JUAN FERNANDEZ. 
179 
On the 3rd October our tars were heaving in the anchors, keeping time to the Tahitian 
air. It was a fine sunny morning, and we all stood on deck looking towards the beach, 
where our friends had gathered to bid us farewell. We remained during the day between 
Tahiti and Eimeo, swinging ship for the adjustment of the compasses. In the evening we 
made sail, and soon the realm of Queen Pomare had faded away in the twilight. 
At sunrise on the 7th, the strongly-indented outline of Tubuai, the principal island 
of the Austral group, was visible about thirty miles to the eastward. Its surface is 
occupied by a cluster of high, steep mountains, evidently of volcanic origin. Baffled by 
alternate adverse winds and calms, we had to give up our intention of taking a more direct 
course towards Valparaiso, and of calling at Easter Island, with its curious stone images. 
The 21 st found us on the 40th parallel. A few days later we fell in with the expected westerly 
breeze, and then our good ship began to plough her way through the foaming sea towards 
the distant shores of South America. The weather was cold, and as we were sailing parallel 
with and only a short distance from the latitudes where icebergs have been encountered, we 
would not have been surprised had one of these crossed our path. We had no sooner 
left the “forties,” and shaped our course for Valparaiso, when we were again beset by calms, 
and but for the assistance of steam, another month might have been added to this section of 
our cruise—as it turned out—of over 5^°° miles. Before sighting the snow-clad summits of 
the “ Cordiller de los Andes,” however, we had to pass a spot which, to the eyes of the youth 
of past and coming generations, was and always will be classic ground the island of Juan 
Fernandez, once the abode of Alexander Selkirk, the prototpye of the immortal Robinson Crusoe. 
JUAN FERNANDEZ. 
The island appeared in sight on the morning of Saturday, November 13. Its 
rugged outline and precipitous cliffs became gradually more distinct, though the highest peaks 
remained covered with clouds. At 4 p*ni* our vessel rounded the eastern end of the 
island, marked by a dark solitary rock called by the Spaniards “ Morro Calchas,” and at 
sunset we were anchored in Cumberland Bay, the largest indentation on the northern shoie. 
The island—about twelve miles long, with an average breadth of three miles extends from 
east to west, and presents the aspect of a mountainous ridge rising abruptly out of the sea. 
The highest summit— 
named, from its square 
shape, “ El Yunque,” 
the anvil—is 3000 feet 
high. The south side 
of Juan Fernandez forms an almost continuous wall of inaccessible cliffs; on the northern 
side the numerous spurs which branch off from the central ridge enclose several bays, 
capable of affording anchorage to ships. It was at English Bay, the one next to the 
westward of Cumberland Bay, that Selkirk spent four years and four months-between 
