Copiah Signal

ROBINSON CRUSOE.
The Original Hermit of the Romantic Isle
of Juan Fernandez.

When Captain Watling and his company escaped from Juan Fernandez
they left a Mosquito Indian on the
island, who was out hunting goats
when the alarm came. This Mosquitoman, named William, was the first and the true Robinson Crusoe, the original hermit of this romantic solitude.

A few years afterward, when Dampier, the celebrated English navigator,
visited the island he and a few of
William's old friends,
together with a
Mosquito-man named
Robin, put off
for the shore, where they soon perceived William standing ready to give
them welcome. From the heights he
had seen the ships on the preceding
day, and knowing them to be English
vessels by the way they were worked,
he had killed three goats and dressed
them with cabbage of the cabbage
tree, to have a feast ready on the arrival of the ships. How great was his
delight, as the boat neared the shore,
when Robin leaped to the land and
running up to him fell flat on his face
at his feet! William raised up his
countryman, embraced him and in turn
prostrated himself at Robin's feet, who
lifted him up and they renewed their
embraces.

We stood with pleasure, say
Dampier, to behold the surprise,
tenderness and solemnity of their interview, which was exceedingly affecting on both sides, and when these
their ceremonies of civility were over,
we also that stood gazing at them
drew near, each of us embracing him
we had found here, who was over
joyed to see so many of his old friends,
come hither, as he thought, purposely
to fetch him.

At the time William was abandoned
he had with him in the woods his gun
and knife and a small quantity of
powder and shot. As soon as his ammunition was expended, by notching
his knife into a saw he cut up the barrel of his gun into pieces, which he
converted into harpoons, lances and a
long knife. To accomplish this he
struck fire with his gun-flint and a
piece of the barrel of his gun, which
he hardened for this purpose in a way
he had seen practiced by the buccaneers. In this fire he heated his pieces of iron, hammered them out with
stones, sawed them with his jagged
knife or ground them to an edge and
tempered them, which was no more
than these Mosquito-men were accustomed to do in their own country,
where they make their own fishing
and striking
instruments without
either forge or anvil, though they spend a
good deal of time about
them.

This furnished, William supplied
himself
with goats' flesh and fish,
though, till
his instruments were
formed, he had been compelled to eat
seal. He built his house about a halfmile from the shore and lined it roughly with goat skins, with which he also
spread his couch or barbacue, which
was raised two feet from the floor. As
his clothes wore out he supplied this
want with goat-skins, and when first seen by Dampier and his companions
he wore nothing save a goat's skin
about his waist. -N. Y. Ledger.