Perhaps he is resting after the fatigues of the
day? No, it is the day of the Lord, and Selkirk now can consecrate the
Sabbath to repose. With his eyes half closed, he is inhaling,
undoubtedly, the perfume of his myrtles, the soft fragrance of his
heliotropes? No, something sweeter still pre-occupies him. Is he
dreaming of his friends in Scotland, of his first love? He has never
known friendship, and the beautiful Catherine is far from his memory.
What is he then doing in his hammock? He is smoking his pipe.
His pipe! Has he a pipe? He has them of all forms, all sizes--made of
spiral shells of various kinds, of maripa-nuts, of large reeds; all
set in handles of myrtle, stalks of coarse grain, or the hollow bones
of birds. In these he is luxurious; he has become a connoisseur; but
this has not been the difficulty. Before every thing else, tobacco was
wanting.
In consequence of his encounter with Marimonda, he ransacked the woods
and meadows, seeking among all plants those which approximated nearest
to the nature of the nicotiana. As it was necessary to judge by their
taste, he bit their leaves--chewed them, still in imitation of the
monkey: but, to his new and profound humiliation, less skilful or less
fortunate than the latter, he obtained at first no other result than a
sort of poisoning: one of these plants being poisonous.
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