Morning journal and courier., 1886-05-21
The Scene ofRob1nson m Crusoe.

Correspondence or the New 4Ork Times.
 Two little boys on board the chip, who were returning to their home in Trinidad, happened to have copy of Robinson Cru soc" with them,. and, as we were steaming past the island of Tobago, borrowed it and went to the captains room. Capt. Frazer brought out his charts, and together we went carefully over the passage from Robinson Crusoe" describing his voyage and shipwreck, following the course of Crusoe's ship on the chart It was the plainest thing imaginable that she could have struck no other land than the island of Tobago, and it is beyond doubt, in my mind, that Defoe had this island in view when he wrote the story. It is said by some of his biographers that he made a geographical blunder in locating his island; but there is no blunder there; everything is as correct and clear as possible. And Tobago corresponds in every particular with the de- scription of Robinson Crusoes island. There is on other island near Trinidad, and if he had been wrecked there it would have taken him long time to discover that he not the mainland, Trinidad is so large. Anybody who will take the trouble to look at even an ordinary map, and follow closely the thread of the story, will see that Tobago was the island on which the ship struck. So, hay ing shown, as I think, that this is really the island on which the imaginary Robinson Crusoe lived, shall invite you to take look at it.
 Tobago is a small island, 32 miles long and 12 miles broad, lying in latitude 11' 15' north, longitude 600 40 west. It is 16 miles northeast of Trinidad and 82 miles southeast of Grenada. On clear days Trinidad may easily be seen from any high hill, and so may the eastern spur of the Andes, on the mainland of South America, and it was no doubt these mountains that Crusoe saw when he wrote: II now resolved to travel quite across to the seashore on that side; so talk ing my gun, hatchet and my dog, and a larger quantity of powder and shot than usual, with two biscuit cakes and a great bunch of raisins in my pouch for my store, began my journey. When I had passed the vale where my bower stood, as above, I came within view of the sea to the west, and, it be- ing very clear day, fairly deserted land, whether an island continent 1 could not tell; but it lay very high, extending from the west-south-west at a very great distance.
 This is another illustration of Defoe's wonderful faculty of giving accurate descrlp- tions of places he had never seen: for he never visited the new world, and yet he could not have described the view from Tobago more accurately if he had been sitting on one of her hills when he wrote. We must not expect to find Tobago the wild place it was in Crusoe's time. It has since been set tied by the English and has towns, planta- tions, roads, forts and a military establish
 
 through which twelve rivers flow; and this latter fact Defoe must have been acquainted with for he could not safely have jumped at the conclusion that there were rivers in To- bago, as very few of these Caribbean islands have any rivers at all. The island was at one time in the possession of the French, and then there were twenty-two forts on it. one on the shore of each of the twenty-two bays that indent it's coast. Near the north east corner of the island is an islet called Little Tobago, about two miles long by one broad The population is composed very largely of negroes; and it is little unroman- tic to learn that on Robinson Crusoe's island more than half a century ago the negroes made little revolt that deprived the white inhabitants of all their vegetables. Notwith- standing the example of industry and perse- verance that Robinson CIusoe had set them, they were all either too lazy or too proud to cultivate the soil, except to raise sugar, cof- fee and tobacco and this work was all done by slaves They thought it beneath their dignity even to have vegetable gardens But each slave was allowed little piece of land for "provision ground, i" and on these grounds they raised vegetables enough to supply both themselves and the whites. They carried these to market and by selling them supplied themselves with little money. AS they had monopoly of the business they charged such exorbitant prices for their vegetables that the legislature passed an act regulating the prices they might demand. Like mod ern monopolists, however, they were ready with a ''little scheme" They inst stopped raising vegetables, and in short time there were none on the island, so the legislature had to rescind the act and let the darkies go on charging their own prices. In August, 1880, all the slaves on the island were set free, and on that day they dressed up in their best clothes and went to the churches to offer up thanksgivings for freedom.