difference between buccaneering and piracy without the help of a
large-sized compound microscope.

Selkirk remained all alone on the island for four years and four months,
when another English vessel took him off. When he reached home, he wrote
an account of his adventures, and very stupid people have since claimed
that Daniel Defoe, the author of the story of Crusoe's adventures, had
read Selkirk's book, and that it suggested to him the idea of inventing
Robinson Crusoe. To suppose that so great a man as Defoe could not write
a book without stealing his ideas from Alexander Selkirk is ridiculous.
Selkirk and Crusoe were as unlike as two men could well be. The only
resemblance between them was that both had lived alone on unfrequented
islands, as many other unfortunate men have done before and since.

We thus see how it came to pass that people have mixed up Selkirk's
island with Crusoe's island, and have finally convinced themselves that
Crusoe was wrecked on Juan Fernandez. Selkirk's island is firmly
believed by nearly everybody to have been Crusoe's island, though we
might just as well call it Smith's or Jones's island.

It must be admitted that Juan Fernandez is a beautiful island, with
every convenience that Crusoe could have wished for, except cannibals.
Selkirk, however, could do nothing with it. He did contrive to catch
goats by running after them until they were tired out, but he never
thought of taming them--fattening them on tomato cans--as Crusoe did. Of
course he never had a Man Friday, and he never built himself a canoe, or
periagua. In fact, he did very little that was creditable to him, and
there is only too much reason to believe that if he had seen a foot-step
on the sand, he would not have known that it was his duty to be terribly
frightened.

[Illustration]

Juan Fernandez is about sixteen miles long and five and a half miles
wide. The shore, especially on the northern side, is steep and rocky.
The interior is very picturesque, and contains several beautiful valleys
separated by high ridges. On the north side of the island is a very
steep mountain of lava, which is eight thousand feet high, the top of
which is said to be inaccessible. Part way up this mountain is the place
where Selkirk used to watch for passing vessels. In one of the valleys
there is a cave where Selkirk lived. It is thirty feet in length and
about twenty feet in breadth, with a ceiling of nearly twenty feet in
height. While it