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No. LXIX.]

"Takes note of what is done-
By note, to give and to receive."-SHAKESPEARE.

NEW FACTS RESPECTING ROBINSON CRUSOE.

The original of De Foe's Robinson Crusoe, it is now generally admitted was Alexander Selkirk or Selchraig, a native of the parish of Largo, in Fifeshire. Several families of the same name resided at the time in the same place, and had long been settled in the fishing village of Nether Largo, romantically situated on the margin of the German Ocean. Here, about a mile distant from the parish kirk, was the spot of Alexander Selkirk's birth, in or about 1676; and although the year has not been certified by any entry in the parochial registry of Baptisms, nor in any known record, still the house in which he was born is well authenticated, and remains in much the same primitive condition in its form as when built. In the annexed view, it is engraved for the first time

[SEPTEMBER, 1856.

being drunk in a mercat at Leven;' other instances might be adduced from the same unerring record of the attempts to reform their ill doing.

Alexander Selkirk's occupation is not stated, probably he followed his father's calling, that of a tanner and shoemaker; his reprehensible conduct however in 1695, placed him under the ban of the Kirk Session, to avoid the oppressive tyranny of which, it is recorded, he fled to sea, and hence commenced a career that at a later period earned him a never-dying name in the annals of the world. The Sessional registers notice

August 25. The qulk day, Alexander Selchraig, son to John Selchraig elder, in Neither Largo, was delated for his undecent carriage in the church. Ordered to be cited before the Session.

August 27. The qulk day, Alexander Selchraig called, but did not compear being gone away to the sea. This business is continued till his return.

When he returned does not appear, but he was at home in 1701, and took a prominent part in some family squabbles, which occasioned the following recorded proceedings in the Sessional register of that year.

Nov. 18. John Guthrie delated John Selcraige elder, and his wife Euphan Mckie, and Alexander Selcraig, Andrew Selcraige, for disagreement together; and also John Selcraige and his wife Margaret Bell. [All ordered to appear on 25th inst.]

Nov. 25. Euphan Mckie confessed that she desired to be separate from her husband, but she said she was of a troubled spirit, and that she thought her words should not be laid hold one; she said she is now in better termes with her husband.

John Selcraige elder being enquired what was the occasion of the tumult in his house, said, he knew not, but that Andrew Selcraige having brought in a canefull of salt watter of which his brother Alexander did through mistake take a drink, and he laughing at him for it, his brother Alexander un-came andbeat him; upon which he rune out of the house and called his brother John. John Selcraig elder being again questioned what made him to sit one the floor with his back at the door? he said, it was to keep doun his sone Alexander who was seeking to go up to get his pistole, and being enquired, what he was to do with it? he said, he could not tell.

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Whether that branch of the Selkirks to which Alexander was more immediately related inherited their quarrelsome habits from their father or their mother, the latter of whom it appears was a person of an steady and discontented nature, or as quaintly admitted in her own words of a troubled spirit,' it would be idle to attempt to determine; yet certain it is, that the scenes of family strife, which occurred within the house above represented, were the immediate cause of his leaving that home, and assuming a position in life, which by the graphic pen of De Foe has eternised him as a hero of imperishable notoriety.

The Selkirk family appear to have been naturally turbulent, and from the Sessional records, it is clear, that Alexander's elder brother John, in 1685, a married man with a family, also at times afforded the Kirk Session occasion to anathematise his dissolute conduct. During the summer of 1693, he was rebuked' for being drunk, and striking some of his neighbours; again, in the autumn of the same year, he, with a namesake, did penance for

VOL. VI.

Alexander Selcraige called, compeared not, because he was at Coupar: he is to be cited pro secundo against the

next Session.

John Selcrage younger being questioned concerning the tumult in his father's house on Nov. 7, declared that he being entered the house, his mother went out, and he seeing his called by his brother Andrew came in to it, and when he father sitting one the floor with his back at the door was much troubled and offered to help him up, and to bring him to the fire, at which time he did see his brother Alexander, in the other end of the house, casting off his coate, and coming towards him; whereupon his father did get betwixt

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them, but he knew not what he did otherwayes, his head being borne down by his brother Alexander, but afterwards being liberated by his wife, did make his escape.

