In September 1704, more than three hundred years ago, three official British privateer fleets sailed over the Pacific, ready to loot Spanish merchant ships.
Because Spain at that time was very popular throughout the country to plunder at sea, every year can loot hundreds of British merchant ships, resulting in Great disruption to British commercial activities, many ships dare not leave the port, huge economic losses make the British government decide to retaliate for tit-for-tat.
So the British set up an official special plundering fleet, and alexander Selkirk, our protagonist who has been on the desert island for more than four years, is one of many official British robberies.
And how did he live on a desert island for more than four years, how did he pick up cats and roast sheep to catch lobsters, grow vegetables and build houses to catch mice?
<h1>An argument with the captain led to a negative departure from the desert island</h1>
Alexander Selkirk was originally the navigator of the privateer fleet, but the team led by William Dampier failed several times, causing heavy attrition and hull damage during the battle against Spain, resulting in heavy losses to the fleet.
Moreover, the long sea voyage also caused many crew members to contract scurvy, and all three ships were damaged to varying degrees, the sails were decayed, and the mast was aging, which made the situation facing the fleet a haze.
The more worrying problem is that the hulls of the three ships are bred with a large number of maggots, also known as chiseled shells, which can secrete a kind of mucus that corrodes the wood, which can cause great damage to the wooden ships and docks in the ocean.
And after the maggots are attached, the bottom of the hull is extremely difficult to clean, and it is necessary to stop on the island for a brief conversation, and then use fixed tools to hook out the parasitic maggots, and finally apply the paint to care for the hull, and wait for the high tide to drive the ship into the sea.
This process is very cumbersome, and the captain did not carry out strictly in order to save time. Alexander Selkirk repeatedly expressed his displeasure to the captain, but to no avail, and finally a ship in the fleet, named the Five Ports Alliance, was the most damaged and even leaked.
Selkirk then quarreled with the captain and spread to the rest of the fleet "rumors" that the fleet was about to sink. ”
At the time, the fleet was resupplying fresh water on the island of Mastilla, an uninhabited island about 400 miles from the west coast of Chile. While fetching the water, Sercoa had a very serious quarrel with the captain, claiming that he would rather stay on this deserted island than stay on a ship that could sink at any time."
When the captain heard this, he immediately agreed to his request with the mentality of not having the thorn of Sercoa, so as not to add to his own blockage.
So Sercoa watched the fleet sail away, and proudly shouted, "You will definitely sink."
<h1>Pick up cats and grow vegetables to build villas</h1>
So Sercoa was left alone on the desert island, leaving behind only a few pieces of clothing, an axe, a musket, a Bible, and a small amount of tobacco.
He silently read the Bible and prayed for God's blessing and early salvation. As a result, after a few days no fleet passed through this desolate island, and sure enough, God did not care about being full, and if he wanted not to starve, he still had to rely on his hands and feet.
So Sercoa threw away the Bible in his hand and pounced on the wild goats on the island... Incidentally, I also caught a few lobsters.
After he had eaten, he never waited for the English fleet to pass by and finally accepted the reality.
A few months later, Sercoa had basically mastered the environment of the island, which contained wild goats, mice and feral cats that Mexicans had brought, as well as plums, wild radishes, cabbage and condiment peppers.
Sercoa captured many wild goats and raised them as domestic animals, where they multiplied in "sheep pens" of their own construction, providing themselves with sustainable food rather than staying on the island and eating the mountains.
At the same time, he also used the island's large number of trees to build a solitary "villa" - the "villa" turned left at the entrance to the vegetable garden, planted with cabbage radish and pepper, and on the right was a sheep pen, providing him with dairy products and meat for his daily needs. If the lamb is tired of eating, go to the sea to catch fish and eat lobsters, and pick some plums to eat.
A sensible combination of meat and vegetables provides balanced nutrition, which gives Sercoa a strong and healthy body.
The only deficiency on this desert island is probably the hordes of rats, the leftover meals are stolen by the rats, the pillar beams of the "villa" are bitten by the rats, and even when Sercoa is sleeping in the middle of the night, the rats crawl from his body.
Finally, one night, after the rat had nibbled at the sleeping Sercoa's toes, Sercoa decided that he was going to domesticate the island's wild cats.
So the next day, Sercoa sneaked a few kittens from the mother cat, gradually fed them, and finally solved the problem of rat flooding.
As time passed, dense counting scratches were carved on the pillars inside the "villa", Sercoa's beard and hair grew longer and longer, and the two kittens that had been caught multiplied into dozens.
As the setting sun set, Sercoa sat on a rock, meditating on the Bible and petting the cat in his hand.
Life is indeed pleasant, but there is still inexplicable loneliness.
<h1>Return to the crowd</h1>
Sercoa's life alone on a desert island, while uneventful, has also had some twists and turns.
For example, when Sercoa first stayed on a desert island, he soon ran out of bullets and did not domesticate his flock, so he had to chase his prey. While chasing his prey, Sercoa accidentally fell off a cliff, but fortunately the cliff was not deep, and he lay low in the valley for a whole day before dragging his painful body out of the valley.
Another time, a group of Spaniards came to the island to arrest him, he knew that he would not end well in the hands of the Spaniards, so he hid in a tree, and what was even more frightening was that there was even a Spanish sailor peeing under the tree where Sergoa was hiding, but he was not found...
There were more and more goats on the desert island, and more than four years had passed, so much so that Sercoa couldn't remember the dates.
In February 1709, on an ordinary afternoon, Sercoa was petting the cat as usual, but found that there was a fleet of ships on the island, and when he confirmed the flag of Great Britain on the fleet, he rushed over with great excitement.
The island's long-term pursuit of prey had trained Sercoa's unusual speed, and in the blink of an eye, it ran to the fleet, and the sailors on the fleet saw this monster with thick hair and stayed where it was. According to the sailors: "Selkirk looked more savage than his original owner (the goat) of the goatskin, because he had not used language for so long, he had forgotten many of his native languages, we could hardly understand what he was saying, we gave him a little wine, but he did not want to touch it, and after getting on the boat he was only willing to drink water, and it took him a little time to adapt to our diet."
Sercoa suffered from aphasia due to a long period of time without speaking, and just when he was excited to think that he could leave with his compatriots, he was embarrassed to find that the old captain of the past was also on this ship. So Sercoa immediately decided to leave, preferring to stay on a desert island rather than ride on the former captain William. Dampier's fleet departed.
Under the strong explanation of the crowd, Sercoa realized that William was only the navigator of the fleet, not the captain, and agreed to leave. And Sercoa used years of experience on a desert island to fifty crew members suffering from sepsis, most of whom recovered under his care.
Finally, he returned to England to live a life of social animals. The outliers are either gods or beasts; as social animals, I am afraid that the most unbearable thing is loneliness.
After returning to England, Sercoa married a woman who had lost her husband, opened a hotel, often told others the story of his four years of survival on a desert island, and even published an article about his adventures in 1713, which was quite popular and widely concerned for a time.
The writer Defoe drew on the story of Sercoa, and based on his experience, he added the writer's fiction to create the popular novel Robinson Crusoe. But after all, the novel is different from reality, and Sercoa's desert island life is only him from beginning to end, facing countless loneliness.
Sercoa later chose to sail, but unfortunately died of fever at the age of forty-five, after which he was buried in the ocean.
The ocean represents freedom, and perhaps this is his best destination.