One morning, Selkirk finds his fish-pond and bed of water-cresses
devastated.

Exasperated, he declares war against the invaders: during three days
he tracks them, pursues them; ten of them fall beneath his balls,
leaving the shore bathed in their blood. The rest at last take flight,
and the army of seals, regaining the sea with despairing cries, goes
to establish itself at the other extremity of the island.

This war has been profitable to the conqueror. With the skin of the
vanquished he makes himself a new hammock, which permits him to employ
his sail for other uses; he also makes leather bottles, in which he
preserves the oil which he extracts in abundance from their fat. Now
he can have a lamp constantly burning, even by night. He has all the
comforts of life. Of the hairy skin of the seals, he manufactures a
broad-brimmed hat, which shields him from the burning rays of the sun.
He tastes their flesh; it appears to him insipid and nauseous, like
that of the fish; but the tongue, the heart, seasoned with pepper, are
for him quite a luxury.

Days, weeks, months roll away in the same toils, the same recreations.
Whatever he may do to drive it away, this apathetic sadness, this
sinking of soul, which has already tormented him at different periods,
becomes with Selkirk more and more frequent; he cannot conquer it as
he did the seals. His seals, he now regrets. When they were encamped
on the shore, they at least gave him something to look at, an
amusement; something lived, moved, near him.

When he finds himself a prey to these fits, which, in his pride, he
persists in attributing to transient indisposition, he goes to walk in