Scottish sailor, born in 1676 in the village of Lower Largo, now Lundin Links. Alexander Selkirk was the son of a tanner. He was a naughty child and showed a quarrelsome and rebellious disposition in his youth.

Selkirk decided to become a sailor; a thirst for adventure beckoned him. He took part in pirate expeditions South Seas and in 1703 joined the famous corsair William Dampier, who was captain of the Cinque Ports. This ship had 26 guns on board and a crew of 120 people. Selkirk served in the galley of this ship.

In October 1704, Alexander Selkirk quarreled with Captain Dampier because of his bad character and abandoned ship. They put him in a boat, gave him some equipment and pointed him to the ground. It was in the Juan Fernandez archipelago Mas Afuera (Mas a Tierra), which translates as “the most remote”.

The island is rugged with mountain ranges, and its highest point is Mount Cerro de los Innocentes (1329 m). The island, however, is not at all like the islands that we are usually shown in films about Robinson Crusoe - with an abundance of vegetation and heavenly beaches. Alexander had to live on this island for 4 years and 4 months completely alone until he was rescued. It was Alexander Selkirk who became the prototype of the well-known hero of Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe. Having met Selkirk and being inspired by his experience, the famous writer wrote his best work, which thundered throughout the world.

Alexander had some things necessary for survival: he had an ax, he had a gun, a supply of gunpowder and much more. Selkirk suffered from loneliness, got used to the island and gradually acquired the necessary survival skills. At first, his diet was meager, he ate shellfish, but over time he got used to it and discovered his neighbors on the island - wild goats. Once upon a time, people lived on this island and brought goats here, but after they left, the goats went wild. He hunted them, thereby adding much-needed meat to his diet. He tamed goats and received milk from them. Among plant crops, he discovered wild turnips, cabbage and black pepper, as well as some berries.

The danger for him was the rats living on the island, but fortunately for him, wild cats, previously brought by people, also lived on the island. In their company he could sleep peacefully, without fear of rats.

Alexander Selkirk's Cave

Island today

Alexander Selkirk built himself two huts from Pimento officinalis and used them for his needs. His supply of gunpowder was running low and he was forced to hunt goats without it. He chased the goats on foot, chased them all over the island and once got so carried away by the chase that he did not notice the cliff, after which he fell and lay there for some time. He miraculously survived.

In order not to forget the English speech, he constantly read the Bible aloud to himself, not to say that he was a pious person, it was just that he heard at least some speech. When his clothes began to wear out, he began to use goat skins. He was the son of a tanner and therefore knew well how to tan skins. After his boots wore out, he did not make himself new ones, because his feet, hardened by calluses, allowed him to walk without them. He also found old hoops from barrels and was able to make something like a knife out of them.

One day two ships arrived on the island. They turned out to be Spanish, and England and Spain were enemies in those days. Selkirk could have been arrested or even killed, since he was a privateer, and he made the difficult decision for himself to hide from them.

Salvation came to him on February 1, 1709, it was the English ship "Duke" with captain Woodges Roger, who named Selkirk governor of the island.

The island on which Alexander Selkirk lived was named Robinson Crusoe Island, and the neighboring islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago were also named in his honor.

Who among us as a child did not read the novels of Robert Stevenson, Jules Verne or Daniel Defoe? We plunged into the fascinating world of overseas countries and extraordinary adventures on the pages of “Treasure Island,” “ Mysterious island” and, of course, “Robinson Crusoe”, without particularly thinking about what such wildly twisted plots are based on. Only as we grew up did we learn that the real events that became the basis for writing these novels were no less interesting and dramatic.

On a small street in the Scottish town of Largo, which is located right next to North Sea, and today you can see an old house, in a niche above the door of which stands the figure of a man dressed in skins and holding a gun. Tourists often come here to see the place where Alexander Selkirk, the sailor who became the prototype of the famous Robinson Crusoe, was born in 1676. If you go into the house, you can see Selkirk’s chest and pistols, as well as a cup that he personally made from a coconut.

