As for my man Friday, nothing in the world could have parted him from me. He would have gone to the ends of the earth with me.
The voyage was a long and hard one. But on the eleventh day of June we at last reached London. Once more I was in England, the land of my birth.
I was as perfect a stranger as if I had never been there.
I went down to York. My father and mother had been dead a long time. The friends of my boyhood had forgotten me.
I was alone in the world. Where should I go and what should I do?
By chance I learned that my plantation in Brazil was doing well. The man whom I had left in charge of it had made much money from the tobacco he had raised.
He was an honest man, and when he heard that I was still alive he wrote me a long, kind letter. In this he gave me a full account of the business.
He also sent me a large amount of money, which I was very glad to get.
I was now a rich man. I might have settled down to a life of ease and idleness; but such was not my wish.
Soon I was wandering from one place to another, seeing more of the world. I had many surprising adventures, I assure you; but I need not tell you about them. You would think any account of them very dry reading compared with the story I have already related.
And so, looking back with regretful memories to the years which I spent on my dear desert island, I bid you a kind good-by.