Margaret Bell, [wife of John S.,] deponed that Andrew Selcraige came running for her husband John, and desiring him to go to his father's house; which he doing, the said Margaret did follow her husband, and coming into the house, she found Alexander Selcraige gripping both his father and her husband, and she labouring to louse Alexander's hands from her husband's head and breast, her husband fled out of doors, and she followed him, and called back again-You fals loon will you murder your father and my husband both? Whereupon he followed her to the door, but whether he beat her or not, she was in so great confusion, she cannot distinctly tell, but ever since she hath a sore pain in her head.

Nov. 29. Alexander Selcraige, scandalous for contention and disagreeing with his brothers compeared and confest that he having taken a drink of salt watter out of the cane, his younger brother Andrew laughing at him for it, he did beat him twice with a stafe. He confest also that he had spoken very ill words concerning his brothers, and particularly he challinged his elder brother John to a combate as he called it, of dry neiffells; he said then he would not care to do it even now, which afterwards he did refuse and regrate; moreover, he said several other things, whereupon the Session appointed him to compear before the pulpit against to-morrow, and to be rebuked in face of the congregation for his scandalous carriage.

Nov. 30. Alexander Selcraige according to the Session's appointment compeared before the pulpit and made acknowledgement of his sin in disagreeing with his brothers, and was rebuked in face of the congregation for it: he promised amendment in the strenth of the Lord, and so was dismissed. The next that is with certainty known of Alexander Selkirk, is the fact, that while sailing master of the ship Cinque Ports, in 1704, he quarrelled with the captain of that vessel, and by way of punishment was put on shore on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez in the Pacific Ocean, with a chest containing cloathes, a hatchet, and a firelock, with some powder and shot, and that there he contrived to live till he was picked up by Captain Woodes Rogers, in 1709, and brought to England.

The firelock, his cloathes, chest, and drinking cup, used on the island, were brought home by him to his native village; and with the exception of the firelock, now at Lathallan House, near Largo; the rest remain in the house in which he was born. The house, nominally at least, the property of Mrs. Gillies, a poor widow, is tenanted by her; she is the daughter of John Selkirk, grand-nephew of Alexander Selkirk, is 78 years of age, and has been the mother of a large family, all of whom have preceded her to their last home.

Widow Gillies is the last survivor of the family to which Selkirk belonged, and her circumstances are such, that she is dependant on the benevolence of those who visit her interesting cottage, and the relics of her far-famed predecessor: visitors it must be admitted are not a few, some of them are and have been persons of high literary distinction: among them not the least memorable was the master spirit of the North, Sir Walter Scott, and his publisher Constable, the latter of whom, in consequence

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having been the work of Alexander Selkirk,)—is three inches and a quarter deep, by two and a half inches diameter. Mrs. Gillies assured the writer, it had formerly a silver foot and stem, but that her father had disposed of it. Wanting that appendage, Sir Walter and Constable took it to Edinburgh, where the present foot and stem of rosewood nearly three inches high, was added, making the whole about six inches in height. They also added the silver band or fillet, that encircles the outside of the cup, bearing this inscription-The Cup of Alex. Selkirk, whilst in Juan Fernandez, 1704-9. The cloathes-chest, designated by the family in Mrs. Gillies's youth, the cedar kist,' from the top being made of cedar wood, is two feet deep, eighteen inches wide, and three feet long. At one end is a small drawer or locker,' with a rudely ornamented lid. The asp of the lock, as shewn by the woodcut

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was a coarse strong sort of fastening, now useless. Upon the top of the slightly rounded lid, are the letters A. S., and the figures 34, being the number of the chest on board Capt. Woodes Rogers' ship at the time he was homeward bound; there are also scratched with some sharp instrument, four angular marks equi-distant; all the contents of the chest as may be premised are fewthe drinking cup, a copy of De Foe's Novel of Robinson Crusoe, and the rusted key, long since past use, are all it contains.

