Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 Part 3

Harry took the things out of the boat one by one. Everything was wet except the contents of the tin boxes, into which the water luckily had not penetrated. As soon as the fire was built, Jim and Joe gave their whole attention to drying the blankets and the spare clothing; and when the boat was emptied, it was found that a hole nearly six inches long and four inches wide had been made through one of the bottom planks.

Harry and Tom set to work to mend it. They took a piece of canvas--which had luckily been kept in one of the tin boxes, and was quite dry--and tacked it neatly over the outside of the hole.

They next covered the canvas with a thin coating of white lead, except at the edges, where the white lead was laid on very thickly. Over the canvas the piece of zinc that had been brought for just such a purpose was carefully tacked, and then thin strips of wood were placed over the edges of the tin, and screwed down tightly with screws that went through the zinc, but not through the canvas. Finally, white lead was put all around the outer edge of the zinc, and the boat was then left bottom-side up on the sand, so that the white lead could harden by exposure to the air.

n.o.body cared to go for milk in wet clothes; and so, when the boat was mended, the boys all sat around the fire to dry themselves, and made a supper of crackers. What with the heat and the wind, it was not very long before their clothes and blankets were thoroughly dried, and they could look forward to a comfortable night. The tent was pitched where no steamboat swell could possibly touch it, and the boat was apparently out of reach of the tide. It was very early when the boys "turned in," and for the first time in the cruise they slept peacefully all night.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE MANGOSTEEN.

FROM ADVANCE SHEETS OF "THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN THE FAR EAST." PART SECOND. BY THOMAS W. KNOX.

During their stay upon the island of Java, Dr. Bronson and his young travelling companions took a trip on a railway from Batavia to Buitenzorg, in order that they might learn something of the interior of the island. While on this trip the boys observed, among other things, that the trees in some instances grew quite close to the track. Doctor Bronson explained to them that in the tropics it was no small matter to keep a railway line clear of trees and vines, and sometimes the vines would grow over the track in a single night. It was necessary to keep men at work along the track to cut away the vegetation where it threatened to interfere with the trains, and in the rainy season the force of men was sometimes doubled. "There is one good effect," said he, "of this luxuriant growth. The roots of the vines and trees become interlaced in the embankment on which the road is built, and prevent its being washed away by heavy rains. So you see there is, after all, a saving in keeping the railway in repair."

At several of the stations the natives offered fruit of different kinds, and nearly all new to our young friends. They had been told that they would probably find the mangosteen for sale along the road; they had inquired for it in Singapore, but it was not in season there, and now their thoughts were bent upon discovering it between Batavia and Buitenzorg. Two or three times they were disappointed when they asked for it; but finally, at one of the stations, when Fred p.r.o.nounced the word "mangosteen," a native held up a bunch of fruit, and nodded. The Doctor looked at the bunch, and nodded likewise, and Fred speedily paid for the prize.

Perhaps we had best let Fred tell the story of the mangosteen, which he did in his first letter from Buitenzorg:

"We have found the prince of fruits, and its name is mangosteen. It is about the size of a pippin apple, and of a purple color--a very dark purple, too. The husk, or rind, is about half an inch thick, and contains a bitter juice, which is used in the preparation of dye; it stains the fingers like aniline ink, and is not easy to wash off. Nature has wisely provided this protection for the fruit; if it had no more covering than the ordinary skin of an apple, the birds would eat it all up as soon as it was ripe. If I were a bird, and had a bill that would open the mangosteen, I would eat nothing else as long as I could get at it.

"You cut this husk with a sharp knife right across the centre, and then you open it in two parts. Out comes a lump of pulp as white as snow, and about the size of a small peach. It is divided into sections, like the interior of an orange, and there is a sort of star on the outside that tells you, before you cut the husk, exactly how many of these sections there are. Having got at the pulp, you proceed to take the lump into your mouth, and eat it; and you will be too busy for the next quarter of a minute to say anything.

"Hip! hip! hurrah! It melts away in your mouth like an overripe peach or strawberry; it has a taste that is slightly acid--very slightly, too--but you can no more describe all the flavor of it than you can describe how a canary sings, or a violet smells. There is no other fruit I ever tasted that begins to compare with it, though I hesitate to admit that there is anything to surpa.s.s our American strawberry in its perfection, or the American peach. If you could get all the flavors of our best fruits in one, and then give that one the 'meltingness' of the mangosteen, perhaps you might equal it; but till you can do so, there is no use denying that the tropics have the prince of fruits.

