New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-02-19

Our reason for stopping at Juan Fernandez was
to get water and provisions. The water got from
the wells on the shore Of Rapanu was bracksh and
food was very low; there was nothing but canned
goods board So rejolced to hear from tho
fishermen who met US in the bay that we could get
everything in tho shape Of provisions here and that
the water very good. They were CHILEAN fisher
men, half Spanish and half Indian, with honest faces
weather-beaten and tanned by rain, wind and sea:
though the island IS about the latitude of Ber-
muda they came dressed in heavy clothing. all with
wooen seaskn caps and some with heavy
mutiieIs. Belisarus, pleasant faced man. with
handsome brown eyes, could talk fair English He
pointed out where Selkrk lived long time ago."
with great pride referring to a distinguished cltl-
zen, on whose renown they all plumed themselves.
He took us to good anchorage In seventeen fathoms.
and ashore to little boatlandng where the stones
the beach had been cleared away In order to haul
up their Yankee built whale bna's.
The settlement comprises two or three low stucco
buildings, some wooden shantes in the distance and
barn or shed In which were a couple Of boats and
some seal and seaotter skins sailed down ready for
export Tho only things to see the fort, which
looked interesting, and the caves in which the con-
victs lived when Chilli had penal settlement here In
1s2o'32. The mountains dark and foreSt-cad,
but as there vas nothing to them or from
them. and they very steep, concluded to put
of their ascent TIL our next visit. We climbed the
hillside to the fort and found 1t bare faced fraud
masking a fort and being potato patch, with
a broken stone wall two feel high two sides. 1t
fortified with broken plough-sharo and cannon
standing end in the earth, tho breech only being
visible The twenty thirty feet of masonry We saw
from the bay a wall to prevent the half acre Of
level land inside the fort from slipping into the
The swords had evidently been turned into plough
shares, and could the Inhabitants only find mako
another half acre Of level land on the entire island
they would metamorphose the cannon
The caves equally undressing. They
cut In bank of clay, but above is stratum of sand
and wind and rain have carried this over many Of
tho entrances, entirely closing them. A few yet
main OPEN and In of these a miserable looking
family living The caves are damp their walls
being covered with fungus all are of the same pat
tern with arched dOOrways and roofs, and straight
walls with inches about six feet from the ground
where the beams of another floor rest. The walls
roof and sides are smooth and quite hard. Here
lived the couvicts when the Island served a penal
station. What they did here does not appear in any
public works or improvements The only suggestive
thing IS cobble stone pavement near tho beach, but
where IT started and whero II went TO is not easy to
conjecture. Digging the caves not very great
task they only about ten feet wide twelve feet
high and twenty to thirty deep
Belisarius who has guided into the and
tho fort now led to his home, two little one
roomed cabins in front of garden twenty feet square,
and behind a bahe-oven made of COW dung-a pos
session OF which he very proud, as he had Just
built It. Ills wife and children gave us welcome, tho
children awestruck, and the shapeless little brown
woman whose age might be either twenty fifty,
scarcely less so. SIN she brought chairs and
goats MILK and uttered words which might be social
small talk or apologies for her housekeeping In one
cabin hung two ndquarters of what the captain
bought for beef; but the late owner presented him
with the head and hide OF the animal proving IL to
he a oabra montes, or Wild goat. The head worry
hands me, with long curved horns, and sent
board to DO preserved for mounting