Boatswain's error

From the end of the 17th century, Alexander served on the ship Sink Pore from the flotilla of the English privateer and explorer William Dampier. Although a good boatswain, Selkirk was not distinguished by his easy-going character, which led to frequent conflicts with the captain, sometimes quite violent. It ended with the fact that after another skirmish, Alexander himself demanded to be dropped off on the nearest island. And so it was done - having received a gun and a minimum of supplies, Selkirk found himself completely alone.

The piece of land that sheltered him was small, with an area of ​​about 97 square meters. km, the island of Mas a Tierra, lying in Pacific Ocean 350 miles from the coast. About 80 miles away was the island of Mas a Fuera. Both islands were discovered about a century earlier by the Spanish conquistador Juan Fernandez. Subsequently, this traveler, having retired, settled on the island of Mas a Tierra in the company of several Indian families. The land of the island turned out to be fertile, fresh water there was also plenty, and the sea was full of fish. The Indians got goats and guinea fowl. However, Fernandez did not stay on the island for long - he got bored and moved to the mainland. The island economy fell into decline. Following the owner, the Indians also left the island, abandoning their cattle and poultry. So survive on these paradise islands was certainly possible. But complete isolation from big world put a lot of pressure on my psyche. The company of Indians did not help Fernandez at all.

What did Selkirk count on when he demanded his expulsion from the ship and planned to live on the island all alone? Having sailed in these places earlier, he knew that ships regularly came to Mas a Tierra to replenish fresh water supplies, and he believed that at the first of them he would leave his temporary refuge. But he was wrong: the situation had changed, and now the sailors preferred Mas a Fuera, where the sources were even more powerful. This mistake doomed Selkirk to years of loneliness. Those who left him on the island have long forgotten about him. And he continued to fight for his own survival. He was certainly lucky: the abundance of feral goats, guinea fowl, fish and wild fruits provided him with a fairly decent diet.

Precious Memoirs

When the clothes were completely worn out, he learned how to make them from goat skins. It was possible to continuously maintain the fire. So days after days dragged on. Four years passed when, finally, a couple of ships appeared a short distance from the island. However, the hope that fluttered in Selkirk’s heart soon faded - the ships sailed under the Spanish flag. The Spaniards were the sworn enemies of Britain, and therefore the Scotsman could not count on their mercy. In addition, his privateer past could come to light... So instead of rushing towards people, he hid in the depths of the island and did not show up until the ships moved away from the shore. Only God knows what this act cost him.

Some time later, a fire was noticed from aboard the passing English ship "Duke" under the command of Captain Woods Rogers on the shore of Mas a Tierra and sent a boat to the island. The sailors who came ashore were enthusiastically greeted by Selkirk, who had almost lost hope of returning from his voluntary exile. Despite such a long loneliness and the hardships of being a hermit, he did not become embittered and did not blame anyone for anything. Ironically, the Duke that received him was William Dampier. They had a friendly conversation with Alexander and recalled the past. Dampier talked about how one day he went to an island unknown to him in search of water and met a lonely Indian there. It turned out that three years earlier he had been forgotten here by the pirates on whose ship he had been a servant. Perhaps it was this unfortunate man, about whom Dampier spoke (as well as about Selkirk) in his published notes, who served as the prototype of Friday for Defoe.

In general, the notes of this privateer-intellectual turned out to be very entertaining. Their echoes can be seen in the works of Walter Scott, Jonathan Swift, and Daniel Defoe. The latter, having learned the story of Selkirk from Dampier, met the prototype of his future hero in a pub, where Alexander became a regular. People came here to hear about him extraordinary adventures first-hand. And Selkirk did not mince words for the good treat. It was probably these meetings in the pub that gave Defoe the idea of ​​a great novel. And he sat down to work. Taking Selkirk's story as a basis, Defoe significantly modified it. He “settled” his hero on the island of Tobago in the Atlantic not for four, but for 28 years. Defoe's Friday is not an Indian forgotten on the island, but a black aborigine, almost eaten by his fellow tribesmen. He borrowed the surname for the hero from his school friend, Timothy Crusoe.

Footprints on the ground

The fate of the island, abandoned by its only inhabitant, Selkirk, was not easy. During the war with Spain, English admiral George Anson turned Mas a Tierra into a well-fortified base for raids on the Spanish colonies located on the west coast of South America. After the end of the war in 1750, the Spaniards returned to the island and built their coastal fortifications there. But they lasted only a year, and then were destroyed by a powerful tsunami. The island was later turned into a prison for criminals from Chile and Ecuador.

IN early XIX century the prison ceased to exist. Only a few fishermen remained on the island, whose descendants still live here today. Only the island itself changed its name. After Defoe's novel and its hero gained worldwide fame, Mas a Tierra was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island. At the same time, the name of Alexander Selkirk was given to the island of Mas a Fuera, which, however, Selkirk never visited. Under these names the islands can be found on the world map today. Both islands belong to the Juan Fernandez archipelago and belong to Chile, whose government planned to turn them into tourist site and even planned to build a small airport on one of the islands. On New Year's Eve 2004 the island was approaching training ship Far Eastern Maritime University "Nadezhda". All that the cadets saw was a tiny village near the pier and a radio mast with television antenna dishes.

Alexander Selkirk died of yellow fever on board the ship Weymouth, where he enlisted as a lieutenant, tired of sitting on the shore. This happened on December 13, 1721, so he lived only 45 years. For his centenary, a monument was erected in Largo - the same figure in the niche of the house mentioned at the beginning of this article. Daniel Defoe, who made him famous, outlived the prototype of his hero by 10 years. After a short period of deafening fame associated with the publication of Robinson, the writer remained in oblivion, despite the fact that he wrote several more books. Including, by the way, the continuation of the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, where the action takes place in the Russian Empire.

He died in poverty, hiding from numerous creditors. Only almost 140 years after Defoe’s death, the London newspaper Christian World organized a fundraiser for a monument to the writer. Now the granite monument can be seen at London's Bunhill Fields cemetery. And on the shore of the island of Mas a Tierra, where Alexander Selkirk first set foot on it, English sailors in 1868 erected an obelisk on which they managed to set out almost his entire epic.

Thanks to the classic novel of English literature, the story of Robinson Crusoe is known to every educated adult who will be interested to know that the writer Daniel Defoe did not invent the plot, but took it from real life. The sea hermit had a real prototype - the Scottish boatswain Alexander Selkirk.

Statue of Alexander Selkirk on the site of his home in Main Street, Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland.

Biography of Alexander Selkirk

Alex's father was a modest shoemaker and tanner in the village of Nizhny Largo, which east coast Scotland. Since childhood, the boy, born in 1676, was restless, daring, strong and did not recognize church authorities. The mayor and the priest were the main representatives of government in Largo. Selkirk the Younger despised both of them and, at the first convenient opportunity, ran away from home along the route followed by every intrepid adventurer of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In August 1693, Alex was summoned to the church rector for a stern conversation about an act of hooliganism on the church grounds. The 16-year-old boy did not appear for the trial, but fled to the nearest sea ​​port and signed up as a cabin boy on the first ship he came across. The guy spent almost ten years away from home, sailing on merchant and buccaneer ships. The brawler returned home to Largo as an experienced sailor in 1701. On shore, the sailor immediately began to get involved in troubles that could well have ended in prison or the gallows, but in the same 1701, a large-scale war for the Spanish heritage began. This confrontation promised British sailors significant profits in the event of victorious battles with the eternal naval enemy. Therefore, sailor Selkirk did not stay on the shore for long; he joined the team of private explorer William Dampier, who equipped the expedition to South America. On September 11, 1703, a private flotilla left the Irish port of Kinsale. 27-year-old Alexander Selkirk was on board the ship Saint Port. 10 years of experience allowed the sailor to take the post of helmsman, that is, helmsman under the command of Captain Stradling. Stradling soon appointed the helmsman as his chief mate, which did not prevent the beginning of a long period of confrontation between them. The key moment of the confrontation occurred in the middle of 1704, when, after a bloody battle, the ship needed urgent repairs, but the captain insisted on continuing the voyage despite the urgent demands of the first mate. On one of the islands of the Juan Fernandez archipelago, the team replenished supplies drinking water and left the rebel, who refused to continue sailing on emergency ship.

