CONFIDENTIAL CHAT WITH THE READER.
[Illustration: SCENERY OF JUAN FERNANDEZ.]
Now that we have finished our ramble together, and formed something of a
speaking acquaintance, I hope, my dear reader, that you will not take it
amiss if I hold you a moment by the button, and say a word in
confidence. It has been so long the custom of adventurers to speak now
and then about themselves, that I assume the privilege without farther
apology. If I have been so fortunate as to inspire you with a friendly
interest in my behalf during our pleasant wanderings in the footsteps of
Robinson Crusoe, I am sure you will be glad to learn that it has always
been my greatest ambition to prove myself a worthy disciple of that
distinguished adventurer. In this view I have, as you may have noticed,
adhered to simple facts, and carefully avoided every thing that might be
regarded in the light of fiction, though the temptation to indulge in
occasional touches of romance was very difficult to resist. Indeed, so
thoroughly have I striven to become imbued with the true spirit of
Crusoeism, that much which I thought at first a little doubtful myself,
now seems quite authentic; and I think, upon the whole, you may rely
upon the truthfulness of my narrative. That I was near being lost in an
open boat, with ten others, in trying to get ashore on the island of
Juan Fernandez, I conscientiously believe; that we did get ashore, and
sleep in caves and straw huts, and climb wonderful mountains, and
explore enchanting valleys, I will insist upon to the latest hour of my
life; that I have endeavored faithfully to describe the island as it
appeared to me, and to give a true and reliable account of its present
condition, climate, topography, and scenery, I affirm on the honor and
veracity of a traveler; that in every essential particular it has been
my aim to present a faithful picture of life in that remote little
world, I will swear to on the best edition of Robinson Crusoe: more than
that it would be unreasonable to expect. If, however, after this candid
avowal, you still insist upon having a distinct and emphatic declaration
in regard to any doubtful point, all I can say is, that, like the man
who made a statement concerning the height of a certain horse, I am
ready at all hazards to stick to whatever I said. If I spoke of a
mountain as three thousand miles high instead of three thousand feet,
why, in the name of peace, let it be three thousand miles; if I killed
any savages, I am sorry for it, but they must remain dead--it is
impossible to bring them to life now; if I put some of my own ideas into
the heads of others, it must have been because I thought them better
adapted to the subject than what those heads contained already, and I
hold myself responsible for them; if at any time I imagined myself to be
the original and genuine Crusoe, with a man in my service called Friday,
I still adhere to it that no Crusoe more certain than he was himself
ever existed upon that island; if, in short, there is any one point upon
which I have hazarded the reputation of a veracious chronicler of actual
events, or a faithful delineator of strange scenes in nature, I hereby
declare that I shall most cheerfully return to Juan Fernandez in an open
boat with any ten readers who desire to test the matter by ocular
demonstration, and thus convince the most skeptical that I have not made
a single unfounded assertion.
[Illustration]
And now, in the hope that we may meet again, I wish to leave you a
trifling souvenir by which to bear me in mind.
One of the sailors on board the Anteus was kind enough to make me a suit
of clothes out of the goatskins that I bought of Pearce. He made them
according to a pattern of my own, which I intend some day or other to
introduce in the fashionable circles. I stowed them carefully away in my
berth, but the rats took such a fancy to them that, by the time I
reached California, there was nothing left but the tail of one goat upon
which to hang a portrait; and I regret to say the accompanying sketch,
taken from memory, affords but an imperfect conception of the suit as I
originally appeared in it. I trust the apparent egotism of smuggling my
likeness into print in a suit of goatskins, on the pretext of exhibiting
the suit itself, will be excused by the absolute necessity of filling it
up with something. At the same time, I must be permitted to observe that
the stiffness is in the material and not in the person of the author.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR A LA ROBINSON CRUSOE.]