There is no room for doubt! some Indian tribes, pursued perhaps by new conquerors from Europe, have just disembarked on the shore.  Wo to him! he can hope from them neither pity nor mercy.  A cold sweat bathes his forehead; he runs to his grotto, takes his gun, puts in his goatskin pouch some horns of powder and shot, a piece of smoked meat, not forgetting his Bible! and passes the night wandering in the woods, in the mountains, a prey to a thousand terrors; hearing without cessation the steps of pursuers behind him, and seeing fiery eyes glaring at him through the thickets.

At day-break, with a thousand precautions, he returns to his grotto.  He finds the beach covered with seals.

These were the enemies whose invasion had so alarmed him.

It is now the middle of the month of February, the period of the greatest tropical heats, and these amphibia, having left the shores of Chili or Peru, are accomplishing one of their periodical migrations.  They have just taken possession of the island, one of their accustomed stations.  But the island has now a master.

Where he expected to encounter a peril, Selkirk finds amusement, a subject of study, perhaps a resource.

A long time ago he has read, in the narratives of voyagers, singular stories concerning these marine animals, these lions, these sea-elephants, flocks of old Neptune, who have their chiefs, their pacha; who are acquainted with and practise the discipline of war; stationing vigilant sentinels in the spots they occupy, communicating to each other a pass-word, and attentive to the Qui vive?

He spies them, he watches them, he takes pleasure in examining their grotesque forms,—­half quadruped, half fish; their feet encased in a sort of web, and terminated by crooked claws, with which they creep on the earth; their skins, covered with short and glossy hair; their round heads and eyes.

He is a witness of their sports, their combats; but very soon their frightful roaring and bellowing annoys him, and makes him regret the silence of his solitude.  Another cause of complaint against them soon arises.

One morning, Selkirk finds his fish-pond and bed of water-cresses devastated.

Exasperated, he declares war against the invaders:  during three days he tracks them, pursues them; ten of them fall beneath his balls, leaving the shore bathed in their blood.  The rest at last take flight, and the army of seals, regaining the sea with despairing cries, goes to establish itself at the other extremity of the island.

This war has been profitable to the conqueror.  With the skin of the vanquished he makes himself a new hammock, which permits him to employ his sail for other uses; he also makes leather bottles, in which he preserves the oil which he extracts in abundance from their fat.  Now he can have a lamp constantly burning, even by night.  He has all the comforts of life.  Of the hairy skin of the seals, he manufactures a broad-brimmed hat, which shields him from the burning rays of the sun.  He tastes their flesh; it appears to him insipid and nauseous, like that of the fish; but the tongue, the heart, seasoned with pepper, are for him quite a luxury.