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54:03 My bit fully spoiled. But Robinson Crusoe's experience learning how to survive and then thrive on a tropical island, equally dangerous and idyllic, does closely follow the experiences of several real castaways and maroons, including those of the scottish privateer Alexander Selkirk. Selkirks is one of the best documented cases of marooning, and in many ways extremely typical of the practice in its heyday, Selkirk was a privateer, sailing during the latter part of the golden age of piracy. The son of a shoemaker in Fife, Selkirk took to the sea when he was 17, very possibly to avoid prosecution for acting indecently in church. It's possible that he actually took to the sea earlier, but the best data we have for this is based on a criminal prosecution against him, where it's said that he did not appear in court because he had gone to sea. And that was around when he was 17. When the war of Spanish Succession began, England was once again eager to enlist private ships to raid spanish shipping and colony towns in the Americas. Privateering like this was dangerous business, but it had a romantic nationalist allure, and a successful voyage could make the whole crew rich beyond anything they could hope to earn on land. Huge numbers of men were needed for one of these voyages, and if most of them had never been to sea before, well, they would either learn or they would die. Certain positions did need to be filled by experienced sailors, and perhaps the most crucial was that of sailing master, responsible for navigation, setting the course, supervising the sails, rigging anchor, and the arrangement of the items in the hold. In short, if the captain decided where the ship went, the sailing master decided how it ought to get there and made sure that it did. By this point, Alexander Selkirk had been sailing for nearly a decade, and although he had not entirely shed the quarrelsome habits of his youth, he had blossomed into a skilled sailor and a more than adequate navigator. In 1701, the same year the war started, he signed on to a privateering expedition led by the famous explorer William Dampier, and he was made sailing master of the second, smaller ship under Captain Charles Pickering. They sailed in 1703, bound for South America. But Captain Pickering died of scurvy off the coast of Brazil, and he was replaced by 21 year old lieutenant Thomas Stradling. The 21 year old captain and the 27 year old sailing master clashed immediately. A year of tough sailing for the sake of a handful of raids, mostly unsuccessful, did not improve the relationship. In mid May 1704, the captains, stradling and dampir, quarreled and agreed to split up the expedition. Stradling, with Selkirk, would go his own way. By this point, their stores were running low, and the ship was in bad condition. The masts were cracked, the sails shredded, the leather on the bilge pumps was worn through, and the hull was full of wood boring worms. She needed to be careened, dragged up onto shore, turned on her side, and given a thorough going over for this purpose, Selkirk guided them to an uninhabited archipelago called the Juan Fernandez Islands, about 360 nautical miles, or 120 english leagues, due west of Santiago, Chile. It was September by the time they arrived. When they had finished collecting wood and water from the island, Stradling announced that careening the ship would be too dangerous. If a spanish naval patrol spotted them while the ship was on the beach, they would be helpless. But Selkirk insisted that the ship was in no condition to sail, much less fight. He swore hed rather stay on the island than try to sail in that leaky tub. Who can say now if Selkirk really meant it? Perhaps he expected the other sailors to support him against the captain, but they didnt. We can imagine a nasty smile spreading slowly across Stradlings face as the troublesome sailing master announced that he would rather stay behind. Stradling, called Selkirks bluff. Once they had finished collecting water, food, and firewood from the island, he and a few of the other men took Selkirk ashore in a small boat. They gave him some food and water, a musket, some shot and powder, and left his sea chest on the rocky shore. Selkirk waded out into the shallows and called after them, begging his former shipmates to come back. Straddling just jeered at him. A few hours later, the ship raised anchor and sailed out of the bay, never to return. Of course, Selkirk did not know they weren't going to return. He was the sailing master, the navigator. Surely it was only a matter of time until they realized how much they needed him. He waited on the beach in a crude hut to be sure he didn't miss their returning. He found a freshwater stream nearby, ate his biscuits, and waited. When the biscuits ran out, he got desperate, eating mussels, crabs and lobsters raw. Once the intestinal distress subsided and he was able to move around properly again, he tried cooking them. Weeks went by like this. Eventually, he moved off the beach in search of better shelter. At first, he settled in a cave with its entrance above the tree line so that he could still watch the bay for a passing ship. By this point, he had probably given up hope of straddling having a change of heart. Selkirk could not have known and would have gotten little joy from the knowledge, but in fact, he had been exactly right. The ship had not been seaworthy, and Stradling's remaining crew had not been equal to her handling. They had foundered only a little while after marooning Selkirk. Only the captain and five or six others survived out of an original crew of more than 60. The survivors fell into the hands of the spanish authorities and were dragged to Lima, where they would remain in harsh imprisonment for years. But Selkirk was doing all right. He slept a great deal. He sang to himself, explored, experimented with different kinds of sea turtles, bird eggs, wild berries and roots. In the interior of the island, he found edible plants growing in great turnips. Cabbage, oats, radishes, parsnips, pumpkins. What they had been left behind after a failed attempt to colonize the island about a century before. He made plum jam and found peppers he could use to season his food. He hunted the islands goats, first with his musket, and then, when he had exhausted his ammunition, he learned how to run them down and catch them with his bare hands. He built a pen and kept his own little herd. In the mornings and evenings. He passed the time by reading the only three books he possessed, a bible and his geometry and navigation textbooks. His health improved, and the hot temper of his youth finally cooled. He moved out of the cave and built himself a proper, comfortable hut. He even learned how to hunt the massive sea lions that came to the island to mate, but found them poor eating. He found a litter of newborn kittens in the woods and brought them back to his hut, fed them on milk from the goats, and when they were big enough, he set them loose around the hut to keep the islands rats at bay. At night, he would hold their little paws and dance with them.