United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The first land we made was Juan Fernandez, or, as we called it, Robinson Crusoe's Island, where he, or rather Alexander Selkirk, lived so long till rescued by the ship in which the veteran Dampier sailed as pilot. It is about three hundred miles west of Valparaiso, on the coast of Chili, very mountainous and rugged, but richly covered with vegetation.
When at length he was brought to trial, it was found impossible to convict him of any crime, and he was discharged. Subsequently Cameron entered a suit against Lord Selkirk for illegal detention, asking damages, and the court awarded him £3000.
Thomas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, was the youngest of seven sons, and was born in 1771. Though he belonged to one of the oldest noble families, of Scotland, yet when he went to Edinburgh, as a fellow student of Sir Walter Scott, Clerk of Eldon, and David Douglas, afterward Lord Reston, it was with a view of making his own way in the world, for there were older brothers between him and the Earldom.
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.
Accordingly, before finally setting out for Fort William, he begged Magistrate John Askin, of Drummond Island, and Magistrate Ermatinger, of Sault Ste Marie, to accompany him. But neither of these men could leave his duties. When Selkirk thus failed to secure disinterested judges, he determined to act under the authority with which he had been vested.
Reckoning by the number of his fingers, it was twenty or thirty years, and every one at first believed in the accuracy of his calculation, so completely did his forehead, furrowed with wrinkles, his skin blackened, withered by the sun, his hair whitened at the roots, his gray beard, give him the aspect of an old man. Selkirk was born in 1680; he was then only twenty-nine.
"Rin ye awa doun to Melrose, Daniel," said he, "an' I'll awa up to Selkirk, an' inquire for him, an' bring him back. Yer faither has allowed passion to get the better o' him, an' to owercome baith the man an' the Christian." "Run, Daniel, run!" cried Mary eagerly. And the old man and his son went out in search of him. Their inquiries were fruitless.
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.
The trail went by just beneath, but he did not descend to it. South toward Selkirk he could see the trail widen its sunken length through the snow for over a mile. But to the north, in the direction of Minto, a tree-covered out-jut in the bank a quarter of a mile away screened the trail from him. He seemed satisfied with the view and returned to the sled the way he had come.
The wind blows here generally off the shore, sometimes in heavy squalls, but for the most part calm, and where we were moored the water was very smooth, owing to the winding of the shore. Mr Selkirk told us it had never blown towards the land above four hours, all the time he had been there.
Word Of The Day