Here they were told the story of a man who was cast upon this island, the only one saved from a large ship, and who lived five years there before any one came to carry him off. This was probably Alexander Selkirk, from whose adventures on the island Defoe wrote his _Robinson Crusoe_. Ringrose tells us that he on a trip into the island one day found cut in the bark of a tree a cross with several letters beside it, and that on the same tree he cut his own name with a cross above it. On the twelfth of January, seeing three ships which appeared to be men-of-war sailing toward them, they hurriedly left the island, abandoning there one of their Indian allies because he could not be found in time. Thus a second Man Friday was deposited upon Robinson Crusoe's island.
[Illustration: A CROSS WITH SEVERAL LETTERS BESIDE IT]
While at the island, some of the buccaneers mutinied, deposed Captain Sharp, and chose Watling to be their commander. When they left the island they went directly to the coast and made a second attempt upon the town of Arica, but they were beaten off with a great loss of men, among the killed being Captain Watling. After their return to the ship, Sharp was again chosen captain, and remained as such until the end of the voyage.
It seems that about the first of February, Ringrose was taken sick, and that thereafter he was unable to keep a constant diary, so that our accounts of the remainder of the voyage are brief and broken.
In March, sick and discouraged by the misfortunes they had met, the buccaneers decided not to continue the voyage, but to land, abandon their ship and return home across the continent. For one reason and another, however, they delayed leaving the ship, and continued to work their way north until about the middle of April. Forty-seven of the men who had been discontented all along were then put ashore, while the rest of the party decided to remain loyal to Captain Sharp, and to go home around the southern part of the continent. Before the mutineers were put ashore, the ship had come north almost to the equator, so that the journey of the deserters was materially lessened. Two of the mutineers reached the Isthmus, crossed it and subsequently published some brief accounts of their experiences.