ABOUT ROBINSON CRUSOE.

N°? book -ever written has been more read than

Robinson Crusoe. It first appeared in 1719,
and was soon translated inte French, German, and
other languages. Yet at first the writer had much
difficulty in persuading any bookseller to look at his
story. Atlasta publisher, named Taylor, bought the
work, and gained a thousand pounds by his bargain.
The Rev. James Stanier Clarke, from whose pages
‘our extracts are chiefly made, tells us he found
Robinson Crusoe by the bedside of the Archduke of
Austria.

It is generally supposed that Defoe wrote Robinson
Crusoe, and he was led to do so by reading the true
story of Alexander Selkirk, a sailor who lived alone
on the island of Juan Fernandez for four years and
four months. The story of Alexander Selkirk was
first made public by Captain Rogers in 1712, so that
it appeared seven years before Robinson Crusoe first
came out. Captain Rogers visited the island of Juan
Fernandez in February, 1709, and there he found
Selkirk, a strange, wild-looking man, clothed in goat-
skins. This man said he was a Scotchman, Alex-
ander Selkirk by name, and born at Largo, in the
county of Fife. Whilst navigating the ocean in the
ship Cingue Ports, he and the captain -had a
quarrel, which led to Selkirk going ashore on the
island, and remaining there. He was provided with
clothes and bedding; with a gun, powder, bullets;
with a hatchet and knife; with a kettle and compass ;
with a Bible and a few other books.

He built two huts, and covered them with long
grass and lined them with goat-skins. He managed
to get fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento wood
together on his knee. In one hut he cooked his
food, in the other he slept. He employed much of
his time in reading, singing psalms, and praying ; so
that he said, ‘I was a better Christian on my lone
island than I had ever been before.’

‘Selkirk could get plenty of fish, but none of it
agreed with him except crawfish, which was about as
big as a lobster, and very good. When his powder
was all spent he caught the goats by speed of foot.
Once he nearly lost his life in chasing a goat, for he
caught hold of it on the brink of a precipice, and he
and the goat fell over together. When he came to
his senses he found the goat lying under him, and
quite dead. He could not stir from the spot for
twenty-four hours, but managed then to crawl to his
hut. Very soon, with so much running, his shoes
wore out, but he managed very well without them,
his feet becoming quite hard, and swelling much
when he first began to wear shoes again.

The cats and vats were very troublesome at first,
for the rats used to gnaw. his feet and the cats were
thieves ; but he tamed the cats by kindness, and they
drove the yats away. When the cats got to know
him they would lie about him in hundreds, and he
would sometimes sing and dance with them. He
also had tame kids playing near him. When his
clothes were worn out he made others of goat-skins,
his only needle being a nail. When his knife was
worn out he made another out of an iron hoop,
which he ground sharp on a stone.

When he was found by Captain Rogers he had

_ habited an island where the weather was mild.

 

 

nearly forgotten his language, and seemed to speak
by halves.

It was lucky for Alexander Selkirk that he in-
The
trees and grass were green all the year round. The
winter, such as it was, lasted through June and July,
when there were great rains, but not much frost.
The summer was not extremely hot—there was very
little thunder and lightning; and happily, also, the
rats were the worst creatures on the island. No
serpent hissed and stung, no wild beast glared at him
with its eyes of fire. The goats had been put on
the island by a Spaniard, who lived there with some
families for a time, but who afterwards went to the
mainland of Chili.

In October, 1711, Selkirk set foot again on his native
shore, and he found he had reason to be thankful,
for the Cinque Ports ran aground a few months
after he had been left on the island, and the captain
and crew fell into the hands of some Spaniards, who
used them very cruelly. After his return, Selkirk
often said the world and all its enjoyments could not
restore to him the peace of his lonely life on the island.

‘T am now,’ said he, ‘worth eight hundred pounds,
but I shall never be so happy as when I was not
worth a farthing.’

This true story of Alexander Selkirk is supposed
to have given rise to that wonderful book, Robinson
Crusoe. Some persons have said Robinson Crusoe
was not all written by Defoe, but that the first and
best part was composed by the Earl of Oxford, when
confined in the Tower of London ; and the Earl, it is
said, gave the manuscript to Defoe, who often used
to visit him; and Defoe, having afterwards written
a second volume, published the whole. The second
part is much less interesting than the first. Thou-
sands read the first part, hut very few read the second.

The island of Juan Fernandez is six leagues long
and three across. It is all hills and valleys, ap-
pearing at a distance very mountainous, ragged, and
irregular, ‘As you get near,’ says Commodore
Anson, ‘the broken, craggy precipices are found
to be covered with woods, and between them
are everywhere valleys, clothed with a most beau-
tiful verdure, and watered with numerous springs
and cascades. Those only who have endured
thirst can judge of the pleasure with which we eyed
a large cascade of the most transparent water, which
poured itself from a rock, near a hundred feet high,
into the sea, at a small distance from our ship. Kven
the sick, who had long been confined to their ham-
mocks, crawled on to the deck, and feasted their eyes
with this prospect.’

At the time when this seasonable supply refreshed
the scurvy-stricken sailors, Anson and his crew, in
the Centurion, had just met with many misfortunes
on the coast of South America. A hurricane had
split the sails and broken the rigging, and a ‘ moun-
tainous, overgrown sea,’ had given the ship almost its
death-blow. Thus, all but foundering, almost without
water, men dying at the rate of four, five, and six a-day,
and greatly dejected, how sweet was it to anchor in
Cumberland Bay, within sight of those hills and
valleys where Alexander Selkirk, the real Robinson
Crusoe, lived so long aloné, and though alone, so
happily ! GEORGE S. OuTRAM.