CHAPTER XXIV.
CONFIDENTIAL CHAT WITH THE READER.
SCENERY OF JUAN FERNANDEZ
Now that we have finished our ramble together, and formed something of a speaking acquaintance, I hope, my dear reader, that you will not take it amiss if I hold you a moment by the button, and say a word in confidence. It has been so long the custom of adventurers to speak now and then about themselves, that I assume the privilege without farther apology. If I have been so fortunate as to inspire you with a friendly interest in my behalf during our pleasant wanderings in the footsteps of Robinson Crusoe, I am sure you will be glad to learn that it has always been my greatest ambition to prove myself a worthy disciple of that distinguished adventurer. In this view I have, as you may have noticed, adhered to simple facts, and carefully avoided every thing that might be regarded in the light of fiction, though the temptation to indulge in occasional touches of romance was very difficult to resist. Indeed, so thoroughly have I striven to become imbued with the true spirit of Crusoeism, that much which I thought at first a little doubtful myself, now seems quite authentic; and I think, upon the whole, you may rely upon the truthfulness of my narrative. That I was near being lost in an open boat, with ten others, in trying to get ashore on the island of Juan Fernandez, I conscientiously believe; that we did get ashore, and sleep in caves and straw huts, and climb wonderful mountains, and explore enchanting valleys, I will insist upon to the latest hour of my life; that I have endeavored faithfully to describe the island as it appeared to me, and to give a true and reliable account of its present condition, climate, topography, and scenery, I affirm on the honor and veracity of a traveler; that in every essential particular it has been my aim to present a faithful picture of life in that remote little world, I will swear to on the best edition of Robinson Crusoe: more than that it would be unreasonable to expect. If, however, after this candid avowal, you still insist upon having a distinct and emphatic declaration in regard to any doubtful point, all I can say is, that, like the man who made a statement concerning the height of a certain horse, I am ready at all hazards to stick to whatever I said. If I spoke of a mountain as three thousand miles high instead of three thousand feet, why, in the name of peace, let it be three thousand miles; if I killed any savages, I am sorry for it, but they must remain dead—it is impossible to bring them to life now; if I put some of my own ideas into the heads of others, it must have been because I thought them better adapted to the subject than what those heads contained already, and I hold myself responsible for them; if at any time I imagined myself to be the original and genuine Crusoe, with a man in my service called Friday, I still adhere to it that no Crusoe more certain than he was himself ever existed upon that island; if, in short, there is any one point upon which I have hazarded the reputation of a veracious chronicler of actual events, or a faithful delineator of strange scenes in nature, I hereby declare that I shall most cheerfully return to Juan Fernandez in an open boat with any ten readers who desire to test the matter by ocular demonstration, and thus convince the most skeptical that I have not made a single unfounded assertion.
And now, in the hope that we may meet again, I wish to leave you a trifling souvenir by which to bear me in mind.
One of the sailors on board the Anteus was kind enough to make me a suit of clothes out of the goatskins that I bought of Pearce. He made them according to a pattern of my own, which I intend some day or other to introduce in the fashionable circles. I stowed them carefully away in my berth, but the rats took such a fancy to them that, by the time I reached California, there was nothing left but the tail of one goat upon which to hang a portrait; and I regret to say the accompanying sketch, taken from memory, affords but an imperfect conception of the suit as I originally appeared in it. I trust the apparent egotism of smuggling my likeness into print in a suit of goatskins, on the pretext of exhibiting the suit itself, will be excused by the absolute necessity of filling it up with something. At the same time, I must be permitted to observe that the stiffness is in the material and not in the person of the author.
THE AUTHOR À LA ROBINSON CRUSOE.