Map of Juan Fernandez Island, where Alexander Selkirk lived.

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Life proved the experienced navigator was right, because after some time the Sanc Port actually sank, and the sailors were captured by the Spaniards or died.

A map of Crusoe's island, "The Island of Despair", showing incidents from the book.

But the outcast survived, visited his homeland and again went to sea as part of the royal fleet, which awarded the heroic hermit the rank of lieutenant. On the military brig "Weymouth" the officer went to West Coast Africa to fight the pirates that have developed in large numbers in these waters. The war with Spain was over, but not all British game hunters agreed to lay down their arms. Selkirk took part in a military campaign against pirates and died during the voyage, dying not from battle wounds, but from yellow fever, which had tormented him since the ill-fated four-year exile on desert island. The prototype of Robinson Crusoe died on December 13, 1721, and was buried at sea west of Cape Agulhas.

Alexander Selkirk on a desert island

Main difference real story Alexander Selkirk and the fictional plot of Robinson Crusoe in that the literary character was shipwrecked and the Scottish boatswain was marooned for sedition and mutiny. More reminiscent of the fate of another character in classic adventure literature - Tom Ayrton from Jules Verne's novel “The Children of Captain Grant” - a knife, an ax, a musket, a supply of gunpowder, a saucepan, a pair of sheets and years of waiting for a sail to appear on the horizon. The sails, by the way, appeared regularly and even sometimes moored to the shore, but they were Spanish and French, so the outcast preferred to hide and wait for the appearance of his British fellow tribesmen. I had to wait four years and four months - from October 1704 to February 1709.

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The book "The Life and Adventures of Alexander Selkirk" real Robinson Crusoe,” 1835 edition.

Returning home, Alex, a great lover of drinking and talking, visited all the drinking establishments, talking about his misadventures on the island of Mas a Tierre, which is 640 km from Chile. Now it’s called Robinson Crusoe, you know why.
In his own words, the most difficult were the first weeks, when he had to eat shellfish, but gradually the outcast got used to it, built a comfortable home, and came across wild goats in the forest, which added meat and milk to the outcast’s diet. Also on Mas a Tierra there were berries and vegetables familiar to Europeans - cabbage, turnips. In addition to weapons and supplies, Alex was left with a Bible, thanks to which he did not forget how to speak, reading passages out loud every day. In addition to the Bible, the ability to sew clothes and shoes was a great help for preserving the human species, because the navigator was the son of a shoemaker. Survival extended to 52 months. On February 2, 1709, two ships approached the shore - the Duke and the Duchess. A boat went to land for water, which brought back a man who was so overgrown that it was difficult to see his face. The irony of fate was that standing on deck was the same Dampier whose crew Selkirk had signed up for six years earlier. The researcher remembered the first mate very well and had heard a lot about his hot temper, but he gave excellent recommendations to the hermit sailor, thanks to which the sailor, rescued from a desert island, immediately became the leader of the crew. Further, during the journey, he showed himself at his best several times, headed important missions and set foot on his native shores as a rich, respected man. This happened on October 1, 1711. The prodigal son Largo was gone for eight years. Soon the sea will call the adventurer again and he will set off on a journey. But before that, he will have time to tell enough people about his adventures for the story of Alexander Selkirk to catch the eye of Daniel Defoe, who will turn it into a popular novel, loved by children and adults. The book was published in 1719, but the prototype of the main character at that time was sailing the oceans, never knowing that he had become world famous, albeit under someone else’s name.



