The indigenous Brazilian women are very fruitful, and have easy labours, on which occasion they retire into the woods, and bring forth alone, and return home after washing themselves and their child; the husbands lying a-bed for the first twenty-four hours, being treated as if they had endured the pains of child-birth. The Tapoyers, who inhabit the inland country to the west, are the most barbarous of the natives, being taller and stronger than any of the other tribes, and indeed than most Europeans. They wear, by way of ornament, little sticks thrust through their cheeks and underlips, and are said to be cannibals, using poisoned arrows and darts. They live chiefly by hunting and fishing, shifting their habitations according to the seasons. Their kings, or chiefs, are distinguished by a particular manner of shaving their crowns, and by wearing their nails very long. Their priests are sorcerers, making the people believe that the devils appear to them in the form of certain insects, and they perform their diabolical worship in the night, when the women make dismal howlings, in which consists their principal devotion. They allow polygamy, yet punish adultery with death. When the young women are marriageable, but not courted, their mothers carry them to the chiefs, who deflower them, and this is deemed a great honour. Some of these people were considerably civilized by the Dutch, while they possessed a part of Brazil, and did them good service under the conduct of their native chiefs.
Leaving Isla Grande on the 30th November, we continued our voyage far to the south, where we endured great cold, owing to which, a third part of both ships companies fell sick while passing round Cape Horn, for which reason we bore away for the island of Juan Fernandez, which we had some difficulty to find, owing to its being laid down differently in all the charts. Even Captain Dampier was much at a loss, though he had been there so often, and had as it were a map of the island in his head, which exactly agreed with it when we came there. This ought to induce sea-officers to prefer their own proper business to amusement, since, with all this knowledge, we were forced to make the main land of Chili, in order to find this island, and did not strike it at the last without considerable difficulty.
We arrived at the island of Juan Fernandez on the 1st February 1709, and having a good observation the day before, when we found our lat. 34° 10' S.[219] In the afternoon we hoisted out our pinnace, in which Captain Dover set off to go on shore, though not less than four leagues from the ship. As it grew dark, we observed a light on shore, which some were of opinion was from our boat, but it was evidently too large for that, and we hung up a light to direct our boat, firing our quarter-deck gun, and showing lights in our mizen and fore shrouds, that our boat might find us, as we had fallen to leeward of the island. Our boat came aboard again about two in the morning, having turned back on seeing the light ashore when within a league, and we were glad they had got off so well, as it now began to blow. We were all convinced that the light which we had seen was from the shore, and therefore prepared our ships for an engagement, supposing it might proceed from some French ships at anchor, which we must either fight or want water. All this stir and apprehension, as we afterwards found, arose from one poor man, who passed in our imaginations for a Spanish garrison, a body of Frenchmen, or a crew of pirates, and it is incredible what strange notions some of our people entertained about this light; yet it served to show their tempers and spirits, and enabled us to guess how our men would behave, in case there really were enemies on the island.
[Footnote 219: Juan Fernandez is in lat 33° 40' S. long. 79° W. Massa Faera, in the same latitude, is in long. 80° 50' W. from Greenwich.--E.]
While under these apprehensions, we stood to the back of the island in order to fall in with the southerly wind, till we were past the island. We then stood back for it again, and ran close aboard the land that begins to form its N.E. side. The flaws came heavy off the land, and we were forced to reef our top-sails when we opened the middle bay, where we expected to have found our enemy, but saw all clear, and no ships either there or in the other bay near the N.E. end. These are the only bays in which ships can ride that come here for refreshments, the middle one being the best. We now conjectured that there had been ships here, but that they had gone away on seeing us. About noon of the 2d February, we sent our yawl on shore, in which was Captain Dover, Mr Fry, and six men, all armed; and in the mean time we and the Duchess kept turning in, and such heavy squalls came off the land that we had to let fly our top-sail sheets, keeping all hands to stand by our sails, lest the winds should blow them away. These flaws proceed from the land, which is very high in the middle of the island; but when they passed by, we had little or no wind. As our yawl did not return, we sent the pinnace well armed, to see what had occasioned the yawl to stay, being afraid there might be a Spanish garrison on the island, who might have seized her and our men.
Even the pinnace delays returning, on which we put up a signal for her to come back, when she soon came off with abundance of cray-fish, bringing also a man cloathed in goat-skins, who seemed wilder than the original owners of his apparel. His name was Alexander Selkirk, a Scotsman, who had been left here by Captain Stradling in the Cinque-ports, and had lived alone on the island for four years and four months. Captain Dampier told me he had been master of the Cinque-ports, and was the best man in that vessel; so I immediately agreed with him to serve as a mate in the Duke. During his stay, he had seen several ships pass by, but only two came to anchor at the island, which he found to be Spaniards, and therefore retired from them, on which they fired at him, but he escaped into the woods. Had they been French, he would have surrendered to them; but chose rather to run the risk of dying alone on the island than fall into the hands of the Spaniards, as he suspected they would either put him to death, or make him a slave in their mines. The Spaniards had landed before he knew what they were, and came so near him that he had much ado to escape; for they not only shot at him, but pursued him into the woods, where he climbed up a tree, at the foot of which some of them made water, and killed several goats just by, yet went away without discovering him.
