6386 ALONE ON THE ISLAND.

At first he not unnaturally suffered from a severe dejection of spirit. He
never tasted food until compelled by hunger, but sat on a projecting rock,
with his eyes fixed on the wide blue sea, as if in expectation of the return
of his comrades. But by degrees this lethargic melancholy wore off; and
though his days were rendered heavy by the oppressive sense of solitude
which weighed upon him, and his nights disturbed by the startling sounds
of trees and rocks crashing down from the distant heights, he began to gain
a sense of self-reliance, and a spirit of patient endurance. His early training
under religious parents proved, too, of great advantage, and he recalled the
lessons of God’s goodness and watchful providence which he had learned in
his youth, but for many years had neglected or despised. As winter
approached, he felt the necessity of providing himself with some shelter
against the weather, and this still further roused him from his despondency,
for work is a constant source of cheerfulness and courage. He erected a
couple of huts with the wood of the pimento-tree, and roofed them with a
kind of grass that grows to the height of seven or eight feet upon the plains
and valley slopes, and produces a straw resembling that of oats. One was
much larger than the other, and situated near a spacious wood. This he
made his sleeping-room, and in it he erected a rough kind of bed, covered
with goats’ skins. He also used it as a chapel, or oratory; and every night
and morning he sung a psalm, read a portion of Scripture, and prayed
devoutly.

His smaller hut was his kitchen. Its “ fittings’? were necessarily rude,
for they were of his own manufacture ; but they answered his purpose as
well as a more costly equipment. Around his dwelling he kept a flock of
goats, remarkably tame. which he captured when young, and lamed, so as
to diminish their speed without injuring their health. These formed his
“reserve,” to be drawn upon in case of illness, or any unforeseen accident.
For present supplies, he caught his goats by sheer speed of foot.

He occasionally amused himself by cutting upon the trees his name, and
the date when he was left on the island; evidently with the hope, that when
he should have terminated his solitary life, some future navigator might
learn, from these rude memorials, that Alexander Selkirk had lived and died
upon the island. On Lord Anson’s visit to Juan Fernandez, however, in
1741, he was unable to find one of these names or dates upon any of the
trees.

"Dito following description of the island is from the pen of Lord Anson’s
chaplain, who wrote the published narrative of that illustrious seaman’s
circumnavigation of the world :— :

“The woods which covered most of the steepest hills were free from all
bushes and underwood, and offered an easy passage through every part of
them ; and the irregularities of the hills and precipices in the northern part
of the island necessarily traced, by their various combinations, a great
number of romantic valleys, most of which had a stream of the clearest water