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Crusoe's Troop on the March
Justyne, Leitch, Macquoid, Morgan, Pasquier, & Thomas
Engravers: Butterworth and Heath
1863-64
Wood-engraving
21.9 cm high by 14 cm wide, framed.
Cassell's Robinson Crusoe, page 193.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Having been thus harassed in my thoughts, my old pilot, to whom I communicated everything, pressed me earnestly not to go by sea, but either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over the Bay of Biscay to Rochelle, from whence it was but an easy and safe journey by land to Paris, and so to Calais and Dover; or to go up to Madrid, and so all the way by land through France. In a word, I was so prepossessed against my going by sea at all, except from Calais to Dover, that I resolved to travel all the way by land; which, as I was not in haste, and did not value the charge, was by much the pleasanter way: and to make it more so, my old captain brought an English gentleman, the son of a merchant in Lisbon, who was willing to travel with me; after which we picked up two more English merchants also, and two young Portuguese gentlemen, the last going to Paris only; so that in all there were six of us and five servants; the two merchants and the two Portuguese, contenting themselves with one servant between two, to save the charge; and as for me, I got an English sailor to travel with me as a servant, besides my man Friday, who was too much a stranger to be capable of supplying the place of a servant on the road.
In this manner I set out from Lisbon; and our company being very well mounted and armed, we made a little troop, whereof they did me the honour to call me captain, as well because I was the oldest man, as because I had two servants, and, indeed, was the origin of the whole journey. [Chapter XIX, "Return to England," page 194]
Having dealt with financial matters in Lisbon and visited his elderly friend, Crusoe decides to lead a group of merchants overland to Calais, fearing perhaps further mishaps if he takes a sea route. The Cassell's house-artists, however, make him look like one of the protagonists of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844), and his cavalcade appear to be a formidable armed column armed descending from the heights of a town in the Pyrenees — the text specifically mentions Pampeluna (i. e., Pamplona). The heavy cloaks which lend the riders a military air complement the late fall setting and the altitude, preparing us for the adventures of Crusoe and Friday in Languedoc and Gascony.
Left: Phiz's slightly whimsical realisation of the same scene: Friday and the Bear out on a Limb (1864). Right: And from the 1831 John Major edition Cruikshank's treatment on the same adventure on the road, Friday and the Bear. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
Last modified 22 March 2018