CHAPTER XXVII

CRUSOE ISLAND

FOLLOWING the progress of investigation and discovery, we find in circumnavigations and adventures, and the publication of books and reports attendant thereunto, a natural sequence of causes and effects as elsewhere in human affairs. Thus the piracies of Francis Drake led to the adventures of Thomas Cavendish, and these to the voyages of Shelvocke and Woodes Rogers, the former suggesting to Coleridge the Lay of the Ancient Mariner, and the latter to Defoe The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner.

The merchants of Bristol sent into the South sea in 1708 the ships Duke and Duchess, Woodes Rogers commander, and William Dampier first pilot. A mutiny being quelled and shipwreck narrowly averted, they came to Juan Fernandez island, and there found and rescued Alexander Selkirk, for seven score years held to be the only true and genuine Robinson Crusoe.

Off the coast of Chili are situated these islands of Juan Fernandez, so called from a Spanish navigator of that name who in 1574 discovered them; and who discovered further that the south winds along shore did not prevail very far out at sea. This enabled him to make voyages between Chili and Peru so much quicker than others, that he was seized and imprisoned for sorcery, but was released on making explanation. So charmed by the beauty of these isles was the discoverer, that he asked and obtained a grant of them from the Spanish government, and proceeded to stock them with pigs and goats, whose progeny were found there by Alexander Selkirk and others, and played conspicuous parts in the tales of the buccaneers, and in the true story of Robinson Crusoe. The larger of these isles is fourteen miles long and four miles wide.

It is rocky, with shrubby vegetation, and has one principal valley into which flow several small streams. There were once here larger trees, and merchantable sandal-wood, and about the borders sea-elephants and seals. Pirates and navigators called at this island occasionally, and found swine, as many as they could use. The buccaneer Sharp was here in 1668, and Dampier in 1700.

Alexander Selkirk, a somewhat disreputable son of a Scotch shoemaker, went to sea in his youth, joined a piratical expedition to the Pacific, and became sailing master in the galley Cinque Porte. Quarrelling with the captain, at his own request he was in 1704 left on the Juan Fernandez island, where he remained in solitude for four years and four months, when he was rescued by Captain Woodes Rogers, and made first mate of the Duke, and afterward master of a prize ship.

Rogers published an account of his voyage, in which he speaks of Selkirk and his rescue. Steele saw Selkirk and published an account of his adventure in 1713. It is possible that Defoe saw him. In any event, Selkirk returned home in 1712, and in 1719 Defoe published his Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, written by himself, which became immediately popular, and has so remained to this day. Some said that it had been written by Lord Oxford in the Tower, others pronounced it a piracy from Selkirk's papers. Yet it was far enough from fact to be good fiction, and far enough from ordinary fiction to live forever.

In a gap among the rocks, where may be had commanding views at once of the island and of the surrounding sea, a tablet was erected in 1868 by the officers of the British ship Topaze, on which was inscribed the words 'Selkirk's Lookout,' the supposition being that as the weary days and months and years rolled round the sailor had here watched for a coming. vessel; for although he had been put ashore at his own request, he repented before the ship sailed, and begged to be taken back, but his request was refused.

Crusoe, it will be remembered, was wrecked from a vessel on its way from Brazil to the coast of Africa for slaves, and his island was near the mouth of the river Orinoco, very far from Selkirk's island on the other side of the continent. But it was Crusoe's story Defoe was telling, and not Selkirk's, and

it suited his purpose equally well, whether the island was in the Atlantic or in the Pacific ocean. And he "lived eight and twenty years all alone" in this uninhabited island, did Crusoe, and" he was at last as strangely delivered by pyrates".

Crusoe was not long in finding the goats, and in killing and skinning some of them. He found also turtles, fowls, and other animals good for food; likewise oranges, lemons, and grapes, cocoa and citron, besides other plants and trees not usually found on a desert island. It is only when we consider the vast distance between the real and the hypothetical Crusoe island, that we are able to understand why Defoe neglected to feed his hero on pig as well as goat, for from all accounts of the buccaneers and navigators since the days of Juan Fernandez, the island has swarmed with swine. But then this was Crusoe's island and not Selkirk's; and who knows if Crusoe was Selkirk at all, but simply Robinson Crusoe, his book written by himself.

