having turned back on seeing the light ashore when within a league, and we were glad they had got off so well, as it now began to blow.  We were all convinced that the light which we had seen was from the shore, and therefore prepared our ships for an engagement, supposing it might proceed from some French ships at anchor, which we must either fight or want water.  All this stir and apprehension, as we afterwards found, arose from one poor man, who passed in our imaginations for a Spanish garrison, a body of Frenchmen, or a crew of pirates, and it is incredible what strange notions some of our people entertained about this light; yet it served to show their tempers and spirits, and enabled us to guess how our men would behave, in case there really were enemies on the island.

[Footnote 219:  Juan Fernandez is in lat 33 deg. 40’ S. long. 79 deg.  W. Massa Faera, in the same latitude, is in long. 80 deg. 50’ W. from Greenwich.—­E.]

While under these apprehensions, we stood to the back of the island in order to fall in with the southerly wind, till we were past the island.  We then stood back for it again, and ran close aboard the land that begins to form its N.E. side.  The flaws came heavy off the land, and we were forced to reef our top-sails when we opened the middle bay, where we expected to have found our enemy, but saw all clear, and no ships either there or in the other bay near the N.E. end.  These are the only bays in which ships can ride that come here for refreshments, the middle one being the best.  We now conjectured that there had been ships here, but that they had gone away on seeing us.  About noon of the 2d February, we sent our yawl on shore, in which was Captain Dover, Mr Fry, and six men, all armed; and in the mean time we and the Duchess kept turning in, and such heavy squalls came off the land that we had to let fly our top-sail sheets, keeping all hands to stand by our sails, lest the winds should blow them away.  These flaws proceed from the land, which is very high in the middle of the island; but when they passed by, we had little or no wind.  As our yawl did not return, we sent the pinnace well armed, to see what had occasioned the yawl to stay, being afraid there might be a Spanish garrison on the island, who might have seized her and our men.

Even the pinnace delays returning, on which we put up a signal for her to come back, when she soon came off with abundance of cray-fish, bringing also a man cloathed in goat-skins, who seemed wilder than the original owners of his apparel.  His name was Alexander Selkirk, a Scotsman, who had been left here by Captain Stradling in the Cinque-ports, and had lived alone on the island for four years and four months.  Captain Dampier told me he had been master of the Cinque-ports, and was the best man in that vessel; so I immediately agreed with him to serve as a mate in the Duke.  During his stay, he had seen several ships pass by, but only two came to anchor at the island, which he