some time before he could wear shoes after we found him; for, not being used to any so long, his feet swelled when he came first to wear them again.

After he had conquered his melancholy, he diverted himself sometimes by cutting his name on the trees, and the time of his being left, and continuance there. He was at first much pestered with cats and rats, that bred in great numbers from some of each species which had got ashore from ships that put in there to wood and water. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes whilst asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats with his goats' flesh, by which many of them became so tame, that they would lie about him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats. He likewise tamed some kids, and to divert himself would, now and then, sing and dance with them and his cats; so that, by the care of Providence, and vigour of his youth, being now about thirty years old, he came at last to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to be very easy.

When his clothes wore out, he made himself a coat and a cap of goat's skins, which he stitched together with little thongs of the same, that he cut with his knife. He had no other needle but a nail; and when his knife was wore to the back, he made others, as well as he could, of some iron hoops that were left ashore, which he beat thin and ground upon stones. Having some linen cloth by him, he sewed himself shirts with a nail, and stitched them with the worsted of his old stockings, which he pulled out on purpose. He had his last shirt on when we found him on the island.

At his first coming on board us, he had so much forgot his language, for want of use, that we could scarce understand him, for he seemed to speak his words by halves. We offered him a dram, but he would not touch it, having drank nothing but water

since his being there; and 't was some time before he could relish our victuals.

He could give us an account of no other product of the island than what we have mentioned, except small black plums, which are very good, but hard to come at, the trees which bear them growing on high mountains and rocks. Pimento trees are plenty here, and we saw some of sixty feet high, and about two yards thick, and cotton trees higher, and more than four fathom round in the stock.

The climate is so good that the trees and grass are verdant all the year. The winter lasts no longer than June and July, and is not then severe, there being only a small frost and a little hail, but sometimes great rains. The heat of the summer is equally moderate, and there's not much thunder or tempestuous weather of any sort. We saw no venomous or savage creature on the island, nor any other sort of beast, but goats, &c., as above mentioned, the first of which had been put ashore here on purpose for a breed by Juan Fernandez, a Spaniard, who settled there with some families for a time, till the continent of Chili began to submit to the Spaniards; which, being more profitable, tempted them to quit this island, which is capable of maintaining a good number of people, and of being made so strong that they could not be easily dislodged.

Rengrose, in his account of Captain Sharpe's voyage, and other buccaneers, mentions one who had escaped ashore here, out of a ship which was cast away with all the rest of the company, and says he lived five years alone, before he had the opportunity of another ship to carry him off. Captain Dampier talks of a Mosquito Indian that belonged to Captain Watlin, who, being a-hunting in the woods when the captain left the island, lived there three years alone, and shifted much in the same manner as Mr.

Selkirk did, till Captain Dampier came hither in 1684 and carried him off. The first that went ashore was one of his countrymen, and they saluted one another, first, by prostrating themselves by turns on the ground, and then embracing. But whatever there is in these stories, this of Mr. Selkirk I know to be true; and his behaviour afterwards gives me reason to believe the account he gave me how he spent his time, and bore up under such an affliction, in which nothing but the Divine Providence could have supported any man.

race.

II

Steele's Account of Selkirk

[The Englishman, December 1-3, 1713]

UNDER the title of this paper, I do not think it foreign to my design to speak of a man born in her Majesty's dominions, and relate an adventure in his life so uncommon, that it is doubtful whether the like has happened to any other of the human The person I speak of is Alexander Selkirk, whose name is familiar to men of curiosity, from the fame of his having lived four years and four months alone in the island of Juan Fernandez. I had the pleasure, frequently, to converse with the man soon after his arrival in England in the year 1711. It was matter of great curiosity to hear him, as he is a man of good sense, give an account of the different revolutions in his own mind in that long solitude. When we consider how painful absence from company, for the space of but one evening, is to the generality of mankind, we may have a sense how painful this necessary and constant solitude was to a man bred a

sailor, and ever accustomed to enjoy and suffer, eat, drink, and sleep, and perform all offices of life, in fellowship and company. He was put ashore from a leaky vessel, with the captain of which he had had an irreconcilable difference; and he chose rather to take his fate in this place than in a crazy vessel, under a disagreeable commander. His portion was a sea-chest, his wearing clothes and bedding, a firelock, a pound of gunpowder, a large quantity of bullets, a flint and steel, a few pounds of tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, and other books. of devotion; together with pieces that concerned navigation, and his mathematical instruments. Resentment against his officer, who had ill-used him, made him look forward on this change of life as the more eligible one, till the instant in which he saw the vessel put off; at which moment his heart yearned within him, and melted at the parting with his comrades and all human society at once. He had in provisions for the sustenance of life but the quantity of two meals, the island abounding only with wild goats, cats, and rats. He judged it most probable that he should find more immediate and easy relief by finding shell-fish on the shore than seeking game with his gun. He accordingly found great quantities of turtles, whose flesh is extremely delicious, and of which he frequently ate very plentifully on his first arrival, till it grew disagreeable to his stomach, except in jellies. The necessities of hunger and thirst were his greatest diversion from the reflections on his lonely condition. When those appetites were satisfied, the desire of society was as strong a call upon him, and he appeared to himself least necessitous when he wanted everything; for the supports of his body were easily attained, but the eager longings for seeing again the face of man, during the interval of craving bodily appetites, were hardly sup[ 337 ]

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portable. He grew dejected, languid, and melancholy, scarce able to refrain from doing himself violence, till by degrees, by the force of reason and frequent reading the Scriptures, and turning his thoughts upon the study of navigation, after the space of eighteen months he grew thoroughly reconciled to his condition. When he had made this conquest, the vigour of his health, disengagement from the world, a constant cheerful, serene sky and a temperate air, made his life one continual feast, and his being much more joyful than it had before been irksome. He now, taking delight in everything, made the hut in which he lay, by ornaments which he cut down from a spacious wood on the side of which it was situated, the most delicious bower, fanned with continual breezes and gentle aspirations of wind, that made his repose after the chase equal to the most sensual pleasures.

I forgot to observe, that during the time of his dissatisfaction monsters of the deep, which frequently lay on the shore, added to the terrors of his solitude; the dreadful howlings and voices seemed too terrible to be made for human ears; but upon the recovery of his temper he could with pleasure not only hear their voices, but approach the monsters themselves with great intrepidity. He speaks of sea-lions, whose jaws and tails were capable of seizing or breaking the limbs of a man if he approached them. But at that time his spirits and life were so high, that he could act so regularly and unconcerned, that merely from being unruffled in himself he killed them with the greatest ease imaginable; for observing that though their jaws and tails were so terrible, yet the animals being mighty slow in working themselves round, he had nothing to do but place himself exactly opposite to their middle, and as close to them as possible, and he despatched them with his hatchet at will.