178 ROBINSON CRUSOE.

because he did not see me put anything into the gun, but
thought that there must be some wonderful fund of death and
destruction in that thing, able to kill man, beast, bird, or any-_
thing near or far off; and the astonishment this created in
him was such as could not wear off for a long time ; and I be-
lieve, if I would have let him, he would have worshipped me
and my gun. As for the gun itself, he would not so much as
touch it for several days after; but he would speak to it and
talk to it, as if it had answered him, when he was by himself ;
which, as I afterwards learned of him, was to desire it not to
kill him. Well, after his astonishment was a little over at this,
I pointed to him to run and fetch the bird I had shot, which he
did, but staid some time ; for the parrot, not being quite dead,
had fluttered away a good distance from the place where she
fell: however, he found her, took her up, and brought her to
me ; and as I had perceived his ignorance about the gun be-
fore, I took this advantage to charge the gun again, and not to
let him see me do it, that I might be ready for any other mark
that might present , but nothing more offered at that time: so
I brought home the kid, and the same evening I took the skin
off, and cut it out as well as I could ; and having a pot fit for
that purpose, I boiled or stewed some of the flesh, and made
some very good broth. After I had begun to eat some, I gave
some to my man, who seemed very glad of it, and liked it very
well; but that which was strangest to him was to see me eat
salt with it. He made a sign to me that the salt was not good
to eat ; and putting a little into his own mouth, he seemed to
nauseate it, and would spit and sputter at it, washing his mouth
with fresh water after it: on the other hand, I took some meat
into my mouth without salt, and pretended to spit and sputter for
want of salt, as much as he had done at the salt ; but it would
not do ; he would never care for salt with his meat or in his
broth ; at least not for a great while, and then but a very little.

Having thus fed him with boiled meat and broth, I was
resolved to feast him the next day by roasting a piece of the
kid: this I did by hanging it before the fire on a string, as I
had seen many people do in England, setting two poles up, one
on each side of the fire, and one across on the top, and tying the
string to the cross stick, letting the meat turn continually. This
Friday admired very much; but when he came to taste the
flesh, he took so many ways to tell me how well he liked it, that
I could not but understand him: and at last he told me, as well
as he could, he would never eat man’s flesh any more, which I
was very glad to hear,