THE PRIMITIVE WIGWAM

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 131, 24 August 1927, Page 6

THE PRIMITIVE WIGWAM

A PEEP AT CRUSOE The real delight which every bov « „ in Robinson Crusoe is this-'h./ - ds man all alone on an uninhabited .-.a 13 a What will he do? Ho has tn«’®,andhow to do things, and do them self as best he can. That is w hlmevery hoy wants to do 3ust wh « Let us glance in on the his island home. castaway i n You walk up the beach and the thing you see is a notice-board i pole. The pole is marked with nnnT a all the way down in sets of the days of the week. You i fectly wen who it was “ca^oTS After he came on shore he spent many days in going to and fro whs a raft to secure all he could from the wreck, until at last she broke up ins storm. * 111 a “But I was gotten home to mv tent where I lay with all about me very secure. It blew v ° hard all that night, and in the when X looked out, behold, no more shin was to be seen. I was not a little surprised hut recovered myself wits this satisfactory reflection: that I h ,a lost no time nor abated no diligence to be* usefuh thlnS ° Ut ° f her that «"« “M.v thoughts were now wholly employed about securing mvself a-aima either savages or wild beasts- and T had many thoughts of the method to do this, and what kind of ;l dwelling to make, whether I should make me a cave in the earth or a tent upon the ground and in short 1 resolved upon both, the manner and description of which it may not tie improiier to rive an account of. s ve “I consulted several tilings which I found would lie proper for me to bear in mind. Hirst, health and fresh water Secondly, shelter from the heat of the sun. Thirdly, security from ravenous creatures, whether men or beasts. Fourthly, a view of the sea, that if Go<l sent any ship in sight I might not lose •inly advantage for my deliverance, of which I was not willing to banish all my expectation yet.” After looking about he at last pitched upon a place “on the side of a rising hill steep as a house side." (He means the wall of a house, not the roof) "On the side of this rook there was a hollow place, worn a little way in, like tlie entrance or door of a cave, but there was not really any cave.” From this hollow in the rock he marked out a semi-circle on the ground twenty yards in diameter. “In this half-circle I pitched two rows of strong stakes, driving them into the ground till they stood very firm, like piles, about five feet and a-half high, and sharpened on the top. The two rows did not stand above six inches from one another.” Between those two rows of stakes he rammed in ship’s cable which he had brought from the wreck, and in this way filled in the gap all the way up to the top. Inside this wall he placed other stakes, two feet and a-half high, leaning “like a spur to a post.” “All this cost be a great deal of time and labour, especially to cut the piles in the woods, bring them to the place, and dive them into the earth. “The entrance to this place I made to be not by a door, but by a short ladder to go over the top; which ladder, when I was in, I lifted over after me; and so I was completely fenced in and fortified. “Into this fence or fortress, with infinite labour, I carried all my riches, all my provisions, ammunition and stores.’’ He also erected a tent inside the stockade, and after a while, with a crowbar, he enlarged the hole in the rock and excavated the sandstone till he had worked out a very considerable cavern, “which served me like a cellar to my house.” Into this cavern he then carried all his goods, especially the gunpowder to protect it from lightning. Robinson Crusoe employed all the three common to primitive man. His cavern represented the home of the caveman who now lives in a stone palace. His tent represented the movable dwelling of the wandering shepherd races and Red Indian tribes—still used by Bedouins, Tart?#s and Arabs of the desert. His stockade represented the wooden enclosure of forest dwellers all the world over—in Central Africa and Central Europe. All the Saxon races were forest dwellers and built wooden habitations. You notice the skill of Daniel de Foe in combining all these methods for the sake of making Robinson Crusoe’s work the more interesting. If he is sometimes at fault (as when he makes penquins on a tropical island) it must be remembered that the New World and all things in it were still comparatively new and but little known.