nvict station. A number of caves in which
the prisoners were kept, damp, unwholesome dens, are no longer in use,
and no more prisoners are sent to the island.

The pleasantest day I spent on the island, if not the pleasantest on
my whole voyage, was my last day on shore,--but by no means because it
was the last,--when the children of the little community, one and all,
went out with me to gather wild fruits for the voyage. We found
quinces, peaches, and figs, and the children gathered a basket of
each. It takes very little to please children, and these little ones,
never hearing a word in their lives except Spanish, made the hills
ring with mirth at the sound of words in English. They asked me the
names of all manner of things on the island. We came to a wild
fig-tree loaded with fruit, of which I gave them the English name.
"Figgies, figgies!" they cried, while they picked till their baskets
were full. But when I told them that the _cabra_ they pointed out was
only a goat, they screamed with laughter, and rolled on the grass in
wild delight to think that a man had come to their island who would
call a cabra a goat.

[Illustration: The man who called a cabra a goat.]

The first child born on Juan Fernandez, I was told, had become a
beautiful woman and was now a mother. Manuel Carroza and the good soul
who followed him here from Brazil had laid away their only child, a
girl, at the age of seven, in the little churchyard on the point. In
the same half-acre were other mounds among the rough lava rocks, some
marking the burial-place of native-born children, some the
resting-places of seamen from passing ships, landed here to end days
of sickness and get into a sailors' heaven.

The greatest drawback I saw in the island was the want of a school. A
class there would necessarily be small, but to some kind soul who
loved teaching and quietude life on Juan Fernandez would, for a
limited time, be one of delight.

On the morning of May 5, 1896, I sailed from Juan Fernandez, having
feasted on many things, but on nothing sweeter than the adventure
itself of a visit to the home and to the very cave of Robinson Crusoe.
From the island the _Spray_ bore away to the north, passing the island
of St. Felix before she gained the trade-winds, which seemed slow in
reaching their limits.

If the trades were tardy, however, when they did come they came with a
bang, and made up for lost time; and the _Spray_, under reefs,
sometimes one, s