The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or the Real Robinson Crusoe

The lecythis quatela, of the family of the lecythidées, created by Professor Richard, and whose singular fruits bear, in Peru as well as in Chili, the denomination of monkey's goblets.

Charmed with her gentleness, her docility, the affection she seemed to bear him, Selkirk grew more and more attached to her. Winter, that is, the rainy season which usually lasts in these regions during the months of June and July, was approaching; he suffered in anticipation, from the idea that during this time his gentle companion would not be able to retain her habitual shelter, beneath the foliage of the trees; he conceived the project of giving up to her his grotto, and constructing for himself a new habitation, spacious and commodious. It is thus that our most generous resolutions, whatever we may design to do, encountering in their way personal interest, often turn to the increase of our own private welfare.

At a little distance from the grotto, but farther inland, on the banks of the stream called the Linnet, there was a thicket of verdure shaded by five myrtles of from fifteen to twenty feet in height, and whose stems presented a diameter more than sufficient to insure the solidity of the edifice. Four of these myrtles formed an irregular square; the fifth arose in the midst, or nearly so; but our architect is not very particular. He already sees the principal part of his frame; the myrtles will remain in their places, their roots serving as a foundation. He removes the shrubs, the plants, the brushwood from the thicket, leaving only a heliotrope which, at a later period, may twine around his house and at evening shed its perfumes. He has become reconciled to its fragrance. He trims the trees, cuts off their tops eight feet above the ground, leaving the middle one, which is to sustain the roof, a foot higher; for this roof reeds and palm-leaves furnish all the materials. The walls, made of a solid network of young branches interwoven, and plastered with a mixture of sand, clay, and chopped rushes, he takes care not to build quite to the top, but to leave between them and the roof a little space, where the air can circulate freely through a light trellis formed of branches of the blue willow.

Then, having finished his work in less than a fortnight, he contemplates it and admires it; Marimonda herself seems to share in his admiration, and in her joy climbing up the new building, she begins to leap, to dance on the roof of foliage, which bears her, and thus gives to Selkirk an additional triumph.

He now proceeds to furnish his palace; he transports thither his bed of reeds and his goatskin coverings. How much better will he be sheltered here than under the gloomy vault of his grotto! How has he been able to content himself so long with such an abode, more suitable for a troglodyte or a monkey! He will no longer be obliged to lift up his curtain of vines, and to peep through the fans of his palm-trees, in order to behold the beneficent rays of the new-born day; they will come of themselves to find him and rejoice him at his awakening, as the sea-breezes will at evening breathe on him, to refresh him in his repose.

Already has the interior of his cabin, of his palace, assumed an aspect which charms him; his guns, his hatchets, his spy-glass, his instruments of labor, well polished and shining, suspended in racks, upon wooden pegs, decorate the walls; upon another partition, his assortment of pipes are arranged on a shelf according to their size; on his central pillar, he suspends his game-bag, his gourd, his tobacco-pouch, and various articles of daily use. As for his iron pot, his smoked meat, his stock of skins, and bottles of seal-oil, he leaves them under the guardianship of Marimonda in the grotto which he will now make his store-house, his kitchen: he will not encumber with them his new dwelling.

He now sets himself to prepare new furniture; he will construct a small portable table, two wooden seats, one for himself, the other for Marimonda, when she comes from her grotto to visit his cabin; for he has now a neighborhood. Besides, during the rainy season, they will be forced to dine under cover.

The first rains have commenced, gentle, fertilizing rains, falling at intervals and lovingly drank in by the earth; Selkirk no longer thinks of his table and seats; another project has just taken the place of these, and seems to deserve the precedence.

Marimonda has just returned from a tour in the woods, bringing fruits of all sorts, among them some which Selkirk has never before seen. He tastes them with more care and attention than usual; then, becoming thoughtful, with his chin resting on his hand says to himself: 'Why should I not make these fruits grow at my door, not far from my habitation? Why should I not attempt to improve them by cultivation? This is a very simple and very prudent idea which should have occurred to me long since; but I was alone, absolutely alone; and one loses courage when thinking of self only. A garden, at once an orchard and a vegetable garden, will be at least as useful to me as my fish-pond and bed of water-cresses; I will make one around my cabin; it will set it off and give it a more home-like appearance! Is not the stream placed here expressly to traverse it and water it? Afterwards, if God assist me, I will raise little kids which will become goats and give me milk, butter, cheese! Why have I not thought of this before? It would have been too much to have undertaken at once. I shall then have tame goats; I will also have Guinea-pigs, agoutis, and coatis. My house shall be enlarged, I will have a farm, a dairy! But the time has not yet come; let us first prepare the garden. Why has it not been already prepared? I am impatient to render the earth productive, fruitful by my cares, to walk in the shade of the trees I may plant; it seems to me that I shall be at home there, more than any where else!'

You are right, Selkirk; to possess the entire island, is to possess nothing; it is simply to have permission to hunt, a right of promenade and pasture, which the other inhabitants of the island, quadrupeds or birds, can claim as well as yourself. What is property, without the power of improvement? Can the earth become the domain of a single person, when the true limits of his possessions must always be those of the field which affords him subsistence? Envy not then the happiness of the rich; they are but the transient holders and distributors of the public fortune; we possess, in reality, only that which we can ourselves enjoy; the rest escapes us, and contributes to the well-being of others.

