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is a fair substantial cave, it can not be compared for a moment with the cave which Crusoe had on his own island, and which he enlarged with so much perseverance. [Illustration] 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: In memory of Alexander Selkirk, Mariner, a native of Largo, in the County of Fife, Scotland, who lived on this island in complete solitude for four years and four months. He was landed from the _Cinque Ports_ galley, 96 tons, 16 guns, A.D. 1704, and was taken off in the _Duke_ privateer, 12th February, 1709. He died Lieutenant of H. M. S. _Weymouth_, A.D. 1722, aged 47 years. This tablet is erected near Selkirk's Look-out by Commodore Powell and the officers of H. M. S. _Topaz_, A.D. 1868. As there is excellent water at Juan Fernandez, vessels occasionally touch there to fill their casks, but it has no regular communication with the rest of the world. Of course Juan Fernandez will always continue to be called Robinson Crusoe's island, though it is certain that Crusoe was never within three or four thousand miles of it. As for the unbelieving people who pretend that Robinson Crusoe never lived, nobody should listen to them for a moment. There never was anybody more thoroughly real than Robinson Crusoe. Selkirk was not half so real; and in comparison with the shipwrecked mariner of Hull, Julius Caesar was grossly
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