CHAPTER V.

  “They hurried us aboard a bark;
  Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
  A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
  Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
  Instinctively had girt us—”
   Tempest.

The hour that succeeded in the calm of expectation, was one of the most disquieting of my life. As soon as the ship was secured, and there no longer remained anything to do, the stillness of death reigned among us; the faculties of every man and boy appearing to be absorbed in the single sense of hearing—the best, and indeed the only, means we then possessed of judging of our situation. It was now apparent that we were near some place or places where the surf was breaking on land; and the hollow, not-to-be-mistaken bellowings of the element, too plainly indicated that cavities in rocks frequently received, and as often rejected, the washing waters. Nor did these portentous sounds come from one quarter only, but they seemed to surround us; now reaching our ears from the known direction of the land, now from the south, the north-east, and, in fact, from every direction. There were instances when these moanings of the ocean sounded as if close under our stern, and then again they came from some point within a fearful proximity to the bows.

Happily the wind was light, and the ship rode with a moderate strain on the cable, so as to relieve us from the apprehension of immediate destruction. There was a long, heavy ground-swell rolling in from, the south-west, but, the lead giving us, eight fathoms, the sea did not break exactly where we lay; though the sullen washing that came to our ears, from time to time, gave unerring notice that it was doing so quite near us, independently of the places where it broke upon rocks. At one time the captain's impatience was so goading, that he had determined to pull round the anchorage in a boat, in order to anticipate the approach of light; but a suggestion from Mr. Marble that he might unconsciously pull into a roller, and capsize, induced him to wait for day.

The dawn appeared at last, after two or three of the longest hours I remember ever to have passed. Never shall I forget the species of furious eagerness with which we gazed about us. In the first place, we got an outline of the adjacent land; then, as light diffused itself more and more into the atmosphere, we caught glimpses of its details. It was soon certain we were within a cable's length of perpendicular cliffs of several hundred feet in height, into whose caverns the sea poured at times, producing those frightful, hollow moanings, that an experienced ear can never mistake. This cliff extended for leagues in both directions, rendering drowning nearly inevitable to the shipwrecked mariner on that inhospitable coast. Ahead, astern, outside of us, and I might almost say all around us, became visible, one after another, detached ledges, breakers and ripples; so many proofs of the manner in which Providence had guided us through the hours of darkness.

By the time the sun appeared, for, happily, the day proved bright and clear, we had obtained pretty tolerable notions of the critical situation in which we were placed by means of the captain's theory of currents. The very cape that we were to drift past, lay some ten leagues nearly dead to windward, as the breeze then was; while to leeward, far as the eye could reach, stretched the same inhospitable, barrier of rock as that which lay on our starboard quarter and beam. Such was my first introduction to the island of Madagascar; a portion of the world, of which, considering its position, magnitude and productions, the mariners of Christendom probably know less than of any other. At the time of which I am writing, far less had been learned of this vast country than is known to-day, though the knowledge of even our own immediate contemporaries is of an exceedingly limited character.

Now that the day had returned, the sun was shining on us cheerfully, and the sea looked tranquil and assuring, the captain became more pacified. He had discretion enough to understand that time and examination were indispensable to moving the ship with safety; and he took the wise course of ordering the people to get their breakfasts, before he set us at work. The hour that was thus employed forward, was passed aft in examining the appearance of the water, and the positions of the reefs around the ship. By the time we were through, the captain had swallowed his cup of coffee and eaten his biscuit; and, calling away four of the most athletic oarsmen, he got into the jolly-boat, and set out on the all-important duty of discovering a channel sea-ward. The lead was kept moving, and I shall leave the party thus employed for an hour or more, while we turn our attention in-board.

Marble beckoned me aft, as soon as Captain Robbins was in the boat, apparently with a desire to say something in private. I understood the meaning of his eye, and followed him down into the steerage, where all that was left of the ship's water was now stowed, that on deck having been already used. The mate had a certain consciousness about him that induced great caution, and he would not open his lips until he had rummaged about below some time, affecting to look for a set of blocks that might be wanted for some purpose or other, on deck. When this had lasted a little time, he turned short round to me, and let out the secret of the whole manoeuvre.

“I'll tell you what, Master Miles,” he said, making a sign with a finger to be cautious, “I look upon this ship's berth as worse than that of a city scavenger. We've plenty of water all round us, and plenty of rocks, too. If we knew the way back, there is no wind to carry us through it, among these bloody currents, and there's no harm in getting ready for the worst. So do you get Neb and the gentleman”—Rupert was generally thus styled in the ship—“and clear away the launch first. Get everything out of it that don't belong there; after which, do you put these breakers in, and wait for further orders. Make no fuss, putting all upon orders, and leave the rest to me.”

I complied, of course, and in a few minutes the launch was clear. While busy, however, Mr. Kite came past, and desired to know “what are you at there?” I told him 'twas Mr. Marble's orders, and the latter gave his own explanation of the matter.

“The launch may be wanted,” he said, “for I've no notion that jolly-boat will do to go out as far as we shall find it necessary to sound. So I am about to ballast the launch, and get her sails ready; there's no use in mincing matters in such a berth as this.”

