"Fleet of Canoes" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)

Fleet of Canoes (page 309) — the volume's eightieth 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). Part II, The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Chapter VIII, "Sails from the Island for the Brazils." Full-page, framed: 13.9 cm high x 22 cm wide. Running head: "Crusoe leaves the Island" (p. 307).

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.]

Passage Illustrated: Crusoe's vessel encounters hostile Islanders

The next day, giving them a salute of five guns at parting, we set sail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints in the Brazils in about twenty-two days, meeting nothing remarkable in our passage but this: that about three days after we had sailed, being becalmed, and the current setting strong to the E. N. E., running, as it were, into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven something out of our course, and once or twice our men cried out, “Land to the eastward!” but whether it was the continent or islands we could not tell by any means. But the third day, towards evening, the sea smooth, and the weather calm, we saw the sea as it were covered towards the land with something very black; not being able to discover what it was till after some time, our chief mate, going up the main shrouds a little way, and looking at them with a perspective, cried out it was an army. I could not imagine what he meant by an army, and thwarted him a little hastily. “Nay, sir,” says he, “don’t be angry, for ’tis an army, and a fleet too: for I believe there are a thousand canoes, and you may see them paddle along, for they are coming towards us apace.” [Chapter VIII, "Sails for the Brazils," page 307]

Commentary

A number of illustrators have represented the scene of confrontation between further hostile aboriginals and Crusoe, including George Cruikshank (1831) and Wal Paget (1891). In the 1864 sequence, the next frame depicts the firing of a broadside to honour the burial at sea of Man Friday, whom Crusoe has come regard as a son rather than a mere servant, and the running head before both pages prepares the reader for Friday's death in the engagement with the islanders. However, all appears tranquil in the 1864 illustration as the warriors aboard the flotilla have yet to reveal their bellicose intentions, and the European vessel has yet to fire a broadside at the attackers. The illustration, accordingly, complements the text, building suspense without revealing the hostile behaviour of the hundeds of islanders about to surround the ship. We dimly discern that each canoe holds seven warriors, most of whom are armed with bows and quivers full of arrows, implying no pacific intent.

Related Material

Parallel Illustration by George Cruikshank (1831) and Wal Paget (1891)

Above: Cruikshank's vignette of the naval engagement between a flotilla of canoes and Crusoe's three-masted vessel, Islanders attack Crusoe's ship, killing Friday (1831). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Above: Paget's panoramic treatment of the Crusoe's delivering a broadside to punish the islanders for murdering Friday, Gave them such a broadside (1891). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

References

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.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Exciting Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself. With 120 original illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris,and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 7 April 2018