First edition of The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719.

A. Selkirk reads the Bible in one of two huts he built on the mountainside.

Rescued from a desert island, A. Selkirk, sitting on the right, ends up on board the ship.

ALEXANDER SELKIRK

Dates of life: 1676 - December 13, 1721
Place of birth: village. Largo, Scotland
A Scottish sailor, spent 4 years and 4 months (in 1704-1709) on the uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra (now Robinson Crusoe as part of the Juan Fernandez archipelago) in the Pacific Ocean, 640 kilometers from the coast of Chile.
Served as the prototype for Robinson Crusoe, the literary hero of Daniel Defoe's novel.

Robinson Crusoe from the adventure book by Daniel Defoe is not fiction. This book is based on fact. The island of Mas a Tierra, which belongs to the Republic of Chile, is famous island Robinson Crusoe.
The climate of this island is quite mild, the temperature ranges from +12 to +19 degrees throughout the year. In the mountainous part of the island there is a dense forest, below the ground is covered with palm groves and thickets of ferns. It was on this island that the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk lived in complete solitude for 5 years.

He was born in 1676 in the small Scottish village of Largo, in the family of a poor shoemaker John Selkreg. When the guy turned 19, he changed his last name and left home, as constant quarrels with his father and brother haunted him. The young man went to work as a sailor in the English navy. He sailed a lot across the seas and oceans and took part in naval battles. When the famous pirate, Captain Damper, was recruiting sailors for his crew, Alexander Selkirk joined them. Later he joined the command of the captain of another frigate, Pickering. After some time, Pickering died and Stredling took his place, and Alexander Selkirk, who turned out to be a capable sailor, became the new captain's assistant.
In May 1704, a pirate ship was forced to anchor off the island of Mas a Tierra due to damage caused by a storm. A quarrel arises between the captain and Selkirk, as a result of which the captain orders his assistant to be landed on the island, leaving him with a gun, gunpowder, bullets, an axe, a spyglass, a blanket and tobacco. View of Cumberland Bay on Robinson Crusoe Island. At first, the navigator was overcome by despair, sleepless nights and hunger pushed him to suicide. But, overpowering himself, Alexander built himself a dwelling and went deep into the island in search of food. Vegetable and animal world The islands were varied and rich. Alexander Selkirk began fishing, hunted sea turtles, and tamed wild goats and wild cats that were on the island. As in the Stone Age, he made fire by friction, and made clothes from goat skin, using a nail instead of a needle.
In addition, Selkirk made himself a calendar. So he lived for five years on a deserted island.
On February 2, 1709, Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was found by an English warship. The sailors saw an overgrown man with long hair and a beard, his clothes were made of goatskin. At first, Alexander could only utter inarticulate sounds, and only after a few weeks, having come to his senses, he was able to tell his story. Later it turned out that the ship, whose captain left him on a deserted island, was caught in a storm and almost the entire crew died.
In 1712, Woods Rogers's book, An Industrial Voyage Around the World, was published, which told about the life of Alexander Selkirk on a desert island. A little later, Alexander Selkirk himself wrote a book called “The Intervention of Providence, or an Unusual Account of the Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, Written by His Own Hand,” but this book did not become popular.
And Daniel Defoe’s book, which was published in 1719 under the title “The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Robinson of York, Who Lived 28 Years on a Deserted Island,” gained worldwide fame; readers immediately recognized the fictional character as “Robinson” from the Island of Mas- a-Tierra. Daniel Defoe has repeatedly confirmed the fact that he met the prototype of Robinson's hero, Selkirk, and used his life story in his book.
In the preface to the first edition of the book about Robinson, D. Defoe wrote: “There is still among us a man whose life served as the basis for this book.” The government of the Republic of Chile renamed the island of Mas a Tierra, where Selkirk spent five years of his life, Selkirk Island. In the Scottish village of Largo, where Alexander Selkirk was born, a monument was erected to him.

