"I was exceedingly surprised with the print of
a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the
sand. I
stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an
apparition. I listened, I looked round me, I could hear nothing, nor see anything. I went up to a
rising ground, to look farther, I went up the
shore, and down the shore, but it was all one; I could see no
other impression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to
observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the very
print of a
foot - toes,
heel, and every part of a
foot. How it came thither I knew not, nor could in the least
imagine. But after
innumerable fluttering
thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I
came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind be at every two of three
steps,
mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every
stump at a distance to be a man; nor is it
possible to describe how many various shapes affrighted
imagination represented things to me in, how many wild
ideas were
found every
moment in my fancy, and what
strange, unaccountable
whimsies came into my
thoughts by the way."
Daniel Defoe,
Robinson Crusoe, Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 2000, 117-118.