Selkirk comprehends that his streams, his bank of turf, his fish-pond, his bed of water-cresses, his grotto, his cabin, belong to him far otherwise than the twelve or fifteen square leagues of his island; to his private domain he now intends to add a garden, and this garden, this orchard, will be to him an increase of his wealth, since it will aid in the satisfaction of his wants.

The humidity with which the earth begins to be penetrated, facilitates his labors; he sets himself to the work.

Behold him then, now armed with his hatchet, now with a wooden shovel, which he has just manufactured, clearing the ground, digging, transplanting young fruit-trees, or sowing the seeds which he is soon to see spring up and prosper. Every thing grows rapidly in these climates.

When the garden-spot is marked out, dug, sown, planted, not forgetting the kitchen vegetables, and especially the coca and petunia-nicotiana, Selkirk, with his arms folded on his spade, thanks God with all his heart,—God who has given him strength to finish his work.

He has never felt so happy as when, with his hands behind his back, he walks smoking, among his beds, in which nothing has as yet appeared; but he already sees, in a dream, his trees covered with blossoms; around these blossoms are buzzing numerous swarms of bees; he reflects upon the means of compelling them to yield the honey of which they have just stolen from him the essence. It is a settled thing, on his farm he will have hives! After his bees, still in his dream, come flocks of humming-birds to plunder in their turn. The happy possessor of the garden will exact no tribute from them, but the pleasure of seeing them suspend, by a silken thread, to the leaves of his shrubs, the elegant little boat in which they cradle their fragile brood. Nothing seems to him more beautiful than his embryo garden; here, he is more than the monarch of the island; he is a proprietor!

Thanks to the garden, Selkirk sees with resignation the two long months of the rainy season pass away. When the heavy torrents render the paths impassable, he consoles himself by thinking that they aid in the germination of his seeds, in the rooting of his young plants. Sometimes, between two deluges, he can scarcely find time to procure himself sufficient game; what matters it! he lives on his provisions: he is forcibly detained within; but has he not now good cheer, good company, and occupation, during his leisure hours?

It is now that he completes his furniture. His table and his seats finished, he undertakes to provide for another want, equally indispensable.

Worn out by the weather, and by service, his garments are becoming ragged. He must shield himself from the humidity of the air; where shall he procure materials? Has he not the choice between seal-skins and goat-skins? He gives the preference to the latter, as more pliable, and behold him a tailor, cutting with the point of his knife; as for thread, it is furnished by the fragment of the sail; and two days afterwards, he finds himself flaming in a new suit.

To describe the delirious stupefaction of Marimonda, when she perceives her master under this strange costume, would be a thing impossible. She finds him almost like herself, clad like her, in a hairy suit. Never tired of looking at him, of examining him curiously, she leaps, she gambols around him, now rolling at his feet, and uttering little cries of joy, now suspended over his head, at the top of the central pillar, and turning her wild and restless eyes. When she has thus inspected him from head to foot, she runs and crouches in a corner, with her face towards the wall, as if to reflect; then, whirling about, returns towards him, picks up on the way the garment he has just laid aside, looking alternately at this and at the other, very anxious to know which of the two really made a part of the person.

After having enjoyed for a few moments the surprise and transports of his companion, Selkirk takes his Bible and his pipe, and, placing the book on the table, bends over it, preparing to read and to meditate. But, whether in consequence of her joyous excitement, or whether she is emboldened by the species of fraternity which costume establishes between them, Marimonda, without hesitation, directs herself to the little shelf, chooses from it a pipe in her turn, places it gravely between her lips, astonished at not seeing the smoke issue from it in a spiral column; and, with an important air, still imitating her master, comes to sit opposite him, with her brow inclined, and her elbow resting on the table.

Willingly humoring her whim, Selkirk takes the pipe from her hands, fills it with his most spicy tobacco, lights it, and restores it to her.

Hardly has Marimonda respired the first breath, when suddenly letting fall the pipe, overturning the table, emitting the smoke through her mouth and nostrils, she disappears, uttering plaintive cries, as if she had just tasted burning lava.

At sight of the poor monkey, thus thrown into confusion, Selkirk, for the first time since his residence in the island, laughs so loudly, that the echo follows the fugitive to the grotto, where she had taken refuge, and is prolonged from the grotto to the Oasis, from the Oasis to the summit of the Discovery.

The exile has at last laughed, laughed aloud, and, at the same moment, a terrible disaster is taking place without his knowledge; a new war is preparing for him, in which his arms will be useless.

A New Invasion.—Selkirk joyfully meets an ancient Enemy.—Combat on a Red Cedar.—A Mother and her Little Ones.—The Flock.—Fête in the Island; Pacific Combats, Diversions and Swings.—A Sail.—The Burning Wood.—Presentiments of Marimonda.

The next morning the sun has scarcely touched the horizon, Selkirk is still asleep, when he is awakened by a sort of tickling at his feet. Thinking it some caress or trick of Marimonda, risen earlier than usual, he half opens his eyes, sees nothing, and places himself again in a posture to continue his nap. The same tickling is renewed, but with more perseverance, and very soon something sharp and keen penetrates to the quick the hard envelope of his heel. The tickling has become a bite.

