or? Take kill Friday,
no send Friday away." This he spoke so earnestly that I saw tears stand
in his eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered the utmost affection in
him to me, and a firm resolution in him, that I told him then and often
after, that I would never send him away from me if he was willing to stay
with me.

Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse a settled affection to
me, and that nothing could part him from me, so I found all the
foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent
affection to the people, and his hopes of my doing them good; a thing
which, as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the least thought or
intention, or desire of undertaking it. But still I found a strong
inclination to attempting my escape, founded on the supposition gathered
from the discourse, that there were seventeen bearded men there; and
therefore, without any more delay, I went to work with Friday to find out
a great tree proper to fell, and make a large periagua, or canoe, to
undertake the voyage. There were trees enough in the island to have
built a little fleet, not of periaguas or canoes, but even of good, large
vessels; but the main thing I looked at was, to get one so near the water
that we might launch it when it was made, to avoid the mistake I
committed at first. At last Friday pitched upon a tree; for I found he
knew much better than I what kind of wood was fittest for it; nor can I
tell to this day what wood to call the tree we cut down, except that it
was very like the tree we call fustic, or between that and the Nicaragua
wood, for it was much of the same colour and smell. Friday wished to
burn the hollow or cavity of this tree out, to make it for a boat, but I
showed him how to cut it with tools; which, after I had showed him how to
use, he did very handily; and in about a month's hard labour we finished
it and made it very handsome; especially when, with our axes, which I
showed him how to handle, we cut and hewed the outside into the true
shape of a boat. After this, however, it cost us near a fortnight's time
to get her along, as it were inch by inch, upon great rollers into the
water; but when she was in, she would have carried twenty men with great
ease.

When she was in the water, though she was so big, it amazed me to see
with what dexterity and how swift my man Friday could manage her, turn
her, and paddle her along. So I asked him if he would, and if we mig