CHAPTER VI.
The Hammock .-- Poison .-- Success .-- A Calm under the Tropics .-- Invasion of the Island .-- War and Plunder .-- The Oasis .-- The Spy-Glass.
-- Reconciliation.
Do you see, upon a carpet of fresh verdure, the sandy margin of which is bathed by a caressing wave, that hammock suspended to the branches of those fine trees?
What happy mortal, during the heat of the day, is there gently rocked, gently refreshed, by a light sea breeze?
It is Selkirk; and this hammock is his sail, attached to his tall myrtles by strips of goat-skin.

Perhaps he is resting after the fatigues of the day?
No, it is the day of the Lord, and Selkirk now can consecrate the Sabbath to repose.

With his eyes half closed, he is inhaling, undoubtedly, the perfume of his myrtles, the soft fragrance of his heliotropes?
No, something sweeter still pre-occupies him.

Is he dreaming of his friends in Scotland, of his first love?
He has never known friendship, and the beautiful Catherine is far from his memory.
What is he then doing in his hammock?
He is smoking his pipe.
His pipe! Has he a pipe?
He has them of all forms, all sizes--made of spiral shells of various kinds, of maripa-nuts, of large reeds; all set in handles of myrtle, stalks of coarse grain, or the hollow bones of birds.

In these he is luxurious; he has become a connoisseur; but this has not been the difficulty.