The island belongs to Chili, and more than a hundred years ago the Chilian government sent convicts to Juan Fernandez as a punishment. A fort was built, which has now crumbled away, and cells were dug in the solid rock on the side of a hill, and the convicts were locked up in them every night. The convicts, not liking their treatment, rebelled, killed their guards, and seizing on a vessel that had visited the island, escaped to Peru. Since then Juan Fernandez, or Mas-a-tierra, as the Chilians call it, has been inhabited by a few Chilian farmers, who raise, with very little labor, food enough to live on. They also catch fish, which they send to the mainland, and at certain seasons of the year they kill large quantities of seals, which frequent a little rocky island half a mile from Juan Fernandez. At the present time the island is governed by a Mr. Rhode, who rents it from the Chilian government, and proposes to raise quantities of cattle.
In 1868 the British man-of-war Topaz touched at Juan Fernandez, and her officers erected an iron tablet in honor of Selkirk. It bears the following inscription: