'I will depart, I will free myself from your presence, and that of
your worthy companions; I will do so at all events, do you
understand!' exclaimed Selkirk exasperated, 'I will not endure your
infamous treatment another week! If you refuse to consent to my
demand, I will leave without your permission; were the vessel twenty
miles from the land, and were I to perish twenty times on the way, I
will attempt to swim ashore. Will you land me at Coquimbo, yes or no?
Reply!'
By way of reply, Stradling ordered him to be confined in the hold.
Poor Selkirk! Ah! if pretty Kitty, if the beautiful landlady of the
Royal Salmon could know all thou hast endured for her sake, how many
tears would her fine eyes shed over thy fate! But who knows whether
she will ever hear of thee? Who can tell whether any human being will
learn the sufferings in reserve for thee?
Poor Selkirk! you who painted to yourself so smiling a picture of this
grand voyage to America; who hoped to leave, like Dampier, your name
to some strait, some newly discovered island; you who dreamed of
scientific walks in vast prairies and under the arches of virgin
forests, you have shared only in the career of a trafficker and a
pirate; of this New World, full of marvellous sights, you have seen
only the shore, the fringe of the mantle, the margin of this last work
of God!
Poor Selkirk, must you then return to your cold and foggy Scotland,
without having contemplated at your ease, beneath the brilliant sun of
the tropics, one of those Edens overshadowed by the luxuriant verdure
of palm-trees, bananas, mimosas and gigantic ferns? In your country,
the bark of the trees is clad with lichens and mosses, and the
parasite mistletoe suspends itself to the branches, more as a burden
than as an ornament; here, numerous families of the orchis, with their
singular forms, showy and variegated blossoms, climb along the knotty
stems of the tall monarchs of the forests; from their feet spring up,
as if to enlace them with a magic network, the brilliant passiflora,
the vanilla with its intoxicating perfume, the banisteria whose roots
seem to have dived into mines of gold and borrowed from thence the
color of its petals! Hither the birds of Paradise and Brazilian
parrots come to build their nests; here the bluebird and the
purple-necked wood-pigeon coo and sing; here, like swarms of bees,
thousands of humming-birds of mingled emerald and sapphire, warble and
glitter as they suck the nectar from the flowers.
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