CHAPTER XI.
The Island San Ambrosio .-- Selkirk at last knows what Friendship is .-- The Raft .-- Visits to the Tomb of Marimonda .-- The Departure .-- The two Islands .-- Shipwreck .-- The Port of Safety.
As he read this, Selkirk was seized with intense pity for the unfortunate shipwrecked.

What! on this same ocean, undoubtedly on these same shores, lives another unhappy being, like himself exiled from the world, enduring the same sufferings, subject to the same wants, experiencing the same _ennui_, the same anguish as himself! this man has confided to the sea his cry of distress, his complaint, and the sea, a faithful messenger, has just deposited it at the feet of Selkirk! Suddenly he remembers that rock, that island, discerned by him, on the day when at the Oasis, he was reconciled to Marimonda.
That is the island of San Ambrosio; it is there, he does not doubt it for an instant, that his new friend lives; yes, his friend! for, from this moment he experiences for him an emotion of sympathetic affection.

He loves him, he is so much to be pitied! Poor father, he has lost his sons, he has lost his fortune and the hope of returning to his country; and yet there reigns in his letter a tone of dignified calmness, of religious resignation which can come only from a noble heart.

He is a Spaniard and a Roman Catholic; Selkirk is a Scotchman and a Presbyterian; what matters it?
To-day his friend demands assistance, and he has resolved to dare all, to undertake all to respond to his appeal.

Like a lamp deprived of air, his mind has revived at this idea, that he can at last be useful to others than himself.