CHAPTEK XVI. 



ALL ABOUT CRUSOe's " MAN FRIDAY." 



Strange footprints on the sands — Crusoe's horrible discovery — 

 Cannibals come to Tobago to banquet — Crusoe slays many and 

 disperses them — He rescues a young Indian whom he names 

 Friday — Incontestable proof that Friday was a West Indian 

 Carib. 



Seated before my incense-breathing embers in my 

 hut on the hill, I devoted those days when the floods 

 came down and I was close prisoned by the rains, to 

 an exhaustive reading of old books. I had brought 

 them with me, and they were all about Crusoe and 

 his island, the adventures he had, and the people he 

 saw, who were, as he himself says, " indeed the worst 

 of Salvages, for they were Cannibals, or Man-eaters, 

 and failed not to murther and devour all the humane 

 Bodies that fall into their Hands." 



Now I wonder if all my readers have not had a 

 similar curiosity to mine : to learn who those " man- 

 eaters" were, whence they came, and whether they 

 were real or Actional ? I shall assume it to be a 

 subject worthy of investigation, because thereby I 

 shall be enabled to settle satisfactorily (for all time, 

 I hope) the genesis of one of the most interesting 

 characters of history — Crusoe's " Man Friday." 



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