Alexander Selkirk was not the first “Robinson” on the deserted island of Mas a Tierra. His predecessor, Juan Fernandez, lived here for several years; it was he who left the goats here, which were so useful to Alexander Selkirk, they gave him meat, milk and leather for clothing. A dark-skinned sailor who escaped from a sunken ship lived on this island for five years (1680−1685). In 1687, Captain Davis left 9 sailors on the island, so he decided to teach them a lesson for gambling with dice. The captain provided them with food and everything necessary for life, the sailors were not sad at all, but rather on the contrary, they now had a lot of free time to play dice, which is what they did all their free time. Since they had no money, the resourceful sailors divided the territory of the island among themselves and played for land. The sailors left the island after three years, although they had many opportunities to do so earlier. 14 years after them, Alexander Selkirk “settled” on this island.

16.09.2010 - 20:59

Even those who have never read the famous book by Daniel Defoe know who Robinson Crusoe is - this name has long become a household name. Meanwhile, Robinson had a prototype, which actually spent several difficult years on a desert island. This man's name was Alexander Selkirk - and his adventures were also very exciting...

Selkirk Pirate

Selkirk was born in 1676 in the Scottish town of Largo. His father was a shoemaker, and the boy spent his time in the workshop, playing with scraps of leather and pieces of wood. The shoemaker's craft seemed incredibly boring to him - after all, Largo is located on the seashore, and the local heroes were sailors who often gathered at the Red Lion tavern, which stood not far from the Selkirk house. When the boy grew up, he often ran to a tavern, where he listened to the stories of experienced sea wolves - about distant countries, storms, unprecedented adventures...

At the age of 18, Alexander told his father that he was not going to continue his business, but wanted to become a sailor. He got a job as a sailor on a ship sailing to Africa. And adventures were not long in coming - the ship was attacked by pirates. The young sailor was captured and sold into slavery. This is a rather dark period in Selkirk’s life - apparently, he himself was involved in piracy, because a few years later he returned home - with a gold earring in his ear, in luxurious clothes and with money.

But he couldn’t sit at home, and Alexander was looking for a ship on which he could go to sea again. In 1703, he read in the newspaper that the famous captain William Dampier was going to sail on several ships to the West Indies for gold.

Selkirk immediately went to the navigator and was accepted as a boatswain on the 16-gun galley "Sankpor". At first, the voyage passed without much incident, except for the death of the ship's captain. Dampier appointed a new captain, Thomas Stradling, who had a difficult character and disliked Selkirk from the very beginning. Having become a captain, he found fault with the boatswain, and serious quarrels often broke out between them.

In 1704, the ship reached the Juan Fernandez archipelago, located 700 km from the Chilean coast. Here Dampier hoped to replenish his supplies of fresh water. The relationship between Selkirk and the Stradlings was finally fulfilled by that time. It is unknown whether by his own will or the order of the captain, Selkirk was landed on one of the islands of the archipelago. It was written in the ship's log that Alexander Selkirk left the ship of his own free will, but no one knows how it really happened.

One way or another, Selkirk received a boat, food supplies, a gun, gunpowder and bullets, tobacco, an axe, a knife and a cauldron, and even a Bible and went to the small uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra.

Sailor in goatskins

Ships often visited these latitudes, which gave the Scotsman hope to return home in the near future. He landed on the island and began to arrange his new life - completely alone. It turned out that many wild goats live on Mas a Tierra, and as long as Selkirk has bullets and gunpowder, he is not in danger of starvation. But the ships still did not appear, and then the sailor had to think about the future - what if the rescue ship never approached the archipelago.