This time wide awake, he raises his head. His cabin is full of rats!

Near him, a company of them are tranquilly engaged in breakfasting on his coverings and the rushes of his couch; they are on his table, his seats, along his pillow and his walls; they are playing before his door, running hither and thither through the crevices of his roof, multiplying themselves on his rack and shelf; all biting, gnawing, nibbling—some his seal-skin hat, his tobacco-pouch, the bark ornaments of his furniture; others the handles of his tools, his pipes, his Bible, and even his powder-horn.

Selkirk utters a cry, springs from his couch, and immediately crushes two under his heels. The rest take flight.

As he is pursuing these new invaders with the shovel and musket, he perceives at a few paces' distance Marimonda, sorrowful and drooping, perched on the strong branch of a sapota-tree. By her piteous and chilly appearance, her tangled and wet hair, he doubts not but she has passed the whole night exposed to the inclemency of the weather. But he at first attributes this whim only to her ill-humor the evening before.

On perceiving him, Marimonda descends, from her tree, sad, but still gentle and caressing, and with gestures of terror, points to the grotto. He runs thither.

Here another spectacle of disorder and destruction awaits him; the rats are collected in it by thousands; his furs, his provisions of fruit and game, his bottles formerly filled with oil, every thing is sacked, torn in pieces, afloat; for the water has at last made its way through the crevices of the mountain. To put the climax to his misfortune, his reserve of powder, notwithstanding its double envelope of leather and horn, attacked by the voracious teeth of his aggressors, is swimming in the midst of an oily slime.

The solitary now possesses, for the purpose of hunting, for the renewal of these provisions so necessary to his life, only the few charges contained in his portable powder-horn, and in the barrels of his guns. The blow which has just struck him is his ruin! and still the hardest trial appointed for him is yet to come.

In penetrating the ground, the rains of winter have driven the rats from their holes; hence their invasion of the cabin and the grotto.

Against so many enemies, what can Selkirk do, reduced to his single strength?

He succeeds, nevertheless, in killing some; Marimonda herself, armed with the branch of a tree, serves as an ally, and aids him in putting them to flight; but their combined efforts are ineffectual. An hour after, the accursed race are multiplying round him, more numerous and more ravenous than ever.

He comprehends then what an error he has committed in the complete destruction of the wild cats which peopled the island. With the most generous intentions, how often is man mistaken in the object he pursues! We think we are ridding us of an enemy, and we are depriving ourselves of a protector. God only knows what he does, and he has admitted apparent evil, as a principle, into the admirable composition of his universe; he suffers the wicked to live. Selkirk had been more severe than God, and he repents it. If his poor cats had only been exiled, he would hasten to proclaim a general amnesty. Alas! there is no amnesty with death. But has he indeed destroyed all? Perhaps some still exist in those distant regions which have already served as a refuge for that other banished race, the seals.

In Peru and Chili, they call garua that mist which sometimes, and especially after the rainy season, floats around the disk of the sun.

This cat, strongly built, with a spotted and glossy coat, white nose, and brown whiskers, is stationed at a little distance, on a red cedar, where she is undoubtedly watching her prey.

She is an old settler escaped from the general massacre; the last of the vanquished; perhaps!

Without hesitation, Selkirk clasps the trunk of the tree, climbs it, reaches the first branches; Marimonda follows him and quickly goes beyond. At the aspect of these two aggressors, like herself clad in skin, the cat recoils, ascending; the monkey follows, pursues her from branch to branch, quite to the top of the cedar. Struck on the shoulder with a blow of the claw, she also recoils, but descending, and declaring herself vanquished in the first skirmish, immediately gives over the combat, or rather the sport, for she has seen only sport in the affair.

Selkirk is not so easily discouraged; this cat he must have, he must have her alive; he wishes to make her the guardian of his cabin, his protector against the rats. Three times he succeeds in seizing her; three times the furious animal, struggling, tears his arms or face. It is a terrible, bloody conflict, mingled with exclamations, growlings, and frightful mewings. At last Selkirk, forgetting perhaps in the ardor of combat the object of victory, seizes her vigorously by the skin of the neck, at the risk of strangling her; with the other hand he grasps her around the body. The difficulty is now to carry her. Fortunately he has his game-bag. With one hand he holds her pressed against the fork of the tree; with the other arm he reaches his game-bag, opens it; the conquered animal, half dead, has not made, during this manoeuvre, a single movement of resistance. But when the hunter is about to close it, suddenly rousing herself with a leap, distending by a last effort all her muscles at once, she escapes from his grasp, and precipitates herself from the top of the cedar, to the great terror of Marimonda, then peaceably crouched under the tree, whom the cat brushes against in falling, and to the great disappointment of Selkirk, who thinks he has the captive in his pouch.

Sliding along the trunk, Selkirk descends quickly to the ground; but the enemy has already disappeared, and left no trace. In vain his eyes are turned on all sides; he sees nothing, neither his adversary nor Marimonda, who has undoubtedly fled under the impression of this last terror.

As he is in despair, a whistling familiar to his ear is heard, and at two hundred paces distant he perceives, on an eminence of the False Coquimbo, his monkey, bent double, in an attitude of contemplation, appearing very attentive to what is passing beneath her, and changing her posture only to send a repeated summons to her master.