Kite approved of the idea, and even went so far as to suggest that it might be well enough to get the launch into the water at once, by way of saving time. The proposition was too agreeable to be rejected, and, to own the truth, all hands went to work to get up the tackles with a will, as it is called. In half an hour the boat was floating alongside the ship. Some said she would certainly be wanted to carry out the stream-anchor, if for nothing else; others observed that half a dozen boats would not be enough to find all the channel we wanted; while Marble kept his eye, though always in an underhand way, on his main object. The breakers we got in and stowed, filled with fresh water, by way of ballast. The masts were stepped, the oars were put on board, and a spare compass was passed dawn, lest the ship might be lost in the thick weather, of which there was so much, just in that quarter of the world. All this wars said and done so quietly, that nobody took the alarm; and when the mate called out, in a loud voice, “Miles, pass a bread-bag filled and some cold grub into that launch—the men may be hungry before they get back,” no one seemed to think more was meant than was thus openly expressed. I had my private orders, however, and managed to get quite a hundred-weight of good cabin biscuit into the launch, while the cook was directed to fill his coppers with pork. I got some of the latter raw into the boat, too; raw pork being food that sailors in no manner disdain. They say it eats like chestnuts.

In the mean time, the captain was busy in his exploring expedition, on the return from which he appeared to think he was better rewarded than has certainly fallen to the lot of others employed on another expedition which bears the same name. He was absent near two hours, and, when he got back, it was to renew his theory of what Mr. Marble called his “bloody currents.”

“I've got behind the curtain, Mr. Marble,” commenced Captain Robbins, before he was fairly alongside of the ship again, whereupon Marble muttered “ay! ay! you've got behind the rocks, too!” “It's all owing to an eddy that is made in-shore by the main current, and we have stretched a leetle too far in.”

Even I thought to myself, what would have become of us had we stretched a leetle further in! The captain, however, seemed satisfied that he could carry the ship out, and, as this was all we wanted, no one was disposed to be very critical. A word was said about the launch, which the mate had ordered to be dropped astern, out of the way, and the explanation seemed to mystify the captain. In the meanwhile, the pork was boiling furiously in the coppers.

All hands were now called to get the anchor up. Rupert and I went aloft to loosen sails, and we staid there until the royals were mast-headed. In a very few minutes the cable was up and down, and then came the critical part of the whole affair. The wind was still very light, and it was a question whether the ship could be carried past a reef of rocks that now began to show itself above water, and on which the long, heavy rollers, that came undulating from the south-western Atlantic, broke with a sullen violence that betrayed how powerful was the ocean, even in its moments of slumbering peacefulness. The rising and falling of its surface was like that of some monster's chest, as he respired heavily in sleep.

Even the captain hesitated about letting go his hold of the bottom, with so strong a set of the water to leeward, and in so light a breeze. There was a sort of bight on our starboard bow, however, and Mr. Marble suggested it might be well to sound in that direction, as the water appeared smooth and deep. To him it looked as if there were really an eddy in-shore, which might hawse the ship up to windward six or eight times her length, and thus more than meet the loss that must infallibly occur in first casting her head to seaward. The captain admitted the justice of this suggestion, and I was one of those who were told to go in the jolly-boat on this occasion. We pulled in towards the cliffs, and had not gone fifty yards before we struck an eddy, sure enough, which was quite as strong as the current in which the ship lay. This was a great advantage, and so much the more, because the water was of sufficient depth, quite up to the edge of the reef which formed the bight, and thus produced the change in the direction of the set. There was plenty of room, too, to handle the ship in, and, all things considered, the discovery was extremely fortunate. In the bottom of the bight we should have gone ashore the previous night, had not our ears been so much better than our noses.

As soon as certain of the facts, the captain pulled back to the ship, and gladdened the hearts of all on board with the tidings. We now manned the handspikes cheerily, and began to heave. I shall never forget the impression made on me by the rapid drift of the ship, as soon as the anchor was off the bottom, and her bows were cast in-shore, in order to fill the sails. The land was so near that I noted this drift by the rocks, and my heart was fairly in my mouth for a few seconds. But the John worked beautifully, and soon gathered way. Her bows did not not strike the eddy, however, until we got fearful evidence of the strength of the true current, which had set us down nearly as low as the reef outside, to windward of which it was indispensable for us to pass. Marble saw all this, and he whispered me to tell the cook to pass the pork into the launch at once—hot to mind whether it were particularly well done, or not. I obeyed, and had to tend the fore-sheet myself, for my pains, when the order was given to “ready about.”

The eddy proved a true friend, but it did not carry us up much higher than the place where we had anchored, when it became necessary to tack. This was done in season, on account of our ignorance of all the soundings, and we had soon got the John's head off-shore again. Drawing a short distance ahead, the main-top-sail was thrown aback, and the ship allowed to drift. In proper time, it was filled, and we got round once more, looking into the bight. The manoeuvre was repeated, and this brought us up fairly under the lee of the reef, and just in the position we desired to be. It was a nervous instant, I make no doubt, when Captain Robbins determined to trust the ship in the true current, and run the gauntlet of the rocks. The passage across which we had to steer, before we could possibly weather the nearest reef was about a cable's length in width, and the wind would barely let us lay high enough to take it at right-angles. Then the air was so light, that I almost despaired of our doing anything.

