Once in safety, he turns
to contemplate that immense sea which, for an instant, he had wished
might be his tomb.

By the moonlight, he perceives as it were a long and slender chain,
which, gliding upon the crest of the waves, directs itself towards the
shore. By its form, by its copper color, by the multiplicity of its
rings, unfolding in the distance, Selkirk recognizes the sea-serpent,
that terror of navigators, as he has often heard it described.

The mind of the solitary is a perpetual mirage.

Filled with terror, he flies again; he conceals himself, trembling, in
the caverns of his mountains; he has become a coward; why should he
affect a courage he does not feel? No one is looking at him!

The next day, instead of the sea-serpent, he finds on the beach an
immense cryptogamia, a gigantic alga, of a single piece, divided into
a thousand cylindrical branches, and much superior to all those he has
observed in the Straits of Sunda. The rising tide had thrown it on the
shore.

While he examines it, he sees with surprise all sorts of birds come to
peck at it; coatis, agoutis, and even rats, come out of their holes,
boldly carrying away before his eyes fragments, whence issues a thick
and brown sap. Emboldened by their example, and especially by the
balsamic odor of the plant, he tastes it. It is sweet and succulent.

This plant is no other than that providential vegetable called by the
Spaniards _porro_, and which forms so large a part of the nourishment
of the poor inhabitants of Chili.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is the _Durvilloea utilis_, dedicated to Dumont
d'Urville, by Bory de St. Vincent, and classed by him in the
laminariees, an important and valuable family of marine cryptogamia.]

The sea, which had already sent Selkirk seals to furnish him with oil
and furs in a moment of distress, had just come to his assistance by
giving him an easily procured aliment for a long time.

Another surprise awaits him.

Between the interlaced branches of his alga, he discovers a little
bottle, strongly secured with a cork and wax. It contains a fragment
of parchment, on which are traced some lines in the Spanish language.

Although he is but imperfectly acquainted with this language, though
the characters are partially effaced or scarcely legible, Selkirk, by
dint of patience and study, soon deciphers the following words:

'In the name of the Holy Trinity, to you who may read'--(here some
words were wanting,)--'greeting.