other good fish, in so great plenty anywhere near the shore, that I never saw the like but at the best fishing season in Newfoundland. Pimento is the best timber, and most plentiful on this side of the island, but very apt to split, till a little dried. The cabbage-trees abound about three miles into the woods, and the cabbage is very good; most of them are on the top of the nearest and lowest mountains. The soil in these hills is of a loose black earth; the rocks are very rotten, so that, without great care, it is dangerous to climb the hills for cabbages; besides, there are abundance of holes dug in several places by a sort of fowls called puffins, which cause the earth to fall in at once, and endanger the breaking of a man's leg. Our summer months are winter here. In July snow and ice are sometimes seen; but the spring, which is in September, October, and November, is very pleasant. There is then abundance of good herbs, as parsley, purslain, &c."* To these descriptions, written about the year 1712, we may add an extract from the account given in Lord Anson's voyages in 1741, in order that our readers may have a pretty distinct idea of the appearance of the island, which, for four years and a half, was to be the home of Selkirk. "The woods," says the author of Anson's voyages, 66 cover most of the steepest hills, and are free from all bushes and underwood, offering an easy passage through every part of them; and the irregularities of the hills and precipices in the northern part of the island trace, by their various combinations, a number of romantic valleys, most of which have a stream of the clearest water running through them, tumbling in cascades from rock to rock. Some particular spots occur in these valleys where the shade of the contiguous woods, the loftiness of the overhanging rocks, and the transparency and frequent falls of the streams, present scenes of wonderful beauty."

SELKIRK'S RESIDENCE IN JUAN FERNANDEZ.

For many days after the departure of the Cinque Ports, Selkirk remained lingering about the spot where he was put ashore, unable to abandon the hope that Stradling would relent and come back for him. His constant occupation was gazing out into the sea. As soon as morning dawned he began his watch, sitting on his chest; and his deepest grief was when the evening came on, so that he could see no longer. Sleep came upon him by snatches, and against his exertions to remain awake. Food he did not think of, till extreme hunger obliged him; and then, rather than go in search of the fruits and game which the woods afforded, he contented himself with the shell-fish and seals' flesh, which he could obtain without removing from the beach. The sameness of the diet, the want of bread and salt, and the sinking sickness of his heart, caused him to loathe his food, so that he ate but at

16

* Voyage by Captain Woodes Rogers in 1708–9.

long intervals. Weary, and with aching eyes, he lay down at night, leaning his back against his bundles, listening to the crashing sound of rocks frequently falling among the woods, and to the discordant bleating of the shoals of seals along the shore. The horrors of his situation were augmented during the dark by superstitious alarms. Amid the murmur of the waves he could fancy he heard howlings and whistlings, as of spirits in the air: if he turned his head to the black and wooded masses behind him, they seemed peopled and in motion; and as he again turned it to the shore, phantoms stalked past. Often he cursed himself for the folly of the resolution which had brought him here; often, in the frenzy of fear, he would start up with the horrible determination of suicide; but a rush of softer feeling would come, and then he became calm. At length this gentler state of mind grew habitual; thoughts and impressions which had been familiar to him in childhood again came up; and the years which he had spent with brawling and ferocious shipmates, in the lawless profession of a privateer, were swept out of his memory like a disagreeable dream.

With the return of equanimity, Selkirk began to consider the means of rendering his residence on the island endurable. It was the month of October-a season corresponding in that locality to the middle of spring with us-and all was blooming and fragrant. The possibility of starving was not one of the horrors which his situation presented; and when he recovered calmness of mind sufficient to take a view of his solitary domain, he found himself in the midst of plenty. Besides the fish and seals which swarmed round the shores of the island, there were innumerable fruits and vegetables in the woods, among which was the never-failing cabbage-tree; and hundreds of goats skipped wild among the hills. Almost all the means of ordinary physical comfort were within his reach; and he had only to exert his strength and ingenuity to make the island yield him its resources. How he proceeded to do this; the various shifts and devices which he fell upon to supply his wants, and to add gradually to his store of comforts; the succession of daily steps and contrivances by which, in the course of four years and a half, he raised himself from comparative helplessness to complete dominion over the resources of his little territory; and, along with this, the various stages which his feelings went through, from the agony and stupefaction of the first night which he spent on the island, to the perfect freedom and happiness which he ultimately attained-we have not sufficient materials to be able to describe in detail. It is needless to say that the matchless narrative of Defoe is almost entirely a fiction, so far as the details of his hero's daily life in the desert island are concerned. Alexander Selkirk did not display such a genius for mechanical contrivances as Robinson Crusoe, or at least if he did, no record of his contrivances has been preserved. The island was not visited

by cannibal savages as is the case in the romance; no faithful Friday appeared to cheer the hours of the solitary; nor is there any journal preserved from which we learn whether ever such an incident occurred as the discovery of the mysterious foot-print in the sand. All these ornaments of the story the world owes to Defoe, whose object was not to write the history of Selkirk, or any other known castaway, but to describe, by the force of imagination, the life of an ideal hero on an ideal desert island. At the same time, there is no doubt that Defoe's narrative fills up our conception of Selkirk's long residence in his island with details such as must actually be true; and at all events there is a correspondence in some points between it and Selkirk's own account of his manner of life, furnished after his return to England to Sir Richard Steele and others, through whom it was made public. The particulars of this narrative, so far as it extends, we proceed to relate.

