All three paths terminate in the grotto which Selkirk continues to
make his residence. This grotto he has enlarged, quarried out with his
hatchet, to make room for himself, his furniture, and provisions. He
has even attempted to decorate its exterior with a bank of turf, and
several species of creeping plants, trained to cover its calcareous
nudity. At the entrance of his habitation, rise two young palm-trees,
transplanted there by him, to serve as a portico. But nature is not
always obedient to man; the vines and palm-trees do not prosper in
their new location, and now the long flexible branches of the one, and
the broad leaves of the other, droop half withered above the grotto,
which they disfigure rather than decorate.
By constant care, and with the aid of his streams, Selkirk hopes to be
able to restore them to life and health. He has imposed on his two
streams another duty, that of supplying a bed of water-cresses and a
fish-pond, both provident establishments, the first of which has
succeeded perfectly. As for the second, his most arduous task has
been, not to dig the fish-pond, but to people it. For this purpose he
has been compelled to become a fisherman, to manufacture a net. He has
succeeded, with some threads from his fragment of a sail, the fibres
of his cocoa-nuts, and tough reeds, woven in close meshes;
unfortunately those fine fishes, breams, eels and angel-fish, which
show themselves so readily through the limpid wave, are not as easy to
catch as to see.
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