Several, indeed, have been the occupants of this romantic solitude at various times, any one of whom might serve as a model for Defoe's adventurer. Among others was a native of the Mosquito coast, called William, left there by Watling in 1680, and rescued by Dampier three years afterward. "At the time William was abandoned " it is said, "he had with him in the woods his gun and knife, and a small quantity of powder and shot. As soon as his ammunition was expended, by notching his knife into a saw he cut up the barrel of his gun into pieces, which he converted into harpoons, lances, and a long knife. To accomplish this he struck fire with his gun-flint and a piece of the barrel of his gun, which he hardened for this purpose in a way which he had seen practised by the buccaneers. In this fire he heated his pieces of iron, hammered them out with stones, sawed them with his jagged knife, or ground them to an edge, and tempered them, which was no more than these Mosquito-men were accustomed to do in their own country, where they made their own fishing and striking instruments without either forge or anvil, though they spend a great deal of time about it. Thus furnished, William supplied himself with goat-flesh and fish, for till his instruments were formed he had been compelled to eat seal. He built his house about half a mile from the shore, and lined it snugly with goat-skins, with which he also spread his

couch, or barbecue, which was raised two feet from the floor. As his clothes were out he supplied this want also with goatskins, and when first seen he wore nothing but a goatskin about his waist. Though the Spaniards, who had learned that a Mosquito-man was left here, had looked for William several times, he had always by retiring to a secret place contrived to elude their search."

William had not been intentionally abandoned. While Captain Watling was supplying his ship with necessary articles from the shore, he was surprised by the Spaniards and obliged to set sail immediately, unable to recall William, who was absent at the time hunting. On board Dampier's ship at the time of the rescue was another Mosquito-man, named Robin, an old friend of William, and their meeting under the peculiar circumstances was a sight to behold. When Robin leaped from his boat to the shore there stood William trembling between fear and joy, fear lest this should be a repetition of his so frequent dreams, and joy that deliverance had indeed come. Three goats William had killed and cooked with leaves from the cabbage-tree, so that a feast for his deliverers might be ready, for while yet a long way off he knew the ship to be English, and that the day of his deliverance was at hand.

Le Maire and Schouten were at the Juan Fernandez islands in their voyage round the world in 1616. "A boat was sent ashore," the logbook says. "Some fresh water was taken off, and two tons of fish were caught with hooks and lines, the bait being taken as fast as it could be thrown into the water; so that the fishermen continually without ceasing did nothing but draw up fish, mostly bream, and corcobados, which are fish with crooked backs. Hogs, goats, and other animals were seen in the woods, but none were taken."

The Nassau fleet, fitted out in 1624, in Holland, for an expedition against Peru, and commanded by Jacob l'Heremite, had also its experience at the Juan Fernandez islands, which seem to occupy so large a space in the romantic and tragic which fill the narratives of adventurers in these parts for several centuries. "Thousands of sea lions and seals," the journal states, "lay in the daytime on the shore to enjoy basking in the sun. The seamen killed great numbers of them, some to eat and some by way of diversion, which was attended

by merited inconvenience; for in a short time those which lay on the shore became putrid, and infected the air to such a degree that the people of the ships scarcely dared venture to land. The flesh of the sea-lion when cooked was compared to meat twice roasted. Some of the men thought that when I the fat was cut off it was not inferior to mutton; others would not eat it. There were goats on the island, but difficult to approach, and thought not to be so well tasted as those on the island St Vincent. Among the trees were some like the elm, very good for making sheaves to blocks; there were other trees fit for carpenter's work; but none were seen tall enough for ship's topmast. Sandal-wood was growing in great quantity, of an inferior quality to the sandal-wood of Timor, and near the bay were some wild quince trees. Three soldiers and three gunners of the vice-admiral's ship remained on the island by their own will, refusing to serve longer in the fleet."

A Dutch expedition against Peru in those days did not imply attempted conquest of the country, but simply capture of treasure. Coming in sight of the Peruvian coast, the narrative of the Nassau fleet goes on to state: "They were nearly abreast of Callao, at which time they took a small bark with a crew of eleven men, four of whom were Spaniards, the rest Indians and negroes. From these people the admiral received the unwelcome intelligence that on the preceding Friday the treasure fleet, consisting of five ships richly laden, had sailed from the road of Callao for Panamá. The Spanish admiral in a ship of 800 tons burthen, mounting 40 guns, did not sail with the treasure fleet, but with two smaller ships of war, and was still in Callao road, where also a number of merchant vessels were lying. It was likewise learnt that the military force of the Spaniards at Callao was not more than 300 soldiers, for that two companies of their best troops had been sent with the treasure." The question now was, Should they pursue the galleons to Panamá, or land and attack Callao? They determined on the latter course. The attempt was made, and the Spaniards drove them back. The Dutchmen were stupid. There were fifty merchant vessels in the harbor, and to these they set fire, instead of cutting them adrift and securing the plunder they seemed so eager for. Soon afterward the admiral died from illness; the expedition on the whole proved a failure, save for the discovery of Nassau bay, and the knowledge obtained of Cape Horn.