Alexander Selkirk was a Scotchman, and had been left upon the island by Captain Stradling, of the Cinqueports, four years and four months before. During his stay he had seen several ships pass by, but only two came to anchor at the island. They were Spaniards, and fired at him; but he escaped into the woods. He said he would have surrendered to them had they been French; but he chose to run the risk of dying alone upon the island rather than fall into the hands of Spaniards, as he feared they would either put him to death or make him a slave in their mines. "He told us," says Rogers, "that he was born in Largo, in the county of Fife, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left here was a difference with his captain, which, together with the fact that the ship was leaky, made him willing to stay behind; but when at last he was inclined to go with the ship the captain would not receive him. He took with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock and some powder and bullets, some tobacco, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, with other books, and his mathematical instruments. He diverted himself and provided for his sustenance as well as he could, but had much ado to bear up against melancholy for the first eight months, and was sore distressed at being left alone in so desolate a place. He built himself two huts of pimento-trees, thatched with long grass and lined with goat-skins,--killing goats as he needed them with his gun, as long as his powder lasted. When that was all spent, he procured fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento wood together. He slept in his large hut and cooked his victuals in the smaller, and employed himself in reading, praying, and singing psalms,--so that, he said he was a better Christian during his solitude than he had ever been before, or than, he was afraid, he should ever be again. "At first he never ate but when constrained by hunger,--partly from grief, and partly for want of bread and salt. Neither did he go to bed till he could watch no longer,--the pimento wood serving him both for fire and candle, as it burned very clear and refreshed him by its fragrant smell. His fish he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did his goats' flesh, of which he made good broth; for they are not as rank as our goats. Having kept an account, he said he had killed five hundred goats while on the island, besides having caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let them go. When his powder failed, he ran them down by speed of foot; for his mode of living, with continual exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross humors, so that he could run with wonderful swiftness through the woods and up the hills and rocks. [Illustration: SELKIRK AND HIS FAMILY.]