‘Yes,’ said he, with pride, ’man can suffice for himself, can depend on himself only for subsistence and welfare!  Am I not a striking proof?  Did not all seem lost for me, when an unforeseen catastrophe destroyed the remnant of the provision of powder which I owed to the pity of that miserable captain?  Ah! undoubtedly according to his hateful calculations, he had limited the term of my life to the last charge which my gun should contain; this last charge is still there!  Of what use will it be to me?  Why do I need it?  Are not my resources for subsistence more certain and numerous to-day than before?  What then is wanting?  The society of a Stradling and his fellows?  God keep me from them!  The best member of the crew of the brig Swordfish came away when I did.  I have received from Marimonda more proofs of devotion than from all the companions I have had on land and on sea.  What have I to regret?  I am well off here; may God keep me in repose and health!’

After this sally, he thought of his hives, which were still wanting, and of the methods to be employed to seize a swarm of bees.

A month after, Selkirk, who religiously kept his reckoning on the margin of his Bible, resolved to celebrate the New Year.  It was now the first of January, 1706.

On this day he dined, not in his cabin, nor under his tree, but in the middle of the inclosure, surrounded by his family; fruits and good cheer were more abundant than usual; Marimonda, as was her custom, dined at the same table with himself:  the cats shared in the feast; the goats roved around, stretching up to gaze with their blue eyes on the baskets of fruits, and returning to browse on the grass beneath the feet of the guests.  Selkirk, as the master of the house, and chief of the family, generously distributed the provisions to his young and frolicksome republic, and Marimonda assisted him as well as she could, in doing the honors.

After the repasts, there were races and combats; the remains of the baskets were thrown to the most skilful and the most adroit; then came, diversions and swings.

Lying in his hammock, where he smoked his most excellent tobacco in his best pipe, Selkirk smilingly contemplated the capricious bounds, the riotous sports of his cats and kids, their graceful postures, their fraternal combats, in which sheathed claws and the inoffensive horn were the only weapons used on either side.

To give more variety to the fete, Marimonda developes all the resources of her daring suppleness; she leaps from right to left, clearing large spaces with inconceivable dexterity.  Attaining the summit of a tree, she whistles to attract her master’s attention, then, with her two fore-paws clasped in her hind ones, she rolls herself up like a ball and drops on the ground; the foliage crackles beneath her fall, which seems as if it must be mortal; for her, this is only sport.  Without altering the position of her limbs, she suddenly stops in her rapid descent, by means of her prehensile tail, that fifth hand, so powerful, with which nature has endowed the monkeys of America.  Then, suspended by this organ alone, she accelerates her motions to and fro with incredible rapidity, quickly unwinds her tail from the branch by which she is suspended, and with a dart, traversing the air as if winged, alights at a hundred paces distance on a vine, which she instantly uses as a swing.