昨天我们读到Robinson的第二次航行经历，先是船长死了，而后遇到海盗，被俘虏了几年，最后又成功逃脱。

We headed steadily south （一路向南）for ten or twelve days, eating as little of the food we had brought as possible.

My plan was to reach the River Gambia or Senegal, where I hoped to meet with some European ship.

I knew that all the ships from Europe which sailed either to the coast of Africa or to Brazil (巴西), sailed around this cape.

In a word, everything depended on(取决于) this single point(尖岬). Either I must meet with some ship, or I must die.

I was very distracted（心烦意乱的）, and stepped inside the boat’s cabin to sit down.

Xury was steering the boat, when suddenly he cried out: “Master, master, a ship with a sail!”

I jumped out of the cabin onto the deck, and immediately saw a Portuguese(葡萄牙的) ship.

But when I noticed the direction it was headed, I soon realized the ship’s crew did not intend to come any nearer to us.

So I tried to get as close to them as I could, determined to speak with them if possible.

Even with all the speed I could make, I found I was not able to get in front of them.

But they saw that my boat was a European boat, they took down (卸下) some sails to let me catch them up.

In about three hours’ time, I caught up with (赶上) them.

It was an indescribable joy to me that I was thus saved, and I immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship.

But he generously told me he would take nothing from me, and that all I had should be kept safe for me until I came to the Brazils.

As to (至于) my boat, he told me he would buy it from me, and asked me what I would take for him?

I told him he had been so generous that I could not ask any price of the boat, but left it entirely to him.

He told me he would give me eighty pieces of eight【八里亚尔币（旧时西班牙银币）】for it at Brazil.

He offered me also sixty pieces of eight more for my boy Xury, which I could not bear to take.

I was not unwilling to let the captain have him, but I was very hesitant (犹豫不决的) to sell the poor boy’s freedom, when he had helped me so faithfully in gaining my own freedom.

However, when I let the captain know my reason, he agreed that it was fair.

He offered me this compromise, that he would set Xury free in ten years, if he turned Christian.

Based upon (基于) this, Xury said he was willing to go to him, and so I let the captain have him.

We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and arrived in(到达) the Bay de Todos los Santos about twenty-two days later.

Once more I was saved from the most unpleasant of all conditions of life, and now I had to consider what to do next with myself.

It wasn’t long before I was recommended to a man who had a sugar cane(甘蔗) farm.

I lived with him some time, and learned how to plant sugar cane(甘蔗) and make sugar.

Seeing how well the planters lived, and how quickly they got rich, I decided to become one.

Meanwhile I tried to find out some way to get my money, which I had left in London, returned to me.

I bought as much land as the money I already had would reach, and formed a plan for my farm.

I had a neighbor, a Portuguese(葡萄牙的) man from Lisbon, but born to English parents.

His name was Wells, and he was in much the same position as I was.

Our situations were both difficult, and we planted for food rather than anything else, for about two years.

However, our land became more productive, so that the third year we planted some tobacco, and we each made a large piece of ground ready for planting sugar canes in the year to come.

But we both wanted help.

Now I found, more than before, that I had done wrong in parting with (离开)  my boy Xury.

I found myself moving into just the kind of middle class life that my father had recommended to me.

What I was doing, I could have done just as well in England, among my friends, rather than travel five thousand miles to do it among strangers.

The captain of the ship that took me up at sea suggested that I write back to London.

In this way I could let my parents know I had not been lost at sea, and ask them to send over my things.

So I prepared letters to the kind widow with whom I had left my money.

But on the captain’s advice, I requested the widow to only send half of my money—that is to say, only one hundred pounds.

If that arrived safely, then I could send for【（尤指通过写信或电话）索取】 the other half.

I wrote the English captain’s widow a full description of all my adventures, what condition I was now in and what goods I needed.

When this honest captain came to Lisbon, he found a way to send word(传话) to the English captain’s widow.

She sent half of my money and the goods directly to him at Lisbon, and he brought them safely to me in the Brazils.

Among these things, he had taken care to bring all sorts of tools necessary for my farm, which were of great use to me.

Neither was this all, for since my goods were all English in origin and thus of high quality, these things were particularly valuable and desirable (受欢迎的) in the Brazils.

I found means(方法) to sell them at a very good profit, and increase by more than four times the original value of my goods.

The first thing I did was to buy a black slave, and a European servant also.

But great fortune can often become the very means of greater misfortune, and so it was with me.

I went on the next year with great success in my crops.

I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco on my own ground, each weighing more than 100 pounds. Now increasing in business and wealth, my head began to be full of projects and plans beyond my reach (超出某人能力范围).

It happened one day that three merchants I knew came to me to present to me an opportunity.

They told me that they had an idea to take a ship to go to Africa to buy slaves, because they wanted nothing for their farms so much as workers.

But by order of the king this was an illegal trade, so they could not publicly sell the slaves when they came back.

Thus they wanted to make only one voyage, to bring black slaves back for their own farms.

They wanted me to manage the trading upon the coast of Africa, based on my previous experience before my capture by the Moor.

In return(作为回报) they offered me an equal share of the slaves, without providing any part of the expenses.

This was a fair deal, I must say.

But if I had just continued improving my farm, I would soon have been worth three or four thousand pounds—for me to think of such a voyage was the most ridiculous thing that ever a man in such circumstances could be guilty of.

But I was born to be my own destroyer, and could no more resist the offer than I could have listened to my father’s advice.

I told them I would go, if my neighbor would promise to look after my farm in my absence (当...不在的时候), and promise to return it to me when I came back.

This he agreed to do, and so I wrote a legal will(遗嘱), leaving my farm to my neighbor’s care in case of(在...的时候) my death.

In short, I took every possible precaution to preserve my possessions and to keep up(使…继续) my farm.

The ship being made ready, I went on board the 1st of September, 1659, exactly eight years after I first left my father and mother at Hull.

The same day I went on board, we set sail for(启航去…)the African coast.

We had very good weather, until suddenly without warning a violent hurricane came upon us.

It blew in such a terrible manner, that for twelve days together we could do nothing but let it carry us wherever the winds directed.

During these twelve days, I expected every day to be swallowed up by the sea.

About the twelfth day, the weather slowed a little, and we found ourselves off the coast of the north part of Brazil.

As the ship was leaking, and there was no inhabited country(地区) until we came to the Caribbean Islands, we therefore decided to sail for Barbados.

With this plan we changed our course【（船的）航向】, in order to reach some of the English-owned islands, where we hoped for relief.

But it was not to be, for a second storm came upon us, which drove us further out of the way of civilization.

At this point, even if we had been saved from being eaten by the sea, we would have been in danger of being eaten by natives that lived on the shore.

The wind was still blowing very hard, when early in the morning one of our men cried out: “Land!”