The stores which Selkirk had brought ashore consisted, besides his clothing and bedding, of a firelock, a pound of gunpowder, a quantity of bullets, a flint and steel, a few pounds of tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a flip-can, a Bible, some books of devotion, and one or two concerning navigation, and his mathematical instruments. Such were the few implements and substances from the great civilised world which Selkirk had to help him in the task of subduing to his own convenience seventy square miles of earth and wood. Yet, in the possession of that small package, what strength lay in his hands, and how superior was he to the savage children of nature! Within the small compass of his chest was wrapt up the condensed skill and wisdom of ages, the ingenuity and industry of hundreds of men who had long gone to their graves. The flint and steel, the firelock, the gunpowder, the knife and hatchet, what power over nature was there not compact in these articles !-the mathematical instruments, of what knowledge were they not the symbols!-and, above all, the Bible, and the books which accompanied it, what wealth of conversation, what health of spirit, did they not bring with

them!

The first object that occupied his attention, besides the daily supply of such food as was necessary for his subsistence, was the construction of a dwelling to serve him as a shelter from the weather. Selecting a spot at some distance from the beach, he cut down pimento wood, and in a short time built a hut in which he could reside. To this he afterwards added another. They were both constructed during the first eighteen months of his residence ; but the task of improving them, and adding to their neatness, was a constant occupation to him during his stay on the island. The larger of his two huts, which 66 was situated

near a spacious wood, he made his sleeping-room, spreading the bedclothes he had brought with him upon a frame of his own construction; and as these wore out, or were used for other

purposes, he supplied their places with goat-skins. The smaller hut, which he had erected at some distance from the other, was used by him as a kitchen, in which he dressed his victuals. The furniture was very scanty, but consisted of every convenience his island could afford. His most valuable article was the pot or kettle he had brought from the ship to boil his meat in; the spit was his own handiwork, made of such wood as grew upon the island; the rest was suitable to his rudely-constructed habitation. The pimento wood, which burns very bright and clear, served him both for fuel and candle. It gives out an agreeable perfume when burning. He obtained fire, after the Indian method, by rubbing two pieces of pimento wood together until they ignited. This he did, as he was ill able to spare any of his linen for tinder, time being of no value to him, and the labour rather an amusement!"* The necessity of providing for his wants had the effect of diverting his thoughts from the misery of his situation; yet every day, for the first eighteen months, he spent more or less time on the beach, watching for the appearance of a sail upon the horizon. At the end of that time, partly through habit, partly through the influence of religion, which here awakened in full force upon his mind, he became reconciled to his situation. Every morning after rising he read a portion of Scripture, sang a psalm, and prayed, speaking aloud, in order to preserve the use of his voice; he afterwards remarked that, during his residence on the island, he was a better Christian than he had ever been before, or would probably ever be again. He at first lived much upon turtles and crawfish, which abounded upon the shoreshis powder, with which he could shoot the goats of the island, having soon been exhausted: but afterwards he found himself able to run down the goats, whose flesh he either roasted or stewed, and of which he kept a small stock, tamed, around his dwelling, to be used in the event of his being disabled by sickness. One of the greatest inconveniences which afflicted him for the first few months was the want of salt; but he gradually became accustomed to this privation, and at last found so much relish in unsalted food, that, after being restored to society, it was with equal difficulty that he reconciled himself to take it in any other condition. As a substitute for bread, he had turnips, parsnips, and the cabbage-palm, all of excellent quality, and also radishes and water-cresses. When his clothes were worn out, he supplied their place with goat-skins, which gave him an appearance much more uncouth than any wild animal. He had a piece of linen, from which he made new shirts by means of a nail and the thread of his stockings; and he never wanted this comfortable piece of attire during the whole period of his residence on the island. Every physical want being thus gratified, and his mind soothed by devotional feeling, he at

*Howell's Life of Selkirk.

length began positively to enjoy his existence-often lying for whole days in the delicious bowers which he had formed for himself, abandoned to the most pleasant sensations.

Among the quadruped inhabitants of the isle were multitudes of rats, which at the first annoyed him by gnawing his feet while asleep. Against this enemy he found it necessary to enter into a treaty, offensive and defensive, with the cats, which also abounded in his neighbourhood. Having caught and tamed some of the latter animals, he was soon freed from the presence of the rats, but not without some disagreeable consequences in the reflection that, should he die in his hut, his friendly auxiliaries would probably be obliged, for their subsistence, to devour his body. He was, in the meantime, able to turn them to some account for his amusement, by teaching them to dance and perform a number of antic feats, such as cats are not in general supposed capable of learning, but which they might probably acquire, if any individual in civilised life were able to take the necessary pains. Another of his amusements was hunting on foot, in which he at length, through healthy exercise and habit, became such a proficient, that he could run down the swiftest goat. Some of the young of these animals he taught to dance in company with his kittens; and he often afterwards declared that he never danced with a lighter heart or greater spirit than to the sound of his own voice in the midst of these dumb companions.

Selkirk was careful, during his stay on the island, to measure the lapse of time, and distinguish Sunday from the other days of the week. Anxious, in the midst of all his indifference to society, that, in the event of his dying in solitude, his having lived there might not be unknown to his fellow-creatures, he carved his name upon a number of trees, adding the date of his being left, and the space of time which had since elapsed. When his knife was worn out, he made new ones, and even a cleaver for his meat, out of some hoops which he found on the shore. He several times saw vessels passing the island, but only two cast anchor beside it. Afraid of being taken by the Spaniards, who would have consigned him to hopeless captivity, he endeavoured to ascertain whether these strangers were so or not before making himself known. In both cases he found them enemies; and on one of the occasions, having approached too near, he was observed and chased, and only escaped by taking refuge in a tree.

As Selkirk was only about thirty years of age, and as he found his constitution, which was naturally good, improved and fortified in a wonderful degree by his mode of life, the only cause which he could fear as likely to cut short his days, and prevent him from reaching the old age which he might expect to attain to in his island, provided no ship appeared to carry him off, was the occurrence of some accident, such as might very possibly befall him in his expeditions through the woods. Only one such accident occurred during his stay on the island: it had nearly