JUAN FERNANDEZ. 33 



obscured the waves with the inky liquid which all the cephalopods have at command. 

 Judging from its size, it would carry at least a barrel of this black liquid." 



The Challenger afterwards visited Juan Fernandez, the real Robinson Crusoe island where 

 Alexander Selkirk passed his enforced residence of four years. Thanks to Defoe, he lived 

 to find himself so famous, that he could hardly have grudged the time spent in his solitary 

 sojourn with his dumb companions and man Friday. Alas ! the romance which enveloped 

 Juan Fernandez has somewhat dimmed. For a brief time it was a Chilian penal colony, and 

 after sundry vicissitudes, was a few years ago leased to a merchant, who kept cattle to sell 

 to whalers and passing ships, and also went seal-hunting on a neighbouring islet. He was 

 "monarch of all he surveyed "lord of an island over a dozen miles long and five or six 



" THE CHALLENGER " IN ANTARCTIC ICE. 



broad, with cattle, and herds of wild goats, and capital fishing all round all for two hundred 



year ! Fancy this, ye sportsmen, who pay as much or more for the privileges of a barren 



moor ! Yet the merchant was not satisfied with his venture, and, at the time of the 



Challenger's visit, was on the point of abandoning it : by this time it is probably to let. 



Excepting the cattle dotted about the foot of the hills and a civilised house or two, the 



appearance of the island must be precisely the same now as when the piratical buccaneers 



of olden time made it their rendezvous and haunt wherefrom to dash out and harry the 



Spaniards; the same to-day as when Alexander Selkirk lived in it as its involuntary 



lonarch; the same to-day as when Commodore Anson arrived with his scurvy-stricken 



crazy ship, a great scarcity of water, and a crew so universally diseased that there were 



lot above ten foremast-men in a watch capable of doing duty," and recruited them with 



resh meat, vegetables, and wild fruits. 



" The scenery," writes Lord George Campbell, " is grand : gloomy and wild enough on 

 the dull, stormy day on which we arrived, clouds driving past and enveloping the highest 

 tidge of the mountain, a dark-colotired sea pelting against the steep cliffs and shores, and 