He told us that he was born in Largo, in the county of Fife in Scotland, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left here was a difference with Captain Stradling; which, together with the ship being leaky, made him at first rather willing to stay here than to continue in the ship; and when at last he was inclined to have gone, the captain would not receive him. He had been at the island before to wood and water, when two of the men were left upon it for six months, the ship being chased away by two French South-Sea ships; but the Cinque-ports returned and took them off, at which time he was left. He had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock and some powder and bullets, some tobacco, a knife, a kettle, a bible, with some other books, and his mathematical instruments. He diverted himself and provided for his sustenance as well as he could; but had much ado to bear up against melancholy for the first eight months, and was sore distressed at being left alone in such a desolate place. He built himself two huts of pimento trees, thatched with long grass, and lined with goat-skins, killing goats as he needed them with his gun, so long as his powder lasted, which was only about a pound at first. When that was all spent, he procured fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento wood together. He slept in his larger hut, and cooked his victuals in the smaller, which was at some distance, and employed himself in reading, praying, and singing psalms, so that he said he was a better Christian during his solitude than he had ever been before, or than, as he was afraid, he should ever be again.
At first he never ate but when constrained by hunger, partly from grief; and partly for want of bread and salt. Neither did he then go to bed till he could watch no longer, the pimento wood serving him both for fire and candle, as it burned very clear, and refreshed him by its fragrant smell. He might have had fish enough, but would not eat them for want of salt, as they occasioned a looseness; except cray-fish, which are as large as our lobsters, and are very good. These he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did his goat's flesh, of which he made good broth, for they are not so rank as our goats. Having kept an account, he said he had killed 500 goats while on the island, besides having caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let them go. When his powder failed, he run down the goats by speed of foot; for his mode of living, with continual exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross humours, so that he could run with wonderful swiftness through the woods, and up the hills and rocks, as we experienced in catching goats for us. We had a bull-dog, which we sent along with several of our nimblest runners to help him in catching goats, but he outstript our dog and men, caught the goats, and brought them to us on his back. On one occasion, his agility in pursuing a goat had nearly cost him his life: as, while pursuing it with great eagerness, he caught hold of it on the brink of a precipice, of which, he was not aware, being concealed by bushes, so that he fell with the goat down the precipice to a great depth, and was so bruised and stunned by the fall, that he lay senseless, as he supposed, for twenty-four hours, and when he recovered his senses found the goat dead under him. He was then scarcely able to crawl to his hut, about a mile distant, and could not stir out again for ten days.
He came at length to relish his meat well enough without bread and salt. In the proper season he had plenty of good turnips, which had been sowed there by Captain Dampier's men, and had now spread over several acres of ground. He had also abundance of cabbage, from the cabbage-palms, and seasoned his food with the fruit of the pimento, which is the same with Jamaica pepper, and has a fine flavour. He found also a species of black pepper, called malageta, which was good for expelling wind and curing gripes. He soon wore out all his shoes and other clothes, by running in the woods; and, being forced to shift without, his feet became so hard that he ran about every where without inconvenience, and it was some time after he came to us before he could wear shoes, as his feet swelled when he first began again to wear them. After he had got the better of his melancholy, he sometimes amused himself with carving his name on the trees, together with the date of his being left there, and the time of his solitary residence. At first he was much pestered with cats and rats, which had bred there in great numbers from some of each species which had got on shore from ships that had wooded and watered at the island. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes when he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats, by feeding them with goats flesh, so that many of them became so tame that they used to lie beside him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats. He also tamed some kids, and for his diversion would at times sing and dance with them and his cats: So that, by the favour of Providence and the vigour of his youth, for he was now only thirty years of age, he came at length to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to be quite easy in his mind.
When his clothes were worn out, he made himself a coat and a cap of goat skins, which he stitched together with thongs of the same, cut out with his knife, using a nail by way of a needle or awl. When his knife was worn out, he made others as well as he could of some old hoops that had been left on the shore, which he beat out thin between two stones, and grinded to an edge on a smooth stone. Having some linen cloth, he sewed himself some shirts by means of a nail for a needle, stitching them with worsted, which he pulled out on purpose from his old stockings, and he had the last of his shirts on when we found him. At his first coming on board, he had so much forgotten his language, for want of use, that we could scarcely understand him, as he seemed to speak his words only by halves. We offered him a dram, which he refused, not having drank any thing but water all the time he had been on the island, and it was some time before he could relish our provisions. He could give us no farther account of the productions of the island than has been already, except that there were some very good black plums, but hard to come at, as the trees which bear them grow on high mountains and steep rocks. There are many pimento trees, some of them being sixty feet high and two yards round; and we saw cotton trees still higher, and near four fathoms round the stems. The climate is excellent, and the trees and grass are quite verdant the whole year. The winter lasts no longer than June and July, and is not then severe, there being then only slight frosts and a little hail, but sometimes very great rains. The heat of summer is equally moderate, and there is not much thunder or tempestuous weather. He saw no venomous, or savage creature on the island, nor any other beasts besides goats, bred there from a few brought by Juan Fernandez, a Spaniard, who settled there with a few families, till the continent of Chili began to submit to the Spaniards when they removed to that country as more profitable. This island, however, might maintain a good many people, and is capable of being made so strong that they could not be easily dislodged.