Captain Robbins put the ship into the current with great judgment. She was kept a rap-full until near the edge of the eddy, and then her helm was put nearly down, all at once. But for the current's acting, in one direction, on her starboard bow, and the eddy's pressing, in the other, on the larboard quarter, the vessel would have been taken aback; but these counteracting forces brought her handsomely on her course again, and that in a way to prevent her falling an inch to leeward.

Now came the trial. The ship was kept a rap-full, and she went steadily across the passage, favoured, perhaps, by a little more breeze than had blown most of the morning. Still, our leeward set was fearful, and, as we approached the reef, I gave all up. Marble screwed his lips together, and his eyes never turned from the weather-leeches of the sails. Everybody appeared to me to be holding his breath, as the ship rose on the long ground-swells, sending slowly ahead the whole time. We passed the nearest point of the rocks on one of the rounded risings of the water, just touching lightly as we glided by the visible danger. The blow was light, and gave little cause for alarm. Captain Robbins now caught Mr. Marble by the hand, and was in the very act of heartily shaking it, when the ship came down very much in the manner that a man unexpectedly lights on a stone, when he has no idea of having anything within two or three yards of his feet. The blow was tremendous, throwing half the crew down; at the same instant, all three of the topmasts went to leeward.

One has some difficulty in giving a reader accurate notions of the confusion of so awful a scene. The motion of the vessel was arrested suddenly, as it might be by a wall, and the whole fabric seemed to be shaken to dissolution. The very next roller that came in, which would have undulated in towards the land but for us, meeting with so large a body in its way, piled up and broke upon our decks, covering everything with water. At the same time, the hull lifted, and, aided by wind, sea and current, it set still further on the reef, thumping in a way to break strong iron bolts, like so many sticks of sealing-wax, and cracking the solid live-oak of the floor-timbers as if they were made of willow. The captain stood aghast! For one moment despair was painfully depicted in his countenance; then he recovered his self-possession and seamanship. He gave the order to stand by to carry out to windward the stream-anchor in the launch, and to send a kedge to haul out by, in the jolly-boat. Marble answered with the usual “ay, ay, sir!” but before he sent us into the boats, he ventured to suggest that the ship had bilged already. He had heard timbers crack, about which he thought there could be no mistake. The pumps were sounded, and the ship had seven feet water in her hold. This had made in about ten minutes. Still the captain would not give up. He ordered us to commence throwing the teas overboard, in order to ascertain, if possible, the extent of the injury. A place was broken out in the wake of the main-hatch, and a passage was opened down into the lower-hold, where we met the water. In the mean time, a South-Sea man we had picked up at Canton, dove down under the lee of the bilge of the ship. He soon came back and reported that a piece of sharp rock had gone quite through the planks. Everything tending to corroborate this, the captain called a council of all hands on the quarter-deck, to consult as to further measures.

A merchantman has no claim on the services of her crew after she is hopelessly wrecked. The last have a lien in law, on the ship and cargo, for their wages; and it is justly determined that when this security fails, the claim for services ends. It followed, of course, that as soon as the John was given over, we were all our own masters; and hence the necessity for bringing even Neb into the consultation. With a vessel of war it would have been different. In such a case, the United States pays for the service, ship or no ship, wreck or no wreck; and the seaman serves out his term of enlistment, be this longer or shorter. Military discipline continues under all circumstances.

Captain Robbins could hardly speak when we gathered round him on the forecastle, the seas breaking over the quarter-deck in a way to render that sanctuary a very uncomfortable berth. As soon as he could command himself, he told us that the ship was hopelessly lost. How it had happened, he could not very well explain himself, though he ascribed it to the fact that the currents did not run in the direction in which, according to all sound reasoning, they ought to run. This part of the speech was not perfectly lucid, though, as I understood our unfortunate captain, the laws of nature, owing to some inexplicable influence, had departed, in some way or other, from their ordinary workings, expressly to wreck the John. If this were not the meaning of what he said, I did not understand this part of the address.

The captain was much more explicit after he got out of the current. He told us that the island of Bourbon was only about four hundred miles from where we then were, and he thought it possible to go that distance, find some small craft, and come back, and still save part of the cargo, the sails, anchors, &c. &c. We might make such a trip of it as would give us all a lift, in the way of salvage, that might prove some compensation for our other losses. This sounded well, and it had at least the effect to give us some present object for our exertions; it also made the danger we all ran of losing our lives, less apparent. To land on the island of Madagascar, in that day, was out of the question. The people were then believed to be far less civilized than in truth they were, and had a particularly bad character among mariners. Nothing remained, therefore, but to rig the boats, and make immediate dispositions for our departure.

Now it was