Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ashore and brought back, much to Dampier's amazement, Alexander
Selkirk. The lank-bearded, goatskinclad creature was scarcely recog-
nisable, especially as after four years of solitary confinement, he had
almost lost the use of his native tongue. Selkirk's story was included
by Woodes Rogers in his account of the voyage and this became the
basis for Daniel Defoe's classic
The Life and Strange Surprising Ad-
ventures of Robinson Crusoe of York,
which was first published in
1719. A hundred and sixty years later the castaway's tale had not
lost its appeal, for Robert Louis Stevenson almost certainly took
Selkirk as his model for Ben Gunn, in
Treasure Island.
Yet neither De-
foe's resourceful hero nor the half-crazed pirate of Stevenson's yarn
come as close to the original as the desperately lonely mariner ima-
gined by the poet William Cowper in his
Verses Supposed to be Writ-
ten by Alexander Selkirk:
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms
Than reign in this horrible place.
I am out of humanity's reach
I must finish my journey alone
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts, that roam over the plain,
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me.
Society, friendship, and love,
