“I came in view of the sea to the west, and it being a very clear day, I fairly descried land,... extending from the W. to the W.S.W....  It could not be less than fifteen or twenty leagues off.”

    There is no land situated W.S.W. from Juan Fernandez.  W.S.W.
    from the island of Tobago lies the great island of Trinidad. 
    When Crusoe attempts to sail around the island he says: 

    “I perceived a strong and most furious current.”

    This could be no other than the current from the mouth of the
    great Orinoco River.

    But what settles the matter is that after Crusoe had taught
    Friday to speak English, he had a conversation with him, in
    which Crusoe asks Friday: 

“How far it was from our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost.  He told me there was no danger; no canoes ever lost; but after a little way out to sea, there was a current and wind always one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon.  This I understood to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out or coming in; but I afterward understood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoko, in the mouth of which river, as I thought afterwards, our island lay; and that this land which I perceived to the W.S.W. was the great island Trinidad.”

I like your GREAT ROUND WORLD, Mr. Editor, but I like Robinson Crusoe, too.  I like to know just where he was cast away, and hope if I am right you will tell other boys who read “Robinson Crusoe” the true place, where Daniel Defoe describes poor Crusoe as living all those weary years.

         &nb
sp;                                          EDGAR B.
    Aged twelve years. 
    CHICAGO, ILL.

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND: 

After the very careful work you have done on Robinson Crusoe, and the evident affection you have for him, it seems a shame to have to tell you that no such person as Crusoe existed.

As we told in THE GREAT ROUND WORLD, No. 11, a Scotchman named Alexander Selkirk was put ashore on the island of Juan Fernandez, and lived there four years and four months.

When he was rescued and brought back to England, he wrote an account of his life there.

An English writer named Daniel Defoe saw this book of Selkirk’s, and thought it would make a wonderful story if it was well handled.  Selkirk’s was a mere statement of what had happened to him, and while intensely interesting, was not written to amuse people.

Defoe created an imaginary person, whom he called Robinson Crusoe, dressed up Selkirk’s facts to suit the purpose of his story, and wrote the wonderful and undying story of Robinson Crusoe.