"Everybody tells us we can eat all the mangosteens we wish to, without the slightest fear of ill results. Perhaps one might get weary of them in time, but at present we are unable to find enough of them. If anything would reconcile me to a permanent residence in the tropics, it would be the hope of always having plenty of mangosteens at my command.

"You may think," Fred added, "that I have taken a good deal of s.p.a.ce for describing this fruit, but I a.s.sure you I have not occupied half what it deserves. And if you were here, you would agree with me, and be willing to give it all the s.p.a.ce at your command--in and beyond your mouth. But be careful and have it fully ripe: green mangosteens are apt to produce colic, as Frank can tell you of his own knowledge."

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND.

The island of Juan Fernandez has always been said to be the island on which Robinson Crusoe was cast away. Nothing can be further from the truth. Crusoe never saw Juan Fernandez, and, so far as we know, never once so much as thought of casting himself away there.

No man has ever charged Robinson Crusoe with not telling the truth. He may have had his faults--and he certainly did show very little judgment when he built his first boat so far from the sh.o.r.e that he could not possibly launch it--but he always told the truth. We ought therefore to believe what he says about the situation of his island. He informs me that, having sailed from Brazil on a voyage to the coast of Guinea, he was driven northward by stormy weather, and was finally wrecked somewhere between the mouth of the river Orinoco and the Caribbean or West India islands. Now the island of Juan Fernandez is in the Pacific Ocean, about three hundred and sixty miles southwest of Valparaiso. To suppose that Crusoe was wrecked on Juan Fernandez, while on his way from Brazil to Guinea, is like saying that a ship on her way from New York to Liverpool was wrecked on one of the Sandwich Islands. Such a story would be perfectly absurd. However, when we have Crusoe's word that he was cast away near the mouth of the Orinoco, there is an end of the matter.

He probably could not have told a lie if he had tried to.

In the year 1704 an English vessel called the _Cinque Ports_ came to Juan Fernandez. One of her officers, Alexander Selkirk by name, had quarrelled with the Captain, and he said he would much rather stay on this island than sail any longer on board the _Cinque Ports_. The Captain was glad to get rid of him, and therefore sailed away, and left him behind. What Selkirk and the Captain had quarrelled about has never been certainly known, but when we reflect that Selkirk was a Scotchman, we can understand that very likely he was unwilling to practice piracy on Sunday, while the captain insisted that any day was a fit day on which to rob a Spanish ship. This would have led to a quarrel, and very possibly was the precise cause of the quarrel which resulted in Selkirk leaving the ship at Juan Fernandez. It is true that the _Cinque Ports_ was called a buccaneer, instead of a pirate, but no man can see the 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 pa.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Juan Fernandez is about sixteen miles long and five and a half miles wide. The sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sing 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 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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, n.o.body 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 improbable.

Crusoe's island undoubtedly exists somewhere "near the mouth of the great river Orinoco."

PHILEMON'S CIRCUS.

BY MARY DENSEL.

"--together with fifes and drums. The gigantic procession, headed by the stupendous gilded chariot, will move through the town at seven o'clock A.M. precisely,'" ended Tom Tadgers, quoting from the handbills.

"Through _this_ town?" asked Philemon, much excited.

Tom Tadgers gave him a withering glance.

"Do you suppose that N. Ticeum and B. Phoolum's 'Great Moral Show,' with 'six tigers, five elephants, a giraffe, hippopot_a_mus, kangaroo, in-nu-mer-a-ble monkeys, wild men of Borneo, living skeleton, educated bull, and a ship of the desert,' would come to a mean little village like this? Skowhegan's the town it's going to move through, and it will pa.s.s Tucker's Corner at five o'clock to-morrow morning. So Silas Elder says to me, 'You get into the back of my milk cart, Tadgers'" (Tommy felt deeply the dignity of being "Tadgers"), "'and I'll give you a lift as far as the Corner, Tadgers. Then you can follow the procession, and go to the show at Skowhegan, Tadgers,' says he. Now, Philemon, how would you like to come along too?"

"And Romeo Augustus with me?" questioned Philemon, eagerly.

Tadgers shook his head.

"Come by yourself, or not at all," said he, firmly. "What's more, you must be on hand by four o'clock to-morrow morning."