The island is accurately described in the story, and the visitor who is familiar with “Robinson Crusoe” can find the cave, the mountain-paths, and other haunts of the hero without difficulty; but Defoe has located it in the wrong geographical position, having placed it on the other side of the continent, and mixed up Montevideo with Valparaiso. It is about twenty-three miles long and ten miles wide in the broadest part, and is covered with beautiful hills and lovely valleys, the highest peak reaching an elevation of nearly three thousand feet. A hundred years ago the Spaniards introduced blood-hounds to kill off the goats and rabbits, and to keep the pirates away, but the scheme did not work. Upon her independence, in 1821, Chili made Juan Fernandez a penal colony, but thirty years after the prisoners mutinied, slaughtered the guards, and escaped. Then it was leased to a cattle company, which has now thirty thousand head of horned cattle and as many sheep grazing upon the hills. There are fifty or sixty inhabitants, mostly ranchmen and their families, who tend the herds and raise vegetables for the Valparaiso market. Great care has been taken to preserve the relics of Alexander Selkirk’s stay upon the island, and his cave and huts remain just as he left them. In 1868 the officers of the British man-of-war _Topaz_ erected a marble tablet to mark the famous lookout from which Mr. Crusoe, like the Ancient Mariner, used to watch for a sail, “and yet no sail from day to day.” The inscription reads: “In memory of Alexander Selkirk, mariner, a native of Largo, county of Fife, Scotland; who lived upon this island in complete solitude for four years and four months. He was landed from the _Cinque Ports_ galley, 96 tons, 16 guns, A.D. 1704, and was taken off in the _Duke_, privateer, on February 12th, 1709. He died Lieutenant of H.B.M.S. _Weymouth_: 47 years. This tablet is erected upon Selkirk’s lookout by Commodore Powell and the officers of H.B.M.S. _Topaz_, A.D. 1868.” [Illustration: TABLET TO ALEXANDER SELKIRK.] No one ever goes to Juan Fernandez without bringing away rocks and sticks as relics of the place. There is a very fine sort of wood peculiar to the island which makes beautiful canes, as it has a rare grain and polishes well. SANTIAGO. THE CAPITAL OF CHILI.