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Crusoe and Party in Tartary
Engravers: Butterworth and Heath
Illustrators: Justyne, Leitch, Macquoid, Morgan, Pasquier, and G. H. Thomas
1864
Wood-engraving
12.2 cm high by 14 cm wide, framed, exclusive of caption.
Cassell's Robinson Crusoe, page 377.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
As it was usual for the Mogul Tartars to go about in troops in that desert, so the caravans always fortify themselves every night against them, as against armies of robbers; and it was, therefore, no new thing to be pursued. But we had this night a most advantageous camp: for as we lay between two woods, with a little rivulet running just before our front, we could not be surrounded, or attacked any way but in our front or rear. We took care also to make our front as strong as we could, by placing our packs, with the camels and horses, all in a line, on the inside of the river, and felling some trees in our rear.
In this posture we encamped for the night; but the enemy was upon us before we had finished. [Chapter XV, pp. 378-79]
In the midst of a Romantic landscape of snow-capped mountain peaks and a waterfall the illustrator has placed the small party of their travellers making camp for the night. Among their mounts is a camel (centre) — although the Tartars have already stolen the camel that Crusoe purchased in Chinese Tartary, the cavalcade have evidently acquired further such pack animals. The tranquil scene contains no hint of the forthcoming attack by the Tartars, for which the European party seems quite unprepared. Once again, Crusoe survives, defying the odds.
Gone is the simple bamboo frame of the Chinese illustrations. The ornamental border of flowers, spiky leaves, and cacti implies both the beauties and perils of the Siberian wilderness into which Defoe is leading Crusoe's party and the readers, an area increasingly in the news in the nineteenth century as the Russian government initiated the Trans-Siberian Railway with just a thousand miles of track at the beginning of the decade. However, the full line was not completed until Yaroslavl Station in Moscow opened in 1902 and the first passenger trains began running in the summer of 1903.
Above: The Paget scene follows immediately upon Crusoe's description of the encampment, showing the arrival of the messengers of the 10,000-strong Tartary army: Sent three messengers to us, in which the Europeans in the background deny any knowledge of the destruction of the idol. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
Last modified 16 April 2018
