xiv CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



cloud of misrepresentation — that is, he had been con- 

 founded with one Alexander Selkirk, and the scenes 

 of their respective adventures somehow most woeful- 

 ly mixed. 



It was not from a desire, whether laudable or 

 otherwise, to rehabilitate either one of these worthies, 

 nor to set myseK up as a meddlesome iconoclast, 

 that I undertook to disentangle the woof of fiction 

 from the warp of truth. It was, in fact, nothing less 

 than a love of adventure and an excuse for indulging 

 in it, that led me to dwell alone in an island, remote 

 from home and friends. The love for adventure was 

 bom in me ; the excuse was necessary to placate the 

 outraged sensibilities of the staid community in which 

 my boyhood had been passed, where any departure 

 from prescribed custom was frowned upon and any 

 yielding to sentiment severely reprobated. 



However that may have been, and however ready 

 others will be to proscribe me for having invaded the 

 sacred precincts of the past, I would call attention to 

 the fact that I have not sought to destroy any precon- 

 ceived idol of the popular mind, only to restore it to 

 its proper niche ! 



In a word, ever since Defoe gave to the world his 

 inimitable creation, Kobinson Crusoe, his readers (and 

 there have been millions of them) have persisted in 

 locating the chief character of the immortal work in 

 a different part of the world from that which the au- 

 thor intended. 



Not that it makes any great difference ; but since 

 I happened to have discovered the truth (or in com- 



