Selkirk was one day a witness of the singular facility with which she
could supply her wants.

At the morning repast, seeing him use one of his cocoa-nuts which he
had fashioned in the form of a cup to drink from; in her instinct of
imitation, she had attempted to seize the cup in her turn; a look of
reprimand stopped her short in her attempt. Whether she felt a species
of humiliation at being forced to quench her thirst in the presence of
her master, by going to the banks of the stream and lapping there,
like a vulgar animal; or whether the reprimand had painfully affected
her, she abstained from drinking and remained for some time quiet and
dreamy; but at the following repast, with lifted head and sparkling
eye she resumed her place on the stool, provided with a goblet, a
goblet belonging to her, lawfully obtained by her, and, with an air of
triumph presented it to Selkirk, who, wondering, did not hesitate an
instant to share with the monkey the water contained in his gourd.

This goblet was the ligneous and impermeable capsule, the fruit,
naturally and deeply hollowed out, of a tree called _quatela_.[1] It
was thus that the intelligent Marimonda, after having borrowed from
the numerous vegetables of the island their leaves, to ameliorate her
sufferings, to heal her wounds; their fruits for her nourishment and
even for her sports, also found means to obtain the divers utensils
for house-keeping of which she stood in need.

[Footnote 1: The _lecythis quatela_, of the family of the
_lecythidées_, created by Professor Richard, and whose singular fruits
bear, in Peru as well as in Chili, the denomination of _monkey's
goblets_.]