Selkirk began to explore his island more thoroughly. It turned out that its dimensions are 20 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide. The island was covered with dense vegetation, in which various birds and small animals lived. There were seals and turtles on the shore. There were various fish and lobsters in the sea.

Selkirk was not in danger of starvation, but loneliness began to torment him. There was a fear that the ship would never come, and he was doomed to spend his whole life here. More and more often, Selkirk regretted that he had not been able to get along with the captain, and therefore he ended up here... However, the sailor did not know that the Sankpor, soon after he left him, was wrecked and the crew died.

Selkirk everyone climbed the most high mountain islands and spent hours peering at the lifeless horizon. But the ship still did not appear, and the sailor began to do other things. He built two huts from logs and leaves and carefully equipped them. In one of the huts he slept and rested, and the second served as his kitchen.

Time passed, life gradually improved, but gunpowder reserves were dwindling and, in addition, clothes were worn out. Then Selkirk, using a rusty nail, sewed himself clothes from goat skins.

Selkir made his own dishes from coconuts, and made shelves and chests from wood in which he stored his utensils. He learned to make fire by friction, but problems began with meat - the gunpowder ran out, and it became impossible to kill goats. Selkirk tried to catch them with his bare hands, but the goats ran faster. Once, while hunting, trying to catch a goat, the sailor fell into an abyss and lay there unconscious for three days. After this, the Scotsman began to cut the tendons of the kids’ legs, causing them to lose their agility and become more accessible to the unarmed hunter.

A real disaster for him were the many who divorced on the island. They scurried around the hut, gnawing everything they could. Fortunately, the island was inhabited by feral cats that had arrived on it from ships. Selkirk began to tame these wild animals, which he did successfully. Gradually the sailor got used to his position. A healthy climate and daily work strengthened his strength and health. He no longer experienced the pangs of loneliness that had overcome him at the beginning of his stay on the island.

Robinson Island

More than four years passed, and at the beginning of 1709 Selkirk's solitude was finally broken. On January 31, he saw a sail on the horizon - a ship was approaching the island. A boat with sailors set sail from it, and they began rowing busily straight towards the island. These were the first people he had seen in Selkirk after so many years.

The sailors were stunned to meet on the wild shore a man overgrown with hair, dressed in goat skins, who could not say a word, but only mooed - Selkirk could not utter a word. He was taken on board the ship - the British ship Duke. Only a few days later the Scot was able to tell who he was and what happened to him.

On February 14, the ship weighed anchor and set off - the Duke made a long and dangerous raid across the seven seas. Therefore, Selkirk did not have the opportunity to go home right away - he had to go around the world on the Duke. And only thirty-three months later, on October 14, 1711, he returned to England, having by this time become the captain of the sailing ship Increase captured during the campaign.

When Londoners learned about the adventures of their fellow countryman, Selkirk became a popular personality in the English capital. But a man of few words, unable to talk colorfully and vividly about his experiences, he quickly became boring to the public. Then he left for his native Largo.
At first he was greeted here cordially. Then the attitude towards him changed. His stay on the island did not pass without a trace: Selkirk’s gloomy appearance and gloomy gaze scared people away, his silence and isolation irritated him. A few years later, Selkirk returned to the navy and became a lieutenant “in the service of His Majesty the King of Great Britain.” He was assigned to command the ship Weymouth.

During the next voyage to the shores West Africa in 1720 Selkirk died of tropical fever and was buried with military honors. The island where the sailor lived for several years is now called Robinson Island. And the island next to it is named after Alexander Selkirk.

It is interesting that quite recently, in 2008, on Robinson Island, scientists from the British Society for Post-Medieval Archeology first discovered the site of Alexander Selkirk - the remains of two huts and an observation post, standing on which he looked at the sea in the hope of seeing a sail...

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