"Crusoe milking Goats" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)

Crusoe milking Goats (top of page 105) — the volume's twenty-ninth composite wood-block engraving for Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64). Chapter XI, "Finds the Print of a Man's foot in the Sand." The illustration subtly points out Crusoe's vulnerability, should his existence on the island be discovered by hostile visitors, for executing his goat-herding duties necessarily separates him from his weapons, and the palisade (rear) is evidence of human habitation that a landing party would instantly recognise. The goat and Crusoe look left, as if mulling over the implications of the previous illustration, Crusoe sees a Foot-print in the Sand. Half-page, framed: 13.4 cm high (including caption) x 14 cm wide, including the border of birds, leaves, and poles. Running head: "Anther Visit to the Shore" (page 107).

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

The Passage Illustrated: The Implications of the Foot-print

Heartening myself, therefore, with the belief that this was nothing but the print of one of my own feet, and that I might be truly said to start at my own shadow, I began to go abroad again, and went to my country house to milk my flock: but to see with what fear I went forward, how often I looked behind me, how I was ready every now and then to lay down my basket and run for my life, it would have made any one have thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or that I had been lately most terribly frightened; and so, indeed, I had. However, I went down thus two or three days, and having seen nothing, I began to be a little bolder, and to think there was really nothing in it but my own imagination; but I could not persuade myself fully of this till I should go down to the shore again, and see this print of a foot, and measure it by my own, and see if there was any similitude or fitness, that I might be assured it was my own foot: but when I came to the place, first, it appeared evidently to me, that when I laid up my boat I could not possibly be on shore anywhere thereabouts; secondly, when I came to measure the mark with my own foot, I found my foot not so large by a great deal. Both these things filled my head with new imaginations, and gave me the vapours again to the highest degree, so that I shook with cold like one in an ague; and I went home again, filled with the belief that some man or men had been on shore there; or, in short, that the island was inhabited, and I might be surprised before I was aware; and what course to take for my security I knew not. [Chapter XI, "Finds the Print of a Man's foot in the Sand," p. 107]

Commentary

In order to restrain his apprehensions about there being other humans on the island, Crusoe attempts to go about his daily affairs, which include regularly milking the goats. He becomes so obsessed with the mysterious footprint in the sand that decides to investigate whether he himself had made it. In fact, as the accompanying passage affirms, the footprint of a native is much larger than his own. The illustrators do not indicate that Crusoe wanders the island barefoot, and this is the first point in the next at which Defoe suggests that Crusoe does not routinely wear shoes.

Related Material

Bibliography

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

Last modified 14 March 2018