A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Sunday 29 April 2012

Alexander Selkirk aka Robinson Crusoe's Drinking Cup.

Author's edited image.


The drinking cup, formed of a small

cocoa-nut shell, presents a simple ornament

scratched with a knife with Selkirk's

own hand, is three inches and a quarter

deep, by two and a half inches diameter.

Mrs Gillies assured the writer, it had

formerly a silver foot and stem, but that

her father had disposed of it. Wanting

that appendage, Sir Walter and Constable

took it to Edinburgh, where the present

foot and stem of rosewood, nearly three

inches high, was added, making the whole

about six inches in height. They also

added the silver band or fillet that

encircles the outside of the cup, bearing Drinking-Cup of Alexander Selkirk,

this inscription—The Cup of Ala. Selkirk,

2 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

You have to wonder why the guy would have "disposed" of the silver stem and foot, unless he was hard-up at some point.

Keith said...

I doubt we will ever know Gorges. But it does make one wonder.
Keith.