In one corner,
supported by solid posts, he builds a shed, simply covered with
branches; that his flock may there be sheltered from the heat of the
day. The inclosure and the shed, together with his garden, form a new
addition to his great settlement.
When, his kids shall have become goats, when the epoch of domesticity
shall have arrived for them, when they shall have contracted habits of
tameness, when they have learned to recognize his voice, then, and
then only, will he permit them to wander and browse on the neighboring
hills, under the direction of a vigilant guardian. This guardian,
where shall he find? Why may it not be Marimonda? Marimonda, to whose
intelligence he knows not where to affix bounds!
Dreams, dreams, perhaps! and yet but for dreams, but for those gentle
phantoms which he creates, and by which he surrounds himself, what
would sustain the courage of the solitary?
When Selkirk thinks he has acquired skill in the use of the lasso, he
buries himself among the high mountains situated towards the central
part of his island. Several days pass amid fruitless attempts, and
when the delicately-carved foliage of the mimosa announces, by its
folding, that night is approaching, he regains his cabin, gloomy,
care-worn, and despairing of the future.
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