ROBINSON CRUSOE. 26s
stark raving and downright lunatic; some ran about the ship
stamping with their feet, others wringing their hands 3 some
were dancing, some singing, some laughing, more c ing, many
quite dumb, not able to speak a word ; others sick anc vomiting ;
several swooning and ready to faint; and a few were crossing
themselves, and giving God thanks,

I would not wrong them either; there might be many that
were thankful afterwards ; but the passion was too strong for
them at first, and they were not able to master it; they were
thrown into ecstasies, and a kind of frenzy, and it was but a
very few that were composed and serious in their joy.

Perhaps, also, the case may have some addition to it from
the particular circumstances of that nation they belonged to ; I
mean the French, whose temper is allowed to be more volatile,
more passionate, and more sprightly, and their spirits more fluid
than in other nations. I am not philosopher enough to deter-
mine the cause ; but nothing I had ever seen before came up
to it. The ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty savage, was in,
when he found his father in the boat, came the nearest to it;
and the surprise of the master and his two companions, whom
I delivered from the villains and set them on shore in the island,
came a little way towards it; but nothing was to compare to
this, either that I saw in Friday, or anywhere else in my life.

It is further observable, that these extravagances did not
show themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in
different persons only; but all the variety would appear, in a
short succession of moments, in one and the same person. A
man that we saw this minute dumb, and, as it-were, stupid and
confounded, would the next minute be dancing and hallooing
like an antic ; and the next moment be tearing his hair, or pull-
ing his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like
a madman ; in a few moments after that we would have him all
in tears, then sick, swooning, and, had not immediate help been
had, he would in a few moments have been dead ; and thus it
was, not with one or two, or ten or twenty, but with the greatest
part of them ; and, if I remember right, our surgeon was obliged
to let blood of about thirty of them.

There were two priests among them: one an old man, and
the other a young men ; and that which was strangest was, the’
oldest man was the worst. As soon as he set his foot on board
our ship, and saw himself safe, he dropped down stone dead to
all appearance ; not the least sign of life could be perceived in
him: our surgeon immediately applied proper remedies to
recover him, and was the only man in the ship that believed he