When the garden-spot is marked out, dug, sown, planted, not forgetting the kitchen vegetables, and especially the coca and petunia-nicotiana, Selkirk, with his arms folded on his spade, thanks God with all his heart,—­God who has given him strength to finish his work.

He has never felt so happy as when, with his hands behind his back, he walks smoking, among his beds, in which nothing has as yet appeared; but he already sees, in a dream, his trees covered with blossoms; around these blossoms are buzzing numerous swarms of bees; he reflects upon the means of compelling them to yield the honey of which they have just stolen from him the essence.  It is a settled thing, on his farm he will have hives!  After his bees, still in his dream, come flocks of humming-birds to plunder in their turn.  The happy possessor of the garden will exact no tribute from them, but the pleasure of seeing them suspend, by a silken thread, to the leaves of his shrubs, the elegant little boat in which they cradle their fragile brood.  Nothing seems to him more beautiful than his embryo garden; here, he is more than the monarch of the island; he is a proprietor!

Thanks to the garden, Selkirk sees with resignation the two long months of the rainy season pass away.  When the heavy torrents render the paths impassable, he consoles himself by thinking that they aid in the germination of his seeds, in the rooting of his young plants.  Sometimes, between two deluges, he can scarcely find time to procure himself sufficient game; what matters it! he lives on his provisions:  he is forcibly detained within; but has he not now good cheer, good company, and occupation, during his leisure hours?

It is now that he completes his furniture.  His table and his seats finished, he undertakes to provide for another want, equally indispensable.

Worn out by the weather, and by service, his garments are becoming ragged.  He must shield himself from the humidity of the air; where shall he procure materials?  Has he not the choice between seal-skins and goat-skins?  He gives the preference to the latter, as more pliable, and behold him a tailor, cutting with the point of his knife; as for thread, it is furnished by the fragment of the sail; and two days afterwards, he finds himself flaming in a new suit.

To describe the delirious stupefaction of Marimonda, when she perceives her master under this strange costume, would be a thing impossible.  She finds him almost like herself, clad like her, in a hairy suit.  Never tired of looking at him, of examining him curiously, she leaps, she gambols around him, now rolling at his feet, and uttering little cries of joy, now suspended over his head, at the top of the central pillar, and turning her wild and restless eyes.  When she has thus inspected him from head to foot, she runs and crouches in a corner, with her face towards the wall, as if to reflect; then, whirling about, returns towards him, picks up on the way the garment he has just laid aside, looking alternately at this and at the other, very anxious to know which of the two really made a part of the person.