At all hazards he directs himself to this quarter.

What a spectacle awaits him! In a cavity at the foot of the eminence where Marimonda is, he finds, crouching, still out of breath with her struggle and her race, his fugitive. She is a mother! and six kittens, already active, are rolling in the sun around her.

Selkirk, seizing his knife, kills the mother, and carries off the little ones.

A short time after, the rats have deserted the shore. But their departure, though it prevents the evil they might yet have done, does not remedy that already accomplished.

The provisions of the solitary are almost entirely destroyed, and the little powder which remains is scarcely sufficient for a reserve which he no longer knows where to renew.

The moment at last comes when he possesses no other ammunition than the only charge in his gun. This last charge, his last resource, oh! how preciously he preserves it to-day. While it is there, he can still believe himself armed, still powerful; he has not entirely exhausted his resources; it is his last hope. Who knows?—perhaps he may yet need it to protect his life in circumstances which he cannot foresee.

But since his gun must remain suspended, inactive, to the walls of his cabin, it is time to think of supplying the place of the services it has rendered; it is time to realize his dream, and, according to the usual course of civilization, to substitute the life of a farmer and shepherd for that of a hunter.

Already is his colony augmented by six new guests, domesticated in his house; already, on every side, his seeds are peeping out of the ground under the most favorable auspices; his young trees, firmly rooted, are growing rapidly beneath the double influence of heat and moisture; at the axil of some of their leaves, he sees a bud, an earnest of the harvest. He must now occupy himself with the means of surprising, seizing and retaining the ancestors of his future flock.

Here, patience, address or stratagem can alone avail.

Notwithstanding his natural agility, he does not dream of reaching them by pursuit. Since his last hunts, goats and kids keep themselves usually in the steep and mountainous parts of the island. To leap from rock to rock, to attempt to vie with them in celerity and lightness appears to him, with reason, a foolish and impracticable enterprise. Later, perhaps,... Who knows?

He manufactures snares, traps; but suspicion is now the order of the day around him; each holds himself on the qui vive. After long waiting without any result, he finds in his snares a coati, some little Guinea pigs; here is one resource, undoubtedly, but he aims at higher game, and the kids will not allow themselves to be taken by his baits.

He remembers then, that in certain parts of America, the hunters, in order to seize their prey living, have recourse to the lasso, a long cord terminated by a slip-noose, which they know how to throw at great distances, and almost always with certainty.

With a thread which he obtains from the fibres of the aloe, with narrow strips of skin, closely woven, he composes a lasso more than fifty feet long; he tries it; he exercises it now against a tuft of leaves detached from a bush, now against some projecting rock; afterwards he tries it upon Marimonda, who often enough, by her agility and swiftness, puts her master at fault.

In the interval of these preparatory exercises, Selkirk occupies himself with the construction of a latticed inclosure, destined to contain the flock which he hopes to possess; he makes it large and spacious, that his young cattle may bound and sport at their ease; high, that they may respect the limits he assigns them. In one corner, supported by solid posts, he builds a shed, simply covered with branches; that his flock may there be sheltered from the heat of the day. The inclosure and the shed, together with his garden, form a new addition to his great settlement.

When, his kids shall have become goats, when the epoch of domesticity shall have arrived for them, when they shall have contracted habits of tameness, when they have learned to recognize his voice, then, and then only, will he permit them to wander and browse on the neighboring hills, under the direction of a vigilant guardian. This guardian, where shall he find? Why may it not be Marimonda? Marimonda, to whose intelligence he knows not where to affix bounds!

Dreams, dreams, perhaps! and yet but for dreams, but for those gentle phantoms which he creates, and by which he surrounds himself, what would sustain the courage of the solitary?

When Selkirk thinks he has acquired skill in the use of the lasso, he buries himself among the high mountains situated towards the central part of his island. Several days pass amid fruitless attempts, and when the delicately-carved foliage of the mimosa announces, by its folding, that night is approaching, he regains his cabin, gloomy, care-worn, and despairing of the future.

Meanwhile, by his very failures, he has acquired experience. One evening, he returns to his dwelling, bringing with him two young kids, with scarcely perceptible horns, and reddish skin, varied with large brown spots. Marimonda welcomes her new guests, and this evening all in the habitation breathes joy and tranquillity.

The week has not rolled away, when the number of Selkirk's goats exceeds that of his cats; and he takes pleasure in seeing them leap and play together in his inclosure; his mind has recovered its serenity.

'Yes,' said he, with pride, 'man can suffice for himself, can depend on himself only for subsistence and welfare! Am I not a striking proof? Did not all seem lost for me, when an unforeseen catastrophe destroyed the remnant of the provision of powder which I owed to the pity of that miserable captain? Ah! undoubtedly according to his hateful calculations, he had limited the term of my life to the last charge which my gun should contain; this last charge is still there! Of what use will it be to me? Why do I need it? Are not my resources for subsistence more certain and numerous to-day than before? What then is wanting? The society of a Stradling and his fellows? God keep me from them! The best member of the crew of the brig Swordfish came away when I did. I have received from Marimonda more proofs of devotion than from all the companions I have had on land and on sea. What have I to regret? I am well off here; may God keep me in repose and health!'

