great River, and began to consult with me what course he should
take, for the ship was leaky and very much disabled, and he was
going directly back to the coast of Brazil.
I was positively against that; and looking over the charts of the
sea-coast of America with him, we concluded there was no inhabited
country for us to have recourse to till we came within the circle of
the Caribbee Islands, and, therefore, resolved to stand away for
Barbadoes, which by keeping off at sea, to avoid the indraft of the
Bay or Gulf of Mexico, we might easily perform, as we hoped, in
about fifteen days' sail; whereas we could not possibly make our
voyage to the coast of Africa without some assistance, both to our
ship and to ourselves.
With this design we changed our course, and steered away NW. by W.
in order to reach some of our English islands, where I hoped for
relief; but our voyage was otherwise determined; for being in the
latitude of 12 degrees 18 minutes, a second storm came upon us which
carried us away with the same impetuosity westward, and drove us so
out of the very way of all human commerce, that had all our lives been
saved, as to the sea, we were rather in danger of being devoured by
savages than ever returning to our own country.
In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men
early in the morning cried out, "Land!" and we had no sooner ran out
of the cabin to look out, in the hopes of seeing whereabouts in the
world we were, but the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment, her
motion being so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner, that
we expected we should all have perished immediately; and we were
immediately driven into our close quarters, to shelter us from the
very foam and spray of the sea.
It is not easy for any one, who has not been in the like
condition, to describe or conceive the consternation of men in such
circumstances. We knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was
we were driven, whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or
not inhabited; and as the rage of the wind was still great, though
rather less than at first, we could not so much as hope to have the
ship hold many minutes without breaking in pieces, unless the winds,
by a kind of miracle, should turn immediately about. In a word, we sat
looking one upon another, and expecting death every moment, and
every man acting accordingly, as preparing for another world; for
there was little or nothing more for us to do in this. That which
was our present comfort, and all the comfort we had, was that,
contrary to our expectation, the ship did not break yet, and that
the master said the wind began to abate.
Now, though we thought that the wind did a little abate, yet the
ship having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to
expect her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and
had nothing to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we
could. We had a boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was
first staved by dashing against the ship's rudder, and in the next
place, she broke away, and either sunk, or was driven off to sea, so
there was no hope from her; we had another boat on board, but how to