Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1890 — ALEXANDER SELKIRK. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALEXANDER SELKIRK.

OTHERWISE KNOWN AS ROBINSON CRUSOE. Th© Tru© Story of th* Keal Castaway—A Very Different Thins: from I>e Foe’s Tale —ln erecting Facts About th© Island of Juan Fernandez.

F all the thousands iof boys who have I read the cnchantI ing pages of “Robi nI son Crusoe,” there is probably not one who has not asked: Is it true? And it >i s also probable that not one out of ten thousand who I asked that question •received an approximately intelligent j answer. I To gratify my ow n curiosity, I have made considerable research

among records which relate to Alexander Selkirk, whose solitary sojourn upon the island of Juan Fernandez furnished the nucleus for the most famous tale of adventure which the world has ever read, and can but think that many who have asked themselves the question, how much of Robinson Crusoe is true? will find interest and pleasure in a brief statement of the facts of the strange career of the Scottish sailor who served as Daniel Defoe’s “original” Robinson Crusoe. Selkirk’s birthplace was in the little seaport town, Largo, county of Fife, Scotland, and the year of his birth 1676, and hero he spent the first thirteen years of his life. According to an ancient Scottish superstition, a seventh son, born without an intervening daughter, was bound to be a favorito of fate, and would become a great man. As the circumstances of Alexander’s birth met all the requirements of the tradition, it is not strange that Mrs. Selkirk secretly nursed largo hopes for her seventh lad, notwithstanding the fact that her husband John, a hard, practical, and high-tempered old shoemaker, held such dreams to be nonsense, and determined that Alexander should settle down to the shoemaker’s bench, and learn a quiet, honest trade. Thus Alexander and his future became a bone of contention between the hard, unloving, and sometimes cruel, old Scotchman and his gentle, shrinking wife, whose heart was full of dreams for her pet son. This unfortunate state of family feeling could have but one result: it made Alexander disobedient, headstrong, and discontented with life and all its wholesome restraints and occupations and made him determined to break away and enter upon the great career before him. By the time Alexander reached the age of nineteen, ho had acquired a fair knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic, and considerable Information concerning navigation, together with a wellmerited reputation for being a wild boy. In England and Scotland the records of the churches wore carefully kept and preserved, and in the Presbyterian Church, in which John Selkirk was an “elder,” is the following entry: “August 25, 1695. Alexander Selcraig, son of John Selcraig, Elder, cited to appear before the session for indedent conduct in church.” This “indecent conduct” seems to have been laughing aloud. Two days later another entry was made: “August 27th. Alexander Selcraig called out; did not appear, having gone ; to sea. Continued until his return.” The citation appoars to have been thoroughly outlawed, for, according to an old Scottish narrative, Alexander spent tho next six years scouring the southern seas with buccaneers, who were a sort of semi-legalized pirates.' But when he did return Alexander made up in misconduct for all time lost during Ids absence. He quarreled with a half-witted brother and pounded him with a stick. For this he was sentenced by the sessions of the church to stand up and face the whole Sabbath congregation of the church —as humiliating a punishment as the church dignitaries knew how to inflict upon a young man of spirit. But young Selkirk took this bitter medicine with brazen stoicism. This was in November, 1701; and the next year found him in England, booked for eea under the standard of Dumpier, ono of the most celebrated characters in all the annals of buccaneering. Franco and Spain were then at war with England and other northern countries, and Dampicr secured permission from the crown to prey upon French and Spanish merchantmen and colonies. Wealthy London gentleinou furnished hint with two twenty-six gun vessels, Fame and St. George. Dampicr ltad associated with him a man named Pulling, who was to command the former vessel. Just as they were ready to set out upon their plundering expedition, Pulling and Dumpier quarreled, and the former sailed away, to unknown shores, with the Fame, and left Dumpier to secure another vessel. This ho did. She was called the Cinque Ports, and was officered as follows: “Charles Pickering, Captain; Thomas Stradling. Lieutenant; Alexander Selkirk, Sailing Master. ” Tho treachery of Pulling, and the delay which resulted, caused Dumpier to miss the capture of certain Spanish galleons, with their millions of treasures,

which lie had planned to take at Bueno! Ayres. As all concerned in the expedition were to share in the spoils, In accordance with their station, this result of Dampicr's quarrel made the crew dissatisfied with his iuanage-

ment-of the expedition, and at the island of Lo Grand, where tho vessels put in for repairs and supplies, nine of the men deserted But this was not the worst misfortune. Pickering, commander of the Cinque Ports, died here, and was succeeded by Lieutenant Stradling, who

was cordially hated by the entire crew. To add to the general discontent, Selkirk dreamed that the voyage was to be ill-fated, and in those days dreams counted for much more than they do now. After some three months of bootless and storm-tossed sailing, the Cinque Ports put into a bay of tho island of Juan Fernandez to wood and repair