After this sally, he thought of his hives, which were still wanting, and of the methods to be employed to seize a swarm of bees.

A month after, Selkirk, who religiously kept his reckoning on the margin of his Bible, resolved to celebrate the New Year. It was now the first of January, 1706.

On this day he dined, not in his cabin, nor under his tree, but in the middle of the inclosure, surrounded by his family; fruits and good cheer were more abundant than usual; Marimonda, as was her custom, dined at the same table with himself: the cats shared in the feast; the goats roved around, stretching up to gaze with their blue eyes on the baskets of fruits, and returning to browse on the grass beneath the feet of the guests. Selkirk, as the master of the house, and chief of the family, generously distributed the provisions to his young and frolicksome republic, and Marimonda assisted him as well as she could, in doing the honors.

After the repasts, there were races and combats; the remains of the baskets were thrown to the most skilful and the most adroit; then came, diversions and swings.

Lying in his hammock, where he smoked his most excellent tobacco in his best pipe, Selkirk smilingly contemplated the capricious bounds, the riotous sports of his cats and kids, their graceful postures, their fraternal combats, in which sheathed claws and the inoffensive horn were the only weapons used on either side.

To give more variety to the fête, Marimonda developes all the resources of her daring suppleness; she leaps from right to left, clearing large spaces with inconceivable dexterity. Attaining the summit of a tree, she whistles to attract her master's attention, then, with her two fore-paws clasped in her hind ones, she rolls herself up like a ball and drops on the ground; the foliage crackles beneath her fall, which seems as if it must be mortal; for her, this is only sport. Without altering the position of her limbs, she suddenly stops in her rapid descent, by means of her prehensile tail, that fifth hand, so powerful, with which nature has endowed the monkeys of America. Then, suspended by this organ alone, she accelerates her motions to and fro with incredible rapidity, quickly unwinds her tail from the branch by which she is suspended, and with a dart, traversing the air as if winged, alights at a hundred paces distance on a vine, which she instantly uses as a swing.

Selkirk is astonished; he applauds the tricks of Marimonda, the sports and combats of his other subjects. Meanwhile, his eyes having turned towards the sea, his brow is suddenly overclouded. At the expiration of a few moments of an uneasy and agitated observation, he utters an exclamation, springs from his hammock, runs to his cabin, then to the shore, where he prostrates himself with his hands clasped and raised towards heaven.

He has just perceived a sail.

Provided with his glass, he seeks the sail upon the waves, he finds it. 'It is without doubt a barque,' said he to himself; 'a barque from the neighboring island, or some point of the continent!' And looking again through his copper tube, he clearly distinguishes three masts well rigged, decorated with white sails, which are swelling in the east wind, and gilded by the oblique rays of the declining sun.

'It is a brig! The Swordfish, perhaps! Yes, Stradling has prolonged his voyage in these regions. The time which he had fixed for my exile has rolled away! He is coming to seek me. May he be blessed!'

The movement which the brig made to double the island, had increased more and more the hopes of Selkirk, when the Spanish flag, hoisted at the stern, suddenly unfolded itself to his eyes.

'The enemy!' exclaimed he; 'woe is me! If they land on this coast, whither shall I fly, where conceal myself? In the mountains! Yes, I can there succeed in escaping them! But, the wretches! they will destroy my cabin, my inclosure, my garden! the fruit of so much anxiety and labor!'

And, with palpitating heart, he again watches the manoeuvres of the brig. The latter, having tacked several times, as if to get before the wind, hastily changed her course and stood out to sea.

Selkirk remains stupefied, overwhelmed. 'These are Spaniards,' murmured he, after a moment's hesitation; 'what matters it! Am I now their enemy? I am only a colonist, an exile, a deserter from the English navy. They owe me protection, assistance, as a Christian. If they required it, I would serve on board their vessel! But they have gone; what method shall I employ to recall them, to signalize my presence?'

There was but one; it was to kindle a large fire on the shore or on the hill. He needs hewn wood, and his supplies are exhausted; what is to be done?

For an instant, in his disturbed mind, the idea arises to tear the lattice-work from his inclosure, the pillars and the roof from his shed, to pile them around his cabin, and set fire to the whole.

This idea he quickly repulses, but it suffices to show what passed in the inner folds of the heart of this man, who had just now forced himself to believe that happiness was yet possible for him.

On farther reflection, he remembers that behind his grotto, on one of the first terraces of the mountain, there is a dense thicket, where the trees, embarrassed with vines and dry briers, closely interwoven, calcined by the burning reflections of the sun on the rock which surrounds them, present a collection of dead branches and mouldy trunks, scarcely masked by the semblance of vegetation.

Thither he transports all the brands preserved under the ashes of his hearth; he makes a pile of them; throws upon it armfuls of chips, bark and leaves. The flame soon runs along the bushes which encircle the thicket; and, when the sun goes down, an immense column of fire illuminates all this part of the island, and throws its light far over the ocean.

Standing on the shore, Selkirk passes the night with his eyes fixed on the sea, his ear listening attentively to catch the distant sound of a vessel; but nothing presents itself to his glance upon the luminous and sparkling waves, and amid their dashing he hears no other sound but that of the trees and vines crackling in the flames.

