THE ORIGINAL CRUSOE. Captain Rogers's Account of Finding the Castaway.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 372, 29 May 1889, Page 6

THE ORIGINAL CRUSOE. Captain Rogers' s Account of Finding the Castaway.

• He [Alexander Selkiik, found in 1709 on the island of Juan Fernandez, by Captain Woodes Rogers] bold us he was born at Largo, in the country of Fife, Scotland, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left here was a difference betwixt him and his captain. When left he had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets andtobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, some practical pieces, and his mathematical instruments and books. ' He built two huts with piemento trees, covered them with long grass andlined them with the skins of goats, which he killed with his gun as he wanted, so long as his powder lasted, which was but a pound, and that being hear spent, he gob fire by rubbing two sticks of piemento wood together on his knees. In the lessor hut, at some distance from the other, he dressed his victuals and in the large he slept and employed himself in reading, singing Psalms and in praying, so that he said he was a better Christian while in this solitude than ever he was before, or than he was afraid he should ever be again. At first he never ate anything till hunger constrained him, partly for grief and partly for want of bread and salt ; nor did he go to bed till he could watch no longer. He might have fish enough, bub could not eat 'em, as, for want of salt they made him ill, except crayfish, which there are as large a3 lobsters and very pood. ' He kept an account of 500 goats that he kileld while there, and caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let go. When his powder failed he took them by speed of foot ; for his .way of living and continued exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross humours, so that he ran with wonderful swiftness through the woods and up the rocks and hills, as we perceived when we employed him to catch goats for us. We had a bulldog, which we sent, with several of our nimblest runners, to help him catch goats ; but he distanced and tired both the dog and men, catched the goats, and brought 'em to us on his back. His feet became so hard that he run everywhere without annoyance, and it was some time before he could wear shoes after we found him. * * * ' He was at first much pestered with cats and rats, that bred in great numbers from some which had got ashore from ships that put in there to wood and water. The rats knawed hirf feeb and clothes while asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats with goats' flesh, by which many of them became so tame that they' would lie about him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the" rats. He likewise tamed some kids, j and to divert himself would now and then sing and dance with them and his cats. At his first coming on board us he had so much forgot his language for want of use that we could scarce understand him, for he seemed to speak his words by halves.' — ' Life Aboard a British Privateer. 5