"I went up the creek first" — illustration for Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1891)

I went up the creek first

Wal Paget (1863-1935)

half-page lithograph

13.7 cm high by 7.9 cm wide, vignetted.

1891

Robinson Crusoe, embedded on page 69.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Making a Survey of the Island

It was on the 15th of July that I began to take a more particular survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I brought my rafts on shore. I found after I came about two miles up, that the tide did not flow any higher, and that it was no more than a little brook of running water, very fresh and good; but this being the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it — at least not enough to run in any stream, so as it could be perceived. On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs or meadows, plain, smooth, and covered with grass; and on the rising parts of them, next to the higher grounds, where the water, as might be supposed, never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco, green, and growing to a great and very strong stalk. There were divers other plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that might, perhaps, have virtues of their own, which I could not find out. I searched for the cassava root, which the Indians, in all that climate, make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of aloes, but did not understand them. I saw several sugar-canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented myself with these discoveries for this time, and came back, musing with myself what course I might take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover, but could bring it to no conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little of the plants in the field; at least, very little that might serve to any purpose now in my distress.[Chapter VII, "Agricultural Experience," page 71]

Commentary: Exploring without the Boat

Whereas previous illustrators have associated Crusoe's making a survey of the island using his recently constructed boat, seen in such illustrations as George Cruikshank's Crusoe circumnavigating the island, Paget has elected to focus upon Crusoe's exploration on foot. The portion of the text he has chosen to illustrate shows Crusoe walking beside a creek with the sea in the distance, and makes the tropical vegetation the second person in the picture.In terms of narrative-pictorial continuity, Paget has precisely the same images of Crusoe and his dog that he has already used in this sequence, beginning with I wanted nothing that he could fetch me; the weaponry and hat are almost indispensable for Crusoe's exploration as both afford protection against the environment, that is, as yet unknown predators and the tropic sun.

Related Material

Reference

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by Himself. With upwards of One Hundred and Twenty Original Illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris, and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 28 April 2018