Tho discontent among the crews ran high, and would probably have resulted in outright mutiny while on the island, had not a French vessel hove in sight. In tho haste and confusion of giving her chase, five or six of the sailors who had strayed Into the interior of the island were left behind, but Selkirk wai not ono of them. After a severe engagement, the French merchantman managed to escape. They turned about and wore going to put into the bay at Juan Fernandez again, when they discovered two immense French vessels, heavily gunned, at anchor there. Tho pirate crafts lost no timo.in put-

ting leagues between them and tho French vessels and the six of their own men whom they had left behind. After this the Cinque Ports had varying fortunes, until she again dropped anchor at Juan Fernandez. September, 1704, to find that four of the men whom they had left behind six months before had been captured by the French, and tho other two had spent six mo:rths in the wild pleasures of seal and goat hunting. fishing and indolence, living on the abundant fruits of the island. While these men had been enjoying innocent ease and a life devoid of care, as their account of their sojourn pictured, Selkirk had been beset by wars “without and within,” and when not in the midst of scones of bloodshed, ho had been engaged in a bitter feud with his brutal commander, and surrounded by the strifes and dissensions of the crew. In a moment of blind and desperate longing to escape from all this strife, Selkirk asked to be left behind, with his scanty effects, upon the island. But no sooner had his request been granted, and tho ship about to hoist anchor, than a full sense of his folly and tho maddening realization of his desolation and peril came over him, and he cried and entreated with outstretched hands to be taken aboard. One narative says that he even rushed into the sea as far as he could go, and stood gazing out after tho retreating ship until the darkness began to settle down about him; and that as the vessel set sail, the revengeful Stradling stqod on dock aud laughed at poor Selkirk’s calamity. For many days the half-crazcd man staid by his sea chest and bundles on the beach, hoping against hope that the vessel might return, tormented by all the superstitions concerning spirits-aiid specters, with which the sailors are familiar. Not until liis forces were well nigh exhausted would he'<Juit the beach ana take food other than,sea lion flesh and clams, which he could get on the sliqre. . The exhaustion which followed this feaful strain sfeemed to taum and

his wild spirit and bring into his whole after-life a gentleness which had been entirely wanting before. An invoice of his possessions show.! him to have taken from the ship “bedding, clothing, a firelock, a pound ol gunpowder, bullets, flint and steel, several pounds of tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a flip can, a Bible, some books on devotion and one or two books on navigation, and some mathematical instruments.” He built himself two huts of pimento wood, and ono narrative, not authentic, however, gives a description of his cave, which is not mentioned in the most trustworthy account. Selkirk found an abundance of tropical fruits on his island, and also numoroiiiPwats, cats, and goats—but no savages. \ For ncarlwrtwo years Selkirk kept quite closely to the beach and watched for a friendly sail; but gradually he became more and more content with his solitary lot, and found a joy in the quiet round of the days, which lie spent in chasing the wild goats and domesticating them, taming cats, adding to his comforts, reading his Bible, and praying aloud. Although he several times caught sight of a sail upon the distant horizon, only two ships ever dropped anchor in his harbor previous to his deliverance, which occurred at 2 o’clock, on the afternoon of January 31, 1709. These ships wore both Spanish vessels, and would have carried him into a fearful slavery had he been indiscreet enough to have

made known his presence before satisfying himself of their nationality. But despite Ill's caution, he was, on one of these occasions, discovered and • based, and would probably have been taken had it not been for his superior swiftness of foot. On the 31st of January, 1709, after Selkirk had been on tho island four years and about three months, he watched the ships, the Duke and the Duchess, ride into his little harbor and send boats ashore. He knew the men to he Englishmen, and hastened to welcome them. At first they were shocked by his strange appearance, but soou learned his story and took him aboard the Duke, on which Dampicr, whose great expedition had turned out disastrously, was acting as pilot. On Dam pier's recommendation Selkirk was appointed mate and gained a fortune from the Spanish vessels which they captured in the next four years. in 1712 he returned scciotly to Largo, and was sitting in the old church when discovered by his aged and devoted mother, whose affection was too strong to be suppressed, even in the gaze of the whole kirkful of neighbors. Here, in his native town, Selkirk lived for some three years, spending most of his time in solitary rambles about the wildest Scottish glens in his country, or in sailing alone along the rugged shore, shunning human society and sighing for the solitude of his peaceful isle. Not all of his rambles, liowevwfj were entirely solitary. He occasionally fell in with a lass who was tending her mother’s cow, and finally fell in love with her, and persuaded her to go with him, secretly, to London, where it is supposed they lived together until her death. In 1724 Francos Candis, a fashionable woman, came to Largo to prove her rigiit to Selkirk’s property, under a will, dated Dec. 12, 1720. She also proved her marriage with Selkirk, and his death, In 1723, on board the Weymouth, of which he was Lieutenant. If any reader of this sketch should chance to be in Edinburgh, he may, by going to the “Museum of the Society of Antiquaries,” see the chest which contained Alexander Selkirk’s sole possessions when ho was set on his island, and also the

cocoanut shell Which there served as his drinking cup. The island has sjneebeen peopled with Spanish colonists, devastated by an earthquake, used by Chili as a convict colony, and is now deserted, but as beautiful as the most charming scenes described in the ideal “Robinson Crusoe.” Fokkest Cbissey. Geneva, 111. I 5. An lowa man named his boy Twice, so that lightning wouldn’t strike him in the same spot. 1 .

ABANDONED.

A RACE FOR LIFE.

CRUSOE AND HIS PETS.

CRUSOE AT HIS DEVOTIONS.