to me; so that, in short, I began now to
have some use for my tongue again, which indeed I had very little
occasion for before; that is to say, about speech. Besides the pleasure
of talking to him, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself;
his simple unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day, and
I began really to love the creature; and on his side, I believe, he
loved me more than it was possible for him ever to love any
thing before.

I had a mind once to try if he had any hankering inclination to his own
country again; and having learnt him English so well, that he could
answer me almost any questions, I asked him, whether the nation that he
belonged to never conquered in battle? At which he smiled, and said,
"Yes, yes, we always fight the better;" that is, he meant, always get
the better in fight; and so we began the following discourse. "You
always fight the better!" said I: "how came you to be taken prisoner
then, Friday?"

_Friday._ My nation beat much for all that.

_Master_. How beat? if your nation beat them, how came you to be taken?

_Friday_. They more than my nation in the place where me was; they take
one, two, three, and me: my nation over-beat them in the yonder place,
where me no was; there my nation take one two great thousand.

_Master_. But why did not your side recover you from the hands of your
enemies then?

_Friday_. They run one, two, three, and me, and make go in the canoe; my
nation have no canoe that time.

_Master_. Well, Friday, and what does your nation do with the men they
take? Do they carry them away, and eat them as these did?

_Friday._ Yes, my nation eat mans too, eat all up.

_Master_. Where do they carry them?

_Friday_. Go to other place where they think.

_Master_. Do they come hither?

_Friday_. Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.

_Master_. Have you been here with them?

_Friday_. Yes, I been here [points to the N.W. side of the island,
which, it seems, was their side.]

By this I understood, that my man Friday had formerly been among the
savages, who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island, on
the said man eating occasions that he was now brought for; and some time
after, when I took the courage to carry him to that side, being the same
I formerly mentioned, he presently knew the place, and told me, he was
there once when they ate up twenty men, two women, and one child: he
could not tell twenty in En