They came upon us with a growling kind of noise
Wal Paget (1863-1935)
lithograph dropped into the letter-press
15 cm high by 12.8 cm wide, vignetted.
1891
Robinson Crusoe (1891): page 212.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
The Passage Illustrated: Repelling the Attack of the Wolves in Gascony
But here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the entrance where the horse came out, we found the carcasses of another horse and of two men, devoured by the ravenous creatures; and one of the men was no doubt the same whom we heard fire the gun, for there lay a gun just by him fired off; but as to the man, his head and the upper part of his body was eaten up. This filled us with horror, and we knew not what course to take; but the creatures resolved us soon, for they gathered about us presently, in hopes of prey; and I verily believe there were three hundred of them. It happened, very much to our advantage, that at the entrance into the wood, but a little way from it, there lay some large timber-trees, which had been cut down the summer before, and I suppose lay there for carriage. I drew my little troop in among those trees, and placing ourselves in a line behind one long tree, I advised them all to alight, and keeping that tree before us for a breastwork, to stand in a triangle, or three fronts, enclosing our horses in the centre. We did so, and it was well we did; for never was a more furious charge than the creatures made upon us in this place. They came on with a growling kind of noise, and mounted the piece of timber, which, as I said, was our breastwork, as if they were only rushing upon their prey; and this fury of theirs, it seems, was principally occasioned by their seeing our horses behind us. I ordered our men to fire as before, every other man; and they took their aim so sure that they killed several of the wolves at the first volley; but there was a necessity to keep a continual firing, for they came on like devils, those behind pushing on those before.
When we had fired a second volley of our fusees, we thought they stopped a little, and I hoped they would have gone off, but it was but a moment, for others came forward again; so we fired two volleys of our pistols; and I believe in these four firings we had killed seventeen or eighteen of them, and lamed twice as many, yet they came on again. I was loth to spend our shot too hastily; so I called my servant, not my man Friday, for he was better employed, for, with the greatest dexterity imaginable, he had charged my fusee and his own while we were engaged — but, as I said, I called my other man, and giving him a horn of powder, I had him lay a train all along the piece of timber, and let it be a large train. He did so, and had but just time to get away, when the wolves came up to it, and some got upon it, when I, snapping an uncharged pistol close to the powder, set it on fire; those that were upon the timber were scorched with it, and six or seven of them fell; or rather jumped in among us with the force and fright of the fire; we despatched these in an instant, and the rest were so frightened with the light, which the night — for it was now very near dark — made more terrible that they drew back a little; upon which I ordered our last pistols to be fired off in one volley, and after that we gave a shout; upon this the wolves turned tail, and we sallied immediately upon near twenty lame ones that we found struggling on the ground, and fell to cutting them with our swords, which answered our expectation, for the crying and howling they made was better understood by their fellows; so that they all fled and left us.
We had, first and last, killed about threescore of them, and had it been daylight we had killed many more. [Chapter XX, "Fight between Friday and a Bear," pp. 214-15]
Commentary
In the 1891 volume's ninety-eighth lithograph (not quite a full-page illustration) for Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Chapter XX, Paget emphasizes the backdrop of the action, a snow-covered forest in the mountains. Whereas George Cruikshank in his small-scale 1831 illustration employs the clouds of gunpowder to compensate for a lack of background detail, the 1863-4 illustrator among the Cassell's house-artists provides a wooded mountain peak above the action, and shows the travellers and their mounts, left of centre, while maintaining a focus on the individualised wolves. However, the backdrop in the earlier Cassell's illustration did not support the writer's description of the isolated setting in the dead of winter. Although Crusoe's party has unleashed a furious upon their attackers, the wolves continue to press forward, undeterred, in the 1863-64 wood-engraving, whereas Paget indicates that some are already having second-thoughts about pressing home the attack as the marksmen pick off members of the pack. Thus, the Paget illustration delineates more believable wolf behaviour and a much more more interesting alpine backdrop with almost photographic realism.
Related Material
- Daniel Defoe
- Illustrations of Robinson Crusoe by various artists
- Illustrations of children’s editions
- The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe il. H. M. Brock at Project Gutenberg
- The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe at Project Gutenberg
Various Interpretations of the Wolf Attack (1831, 1864,)
Left: Cruikshank's dramatic vignette, Crusoe and his Comrades repelling a massive Wolf attack (1831). Right: The more vigorous and more detailed full-page treatment in the 1863-4 edition: The Wolves driven off. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Phiz's highly dramatic, full-page illustration of the desperate horse attempting to escape a pack of ravenous predators, Horse pursued by Wolves (1864).
Reference
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by Himself. With upwards of One Hundred and Twenty Original Illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris, and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.
Last modified 23 March 2018