At morning all has disappeared. The fire has exhausted itself without going beyond its bounds, and the sea, calm and tranquil, shows nothing upon its surface but a few flocks of gulls.

A week passes away, during which Selkirk remains thoughtful and taciturn; he rarely leaves the shore; he still beholds the sports of his cats and his kids, but no longer smiles at them; Marimonda, by way of amusing him, renews in his presence her surprising feats, but the attention of the master is elsewhere.

Nevertheless, he cannot allow himself time to dream long with impunity; his reserve of smoked beef is nearly exhausted; to save it, he has again resorted to the shell-fish, which his stomach loathes; to the sea-crabs, of which he is tired; he needs other nourishment to restore his strength. He shakes off his lethargy, takes his lasso, his game-bag. His plan now is, not to hunt the kids, but the goats themselves.

As he is about to set out, Marimonda approaches, preparing to accompany him. In his present frame of mind, Selkirk wishes to be alone, and makes her comprehend, by signs, that she must remain at home and watch the flock; but this time, contrary to her custom, she does not seem disposed to obey. Notwithstanding his orders, she follows him, stops when he turns, recommences to follow him, and, by her supplicating looks and expressive gestures, seeks to obtain the permission which he persists in refusing. At last Selkirk speaks severely, and she submits, still protesting against it by her air of sadness and depression. Was this, on her part, caprice or foresight? No one has the secret of these inexplicable instincts, which sometimes reveal to animals the presence of an invisible enemy, or the approach of a disaster.

At evening, Selkirk had not returned! Marimonda passed the night in awaiting him, uttering plaintive cries.

On the morrow the morning rolled away, then the day, then the night, and the cabin remained deserted, and Marimonda in vain scaled the trees and hills in the neighborhood to recover traces of her master.

What had become of him?

The Precipice.—A Dungeon in a Desert Island.—Resignation.—The passing Bird.—The browsing Goat.—The bending Tree.—Attempts at Deliverance. —Success.—Death of Marimonda.

In that sterile and mountainous quarter of the island to which he has given the name of Stradling,—that name, importing to him misfortune,—Selkirk, venturing in pursuit of a goat, has fallen from a precipice.

Fortunately the cavity is not deep. After a transient swoon, recovering his footing, experiencing only a general numbness, and some pain caused by the contusions resulting from his fall, he bethinks himself of the means of escape.

But a circle of sharp rocks, contracting from the base to the summit, forms a tunnel over his head; no crevice, no precipitous ledge, interrupts their fatal uniformity. Only around him some platforms of sandy earth appear; he digs them with his knife, to form steps. Some fragments of roots project here and there through the interstices of the stones; he hopes to find a point of support by which to scale these abrupt walls. The little solidity of the roots, which give way in his grasp; his sufferings, which become more intense at every effort; these thousand rocky heads bending at once over him; all tell him plainly that it will be impossible for him to emerge from this hole—that it is destined to be his tomb.

Poor young sailor, already condemned to isolation, separated from the rest of mankind, could he have foreseen that one day his captivity was to be still closer! that his steps would be chained, that the sight even of his island would be interdicted! and that in this desert, where he had neither persecutor nor jailer to fear, he would find a prison, a dungeon!

After three days of anguish and tortures, after new and ineffectual attempts,—exhausted by fatigue, by thirst, by hunger,—consumed by fever, supervened in consequence of all his sufferings of body and soul, he resigns himself to his fate; with his foot, he prepares his last couch, composed of sand and dried leaves shaken from above by the neighboring trees; he lies down, folds his arms, closes his eyes, and prepares to die, thinking of his eternal salvation.

Although he tries not to allow himself to be distracted by other thoughts, from time to time sounds from the outer world disturb his pious meditations. First it is the joyous song of a bird. To these vibrating notes another song replies from afar, on a more simple and almost plaintive key. It is doubtless the female, who, with a sort of modest and repressed tenderness, thus announces her retreat to him who calls; then a rapid rustling is heard above the head of the prisoner. It is the songster, hastening to rejoin his companion.

Selkirk has never known love. Once perhaps,—in a fit of youth and delirium; and it was this false love which tore him from his studies, from his country!

Ah! why did he not remain at Largo, with his father? To-day he also would have had a companion! In that smiling country where coolness dwells, where labor is so easy, life so sweet and calm, the paternal roof would have sheltered his happiness! Oh! the joys of his infancy! his green and sunny Scotland.

The regrets which arise in his heart he quickly banishes; his dear remembrances he sacrifices to God; he weaves them into a fervent prayer.

Very soon an approaching bleating rouses him again from his abstractions. A goat, with restless eye, has just stretched her head over the edge of the precipice, and for an instant fixes on him her astonished glance. Then, as if re-assured, defying his powerlessness, with a disdainful lip she quietly crops some tufts of grass growing on the verge of the tunnel.

On seeing her, Selkirk instinctively lays his hand on the lasso which is beside him.

'If I succeed in reaching her, in catching her,' said he, 'her blood will quench the thirst which devours me, her flesh will appease my hunger. But of what use would it be? Whence can I expect aid and succor for my deliverance? This would then only prolong my sufferings.'

And, throwing aside the end of the lasso which he has just seized, he again folds his arms on his breast, and closes his eyes once more.

I know not what stoical philosopher—Atticus, I believe, a prey to a malady which he thought incurable,—had resolved to die of inanition. At the expiration of a certain number of days, abstinence had cured him, and when his friends, in the number of whom he reckoned Cicero, exhorted him to take nourishment, persisting in his first resolution, 'Of what use is it!' said he also, 'Must I not die sooner or later? Why should I then retrace my steps, when I have already travelled more than half the road?'

Selkirk had more reason than Atticus to decide thus; besides, his friends, where are they, to exhort him to live? Friends!—has he ever had any?

Night comes, and with the night a terrific hurricane arises. By the glare of the lightning he sees a tree, situated not far from the tunnel, bend towards him, almost broken by the violence of the wind.

'Perhaps Providence will send me a method of saving myself!' murmured Selkirk; 'should the tree fall on this side, if its branches do not crush me, they will serve as steps to aid me to leave this pit! I am saved!'

But the tree resists the storm, which passes away, carrying with it the last hope of the captive.

Towards the morning of the fourth day his fever has ceased; the tortures of hunger and thirst are no longer felt; the complete annihilation of his strength is to him a kind of relief; sleep seizes him, and with sleep he thinks death must come.

Soon, in his dream, in a hallucination springing undoubtedly from the weakness of his brain, plaints, confused and distant groans, reach him from different points of the island. These sorrowful cries, almost uninterrupted, afterwards approach, and are repeated with increasing strength. He awakes, he listens; the bushes around him crackle and rustle; even the earth emits a dull sound, as beneath the bounding of a goat; the cries are renewed and become more and more distinct, like the sobs of a child. Selkirk puts his hand to his forehead. These plaints, these sobs, he thinks he recognizes, and, suddenly raising himself with a convulsive effort, he exclaims:

'Marimonda!'

And Marimonda runs at her master's voice, changes, on seeing him, her cries of distress for cries of joy, leaps and gambols on the edge of the cavity, and, quickly finding a way to join him, suspends herself by her tail to one of the branches on the verge, and springs to his side.

Then contortions, caresses, winks of the eyes, motions of the head, whining, whistling, succeed each other; she rolls before him, embraces him closely, seeking by every method to supply the place of that speech which alone is wanting, and which she almost seems to have. Good Marimonda! her humid and shivering skin, her bruised and bleeding feet, her in-flamed eyes, plainly tell Selkirk how long she has been in search of him, how she has watched, run, to find him, and, not finding him, what she has suffered at his absence.

Her first transports over, by his pale complexion, by his dim eye, she quickly divines that it is want of food which has reduced him to this condition. Swift as a bird she climbs the sides of the tunnel; she repeatedly goes and returns, bringing each time fruits and canes full of savory and refreshing liquid. It is precisely the usual hour for their first repast, and once more they can partake of it together.

Revived by this repast, by the sight of his companion in exile, Selkirk recovers his ideas of life and liberty. This abyss, from which she ascends with so much facility, who knows but with her aid he may be able in his turn to leave it? He remembers his lasso; he puts one end of it into Marimonda's hand. It is now necessary that she should fix it to some projection of the rock, some strong shrub, which may serve as a point of support.

It was perhaps presuming too much on the intelligence which nature has bestowed on the race of monkeys. At her master's orders, Marimonda would seize the end of the cord, then immediately abandon it, as she needed entire freedom of motion to enable her to scale the walls of the tunnel.

After several ineffectual attempts, Selkirk, as a last resort, decided to encircle Marimonda with the noose of the lasso, and, by a gesture, to send her towards those heights where he was so impatient to join her.

She departs, dragging after her the chain, of which he holds the other extremity: this chain, the only bridge thrown for him between the abyss and the port of safety, between life and death!

With what anxiety he observes, studies its oscillations! Several times he draws it towards him, and each time, as if in reply to his summons, Marimonda suddenly re-appears at the brow of the precipice, preparing to re-descend; but he repulses her with his voice and gestures, and when these methods are insufficient,—when Marimonda, exhausted with lassitude, seated on the verge of the tunnel, persists in remaining motionless, he has recourse to projectiles. To compel her to second him in his work, the possible realization of which he himself scarcely comprehends, he throws at her some fragments of stone detached from his rocky wall, and even the remains of that repast for which he is indebted to her. Even when she is at a distance, informed by the movements of the lasso of the direction she has taken, he pursues her still.

Suddenly the cord tightens in his hand. He pulls again, he pulls with force; the cord resists! Fire mounts to his brain; his sluggish blood is quickened; his heart and temples beat violently; his fever returns, but only to restore to him, at this decisive moment, his former vigor. He hastily digs new steps in the interstices of the rock; with his hands suspending himself to the lasso, assisted by his feet, by his knees, sometimes turning, grasping the projecting roots, the angles of his wall, he at last reaches the top of the cliff.

Suddenly he feels the lasso stretch, as if about to break; a mist passes over his eyes: his head becomes dizzy, the cord escapes his grasp. But, by a mechanical movement, he has seized one of the highest projections of the tunnel, he holds it, he climbs,—he is saved.

And during this perilous ascension, absorbed in the difficulties of the undertaking, attentive to himself alone, staggering, with a buzzing sound in his ears, he has not heard a sorrowful, lamentable moaning, not far from him.

Dragging hither and thither after her the rope of leather and fibre of aloes, Marimonda, rather, doubtless, by chance than by calculation, had enlaced it around the trunk of the same tree which the night before, during the storm, had agitated its dishevelled branches above the deep couch of the dying man. This trunk had served as a point of resistance; but, during the tension, the unfortunate monkey, with her breast against the tree, had herself been caught in the folds of the lasso.

When Selkirk arrives, he finds her extended on the ground, blood and foam issuing from her mouth, and her eyes starting from their sockets. Kneeling beside her, he loosens the bonds which still detain her. Excited by his presence, Marimonda makes an effort to rise, but immediately falls back, uttering a new cry of pain.

With his heart full of anguish, taking her in his arms, Selkirk, not without a painful effort, not without being obliged to pause on the way to recover his strength, carries her to the dwelling on the shore.

This shore he finds deserted and in confusion.

Deprived of their daily nourishment during the prolonged absence of their master, the goats have made a passage through the inclosure, by gnawing the still green foliage which imprisoned them; the hurricane of the night has overthrown the rest. Before leaving, they had ravaged the garden, destroyed the promises of the approaching harvest, and devoured even the bark of the young trees. The cats have followed the goats. Selkirk has before his eyes a spectacle of desolation; his props, his trellises, the remains of his orchard, of his inclosure, of his shed, a part even of the roof of his cabin, strew the earth in confusion around him.

But it is not this which occupies him now. He has prepared for Marimonda a bed beside his own; he takes care of her, he watches over her, he leaves her only to seek in the woods, or on the mountains, the herb which may heal her; he brings all sorts, and by armfuls, that she may choose;—does she not know them better than himself?

As she turns away her head, or repulses with the hand those which he presents, he thinks he has not yet discovered the one she requires, and though still suffering, though himself exhausted by so many varying emotions, he re-commences his search, to summon the entire island to the assistance of Marimonda. From each of his trees he borrows a branch; from his bushes, his rocks, his streams—a plant, a fruit, a leaf, a root! For the first time he ventures across the pajonals—spongy marshes formed by the sea along the cliffs, and where, beneath the shade of the mangroves, grow those singular vegetables, those gelatinous plants, endowed with vitality and motion. At sight of all these remedies, Marimonda closes her eyes, and reopens them only to address to her friend a look of gratitude.

The only thing she accepts is the water he offers her, the water which he himself holds to her lips in his cocoa-nut cup.

During a whole week, Selkirk remains constantly absorbed in these cares, useless cares!—Marimonda cannot be healed! In her breast, bruised by the folds of the lasso, exists an important lesion of the organs essential to life, and from time to time a gush of blood reddens her white teeth.

'What!' said Selkirk to himself, 'she has then accompanied me on this corner of earth only to be my victim! To her first caress I replied only by brutality; the first shot I fired in this island was directed against her. I pursued for a long time, with my thoughtless and stupid hatred, the only being who has ever loved me, and who to-day is dying for having saved me from that precipice from which I drove her with blows of stones! Marimonda, my companion, my friend,—no! thou shalt not die! He who sent thee to me as a consolation will not take thee away so soon, to leave me a thousand times more alone, more unhappy, than ever! God, in clothing thee with a form almost human, has undoubtedly given thee a soul almost like ours; the gleam of tenderness and intelligence which shines in thine eyes, where could it have been lighted, but at that divine fire whence all affection and devotion emanate? Well! I will implore Him for thee; and if He refuse to hear me, it will be because He has forgotten me, because He has entirely forsaken me, and I shall have nothing more to expect from His mercy!'

Falling then upon his knees, with his forehead upon the ground, he prays God for Marimonda.

Meanwhile, from day to day the poor invalid grows weaker; her eyes become dim and glassy; her limbs frightfully emaciated, and her hair comes off in large masses.

One evening, exhausted with fatigue, after having wrapped in a covering of goat-skin Marimonda, who was in a violent fever, Selkirk was preparing to retire to rest; she detained him, and, taking his hand in both of hers, cast upon him a gentle and prolonged look, which resembled an adieu.

He seated himself beside her on the ground.

Then, without letting go his hand, she leaned her head on her master's knee, and fell asleep in this position. Selkirk dares not stir, for fear of disturbing her repose. Insensibly sleep seizes him also.

In the morning when he awakes, the sun is illuminating the interior of his cabin; Marimonda remains in the same attitude as the evening before, but her hands are cold, and a swarm of flies and mosquitoes are thrusting their sharp trunks into her eyes and ears.

She is a corpse.

Selkirk raises her, uttering a cry, and, after having cast an angry look towards heaven, wipes away two tears that trickle down his cheeks.

Thou thoughtest thyself insensible, Selkirk, and behold, thou art weeping!—thou, who hast more than once seen, with unmoistened eye, men, thy companions, in war or at sea, fall beneath a furious sword, or under the fire of batteries! Among the sentiments which honor humanity, which elevate it notwithstanding its defects, thou hadst preserved at least thy confidence in God and in his mercy, Selkirk, and to-day thou doubtest both!

Why dost thou weep? why dost thou distrust God?

Because thy monkey is dead!