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ORIGIN OF SMOKING TOBACCO.

Columbus in his first voyage of discovery, on his returning entered the port of Nipe, in Cuba, Oct. 28, 1492, and on the following day, believing the coast to be that of Asia, left it in hopes of finding the city, which induced by the Indians he believed lay to the westward. On Nov. 2 he deputed messengers to confer with the great king, who was supposed to govern this vast continent, but on the fourth day of their absence, they returned; they had found no Eastern magnificence, but simply a town about twelve leagues distant. These messengers, in the course of their journey, observed for the first time the application of Tobacco to smoking. This was described as being in the form of a roll of a large quantity of the leaf, one end of which was on fire, the smoke being inhaled by the mouth from the other, a process which occasioned the Spaniards much surprise. Thus, observes Navarrete, was the first lesson given to Europeans, of this extraordinary habit, that has become universal; and hence the origin of the so-much prized and so far celebrated Havanas. The natives on being questioned why they adopted the practice, replied as well as they could be understood, that it prevented them from feeling fatigue. Las Casas, the Spanish historian, is the first to exclaim against the custom, being unable on his part to discover the benefit that was to be derived from it; but Navarrete inadvertently supplies a satisfactory answer, one that applies to other states, besides that of Spain, in simply observing-Who would have supposed, that this new and curious vice could have become so general, as to be one of the most profitable sources of revenue to the State? This after all appears to be the most beneficial result of the use of the weed in all the various ways in which it is applied. Capt. Becher, in his recently published admirable work, the Landfall of Columbus, p. 356, observes-Here, as stated by Las Casas, is the origin of smoking tobacco, a practice which however extensive it may be in other countries, has become so general in this, that to the discredit of parents, it is even followed by children! the eternal cigar is seen in the mouth of old and young, even in that of the ragged urchin, who swaggers along not only astonishing those who see him at his early hardihood, but leaving them to speculate how he came by it, considering the price which must have been paid for it. Profitable indeed it is to the State, but indulged in to the cost of the pocket, the health, and the personal comfort of society, as the following statement from an official source of the amount of duty derived from Tobacco in the United Kingdom, for the last three years will substantiate :

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In Albury church, Surrey, is the following similarly disposed memorial: —

Res Vrgent eXIsto pVLVere qIbI sepVLtI DorMIVnt.
My body pawn'd to death doth here remain,
As surety for the Soul's return again.

The first embodies the date 1634; the second, 1640.
Harbledown.
M. D.

THE LANDFALL OF COLUMBUS.

Captain Becher's recently published volume entitled -The Landfall of Columbus on his first voyage to America, is one of those works which must find its way into all libraries, whether public or private, inasmuch as based on fact and records of an indisputable character, the circumstances relative to the four voyages of this celebrated man, are here fully developed, and the spot on which Columbus first set foot in the New World, is here satisfactorily defined and established. Notwithstanding the hitherto unsuccessful efforts of the most distinguished writers and Nautical Commanders or Historians to determine or solve a question that has been deemed of the highest importance, and embarrassed by difficulties in the solution of no ordinary complicity, as neither Watling Island, the Guanahani of Columbus, nor the Crooked Island Group, his Fragrant Isles,' have been surveyed on the liberal scale of Long Island, off the south-west end of which he anchored, and after naming it, simply adds a passing notice in two or three

words.

