Atlanta Daily World

A Strange Tale From The Sea

Recorded history has a way of playing tricks on actual history, and one of the best examples of this we have seen in recent years was recently illustrated by Grit, a national weekly newspaper. The story concerned Alexander Selkirk, who certainly had a storybook experience in 1704 on a lonely Pacific island.

It seems that Alexander Selkirk, after an argument with the captain of his British vessel, told the captain he could leave him behind on the lonely island of Juan Fernandez. The island is about 360 miles west of Chile in the Pacific Ocean.

Although he changed his mind and begged the captain to take him along after all, the captain refused, and Alexander was left on the island in 1704. There were no humans on the island, and he had to learn how to find his own food, construct a shelter, and managed to fight off rats, storms and loneliness. "For over four years he survived and finally, in 1709, two British ships anchored off the island and rescued him. It took him two weeks to learn to speak English clearly again, so long had it been since he had been able to converse with another human being.

The most interesting part of this story is that this experience was the basis of the novel "Robinson Crusoe," and the irony of this story is that the fictional character, Robinson Crusoe, is today famous, while Selkirk, who actually survived the ordeal and lived out a fantastic experience, is practically forgotten. Such is fate.