WOODES ROGERS’S NARRATIVE, 641

the middle bay is by much the best. We guessed there had been ships
there, but that they were gone on sight of us. We sent our yawl ashore
about noon, with Captain Dover, Mr. Fry, and six men, all armed; mean-
while, we and the Duchess kept turning to get in, and such heavy flaws came
off the land, that we were forced to let go our topsail sheet, keeping all
‘hands to stand by our sails, for fear of the winds carrying them away. But,
when the flaws were gone, we had little or no wind. These flaws proceeded
from the land, which is very high in the middle of the island. Our boat did
not return; we sent our pinnace, with the men armed, to see what was the
occasion of the yawl’s stay; for we wére afraid that the Spaniards had a
garrison there, and might have seized them. We put out a signal for our
boat, and the Duchess showed a French ensign. Immediately our pinnace
returned from the shore, and brought abundance of cray-fish, with a man
clothed in goats’ skins, who looked wilder than the first owners of them.
He had been on the island four years and four months, being left there by
Captain Stradling in the Cinque Ports. His name was Alexander Selkirk, a
Scotchman, who had been master of the Cinque Ports, a ship that came here
last with Captain Dampier, who told me that this'was the best man in her.
I immediately agreed with him to be a mate on board our ship. It was he
that made the fire last night when he saw our ships, which he judged to be
English. During his stay here he saw several ships pass by, but only two
came to anchor. As he went to view them, he found them to be Spaniards,
and retired from them, upon which they shot at him. Had they been French
he would have submitted; but chose to risk his dying alone on the island
rather than fall into the hands of Spaniards in these parts; because he ap-
preliended they would murder him, or make a slave of him in the mines;
for he feared they would spare no stranger that might be capable of dis-
covering the South Seas.

The Spaniards had landed before he knew what they were, and they came
so near him that he had much ado to escape: for they not only shot at him,
but pursued him through the woods, where he climbed to the top of a tree,
at the foot of which they killed several goats just by, but went off again

_ without discovering him. He told us that he was born in Scotland, and was
bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left there was a dif-
ference between him and his captain; which, together with the ship’s being
leaky, made him willing rather to stay here than go along with him at first ;
but when he was at last willing to go, the captain would not receive him. He
had been at the island before, to wood and water, when two of the ship’s
company were left upon it for six months, till the ships returned, being
chased thence by two French South Seaships. He had with him his clothes
and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets, and tobacco, a hatchet, a
knife, a kettle, a Bible, some practical pieces, and his mathematical instru-
ments and books. He diverted and provided for himself as well as he could ;
but, for the first eight months;had much ado to bear up against melancholy,