The circumstances in the eventful career of Columbus, whose name can never be forgotten in the annals of the world, though only the eldest son of a humble carder, born at Genoa in 1435, are subjects of the most minute enquiry, and his perseverance, undaunted amidst the greatest perplexities, is held forth for the admiration of all men, and proving Columbus to have been under all positions in himself a person of innate majesty of capacity, notwithstanding the frequent rejections of his proposals for discoveries in the West, his being deceived, taunted and treated as a fanatic, by governments whose antecedents and power ought to have rendered them more susceptible of appreciation. In 1485, we learn that Columbus purposed to proffer his services to England: Henry the Seventh was then on the throne, a monarch whose wisdom and prowess Columbus had heard highly praised, so much so indeed, as to induce him to urge the setting forth of his brother Bartholomew to obtain if possible the patronage of the king; in the meantime however having satisfied his filial piety by seeing his aged father was comfortably provided for, he quitted Genoa for Spain, where subsequently he found a more favourable reception than had been accorded to him by the different governments which he had addressed, and England missed the opportunity of adding one more to the many glories which already enrich her naval renown.

The notes of the Journal of Columbus in his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, are here digested in the more modern form of the Journals kept on board Government ships, by which at a glance are shewn the courses and distances run by him, and elicit the fact that on Thursday, Oct. 11, land was first seen by a seaman named Rodriga de Triana, on board the Pinta, which being a faster vessel was ahead of the Admiral's ship, the Santa Maria. At two in the morning of Friday, land was distinctly seen by the ships at about two leagues distance, and at day-break Columbus landed

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the way into the Pacific Ocean has been more fortunate Magellan, the first of the early navigators who shewed than Columbus, both with the historian and the poet. Even his ship, the Victory, which never returned to Europe, but was lost among the Molucca Islands, has been pictorially represented, and her success celebrated in song; while to realise an illustration of the ships of Columbus has been the difficult task of the antiquary, causing misconceptions and errors among men and writers of the clearest and most resplendent intellects.

The arguments of Washington Irving in favour of Cat Island; and those of Baron Humboldt for Turk's Island, are by Captain Becher most successfully analysed, the several courses are traced on an accompanying map, and the vexatious point in dispute may now be considered as definitively settled.

and Isabella conferred on Columbus the dignity of bearBy order dated Barcelona, May 20, 1493, Ferdinand ing the armorial insignia here represented

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Divested of its official phraseology, that patent would read thus

Don Fernando and Doña Isabel, etc., In acknowledgment and reward to you Christóbal Colon, our Admiral of the Islands and Mainland discovered by our command, and to be discovered in the Indies in the Ocean Sea; and in remembrance of the great and loyal services which you have performed for us, especially in exposing your person as you have to much risk and labour in discovering the said Islands, and to honour and promote you and your descendants and lineage in perpetuity hereafter, we have thought proper, and it is our desire, and we give you power and authority to bear on your shield of arms, besides those of your own family, a Castle and Lion over them, which we give you for arms, that is to say:

In the dexter quarter, the Castle or on a field vert. In

Watling Island, celebrated as it is for being the real San Salvador of Columbus, obtained its later designation from a Captain George Watling, an old buccaneer or freebooter; the latter a word now in use among our friends in the United States, with a Spanish parentage, and called Filibustier, that being the nearest pronunciation of the Spaniards to Freebooter, and is so defined in the dictionaries.

the sinister quarter, a Lion purpura, rampant, on a field argent. In the dexter base quarter, some Islands or in waves of the sea; and in the sinister base quarter, the arms which you are accustomed to bear; which abovesaid arms shall be acknowledged as yours and those of your descen dants in perpetuity hereafter.

The biography of Columbus has been most fully discussed, and many important facts established. One, not the least interesting is the definition of the initials which are found attached to Columbus's signature. Isabella having assured him that his desire to be the explorer of regions then unknown should be promoted-that the voyage should be undertaken under her auspices; that as Admiral he should be in the service of the crown, and that his son would also be provided for in his absence, appears to have created such emotions, as moved him even to tears. The certainty of the means of the achieving the fondest, most ardent wishes of his life, and the protection awarded to his family caused the expression of those sentiments, which he maintained ever after, bequeathing them as sacred heir-looms to his successors. Subdued by so much unexpected kindness from the Queen, so soon as his feeling permitted him henceforth be the Servant of your Majesty! Adopting these words of Columbus as a key to his cipher, which is thus disposed

the utterance, he is said to have exclaimed-I shall

S.

S.

A. S.

M. Y.

X.

Xpo Ferens

El Almirante.

for his services, and died May 26, 1506, aged 71. His remains were deposited in the convent of San Francisco at Valladolid. In 1513, they were transferred to the monastery of Cartujos de las Cuevas, in Seville, where were also deposited those of his son Don Diego, who died Feb. 23, 1526. In 1536, the remains of Columbus and his son Diego, were delivered for transfer to the city of Santo Domingo, in the island of Española, where they were interred by the altar, in the cathedral. In 1795, that island having been ceded to France, their ashes were again disturbed, and transferred to Cuba, their last resting place being on the right side of the altar, of the cathedral of the city of Havana.

THE BARRIECO, OR BARAECO.

The boar-shaped Estian divinity Barrieco, or Baraeco, referred to in Current Notes, p. 72, by A. M., as having been worshipped on the banks of the Duero and its tributaries, at a very early period, is of Indian origin. Varaha, or the Boar, was one of the ten avatars or descents of Vishnu, the second person of the Hindu of a boar, the symbol of strength, to draw up and supTrinity, in his capacity of preserver. He took the form port in his tusks the whole earth, which had been sunk beneath the ocean. One of the Calpas or renovations

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of the universe is thence named Varaha. 'Waters (alone) there were; this world originally was water; in it the lord of creation moved, having become air; he saw this (earth); and uplifted it, assuming the form of a boar; and then moulded that (earth), becoming Viswacarman, the artificer of the universe." Taittiriya Yajarvéda, quoted in Asiatic Researches, vol. VIII., p.

and assuming they are intended to imply Spanish words, 452. When the eight sactis or energies of the gods,

the three first lines would be read

Servidor

Sus Altesas Sacras

Jesus Maria Ysabel

female divinities, matris, or mothers, exactly like their male principles, "with the same form, the same decoration, and the same vehicle,"-came to fight against the demons, as related in the Devi Mahatmya, Asiatic Researches, vol. VIII., p. 83, the energy of Hari, Varahi, the granter of boons, "assumed the unrivalled form of the holy boar," sitting on a buffalo. This redoubtable goddess it seems to have been who was known under the name of Frea or Fricco, "mother of the gods," to the tribes inhabiting the countries adjoining the Baltic, (Mallet, Introd. à l'Histoire de Dannemarck, pp. 56, et seqq.) and the emblem of whose worship, insigne superstitionis, was the image of a wild boar. Eccardus, De Rebus Franciae Orientalis, tom.

and translated mean-The servant of their Sacred Highnesses Jesus, Maria and Isabella. Thus in assuming the above cipher, Columbus seems to have really expressed what he purposed should remain in perpetuity in his family, that in gratitude for her protection he and his heirs should be the servants of her Majesty. Navarrete has printed all the letters of one size, but this is not in conformity with the custom of Columbus, to which the A. here is of a larger character. The words-Xpo Ferens, are admitted to imply-bearing the Cross; so that the whole translated would stand thus in English-I. p. 409, quoted by Brotier, in his notes to Tacitus,

The Servant

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says many vestiges of this superstition still remain in Sweden. The country people, he observes, at that season of the year (February) when the festival of Frea was formerly held, bake loaves shaped like a wild boar, which they put to various superstitious uses. I need voy-scarcely add that Frea or Friga is identified by mythologists with the Greek Aphrodité and the Roman Venus, and that one of the days of the week takes its name from her.

Columbus, soon after his return from his fourth age, enfeebled by age and borne down by infirmities, the result of the hardships he had undergone, more particularly in his last voyage, and affected by the loss of his patroness, the Queen Isabella, directed his efforts to the obtaining for his brother Bartholomew a reward

The Sanscrit term varaha, a boar, is evidently the Latin verres, the Italian verro, the French verrat, the

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