[Illustration: The man who called a cabra a goat.]
The first child born on Juan Fernandez, I was told, had become a
beautiful woman and was now a mother. Manuel Carroza and the good soul
who followed him here from Brazil had laid away their only child, a
girl, at the age of seven, in the little churchyard on the point. In
the same half-acre were other mounds among the rough lava rocks, some
marking the burial-place of native-born children, some the
resting-places of seamen from passing ships, landed here to end days
of sickness and get into a sailors' heaven.
The greatest drawback I saw in the island was the want of a school. A
class there would necessarily be small, but to some kind soul who
loved teaching and quietude life on Juan Fernandez would, for a
limited time, be one of delight.
On the morning of May 5, 1896, I sailed from Juan Fernandez, having
feasted on many things, but on nothing sweeter than the adventure
itself of a visit to the home and to the very cave of Robinson Crusoe.
From the island the _Spray_ bore away to the north, passing the island
of St. Felix before she gained the trade-winds, which seemed slow in
reaching their limits.
If the trades were tardy, however, when they did come they came with a
bang, and made up for lost time; and the _Spray_, under reefs,
sometimes one, sometimes two, flew before a gale for a great many
days, with a bone in her mouth, toward the Marquesas, in the west,
which, she made on the forty-third day out, and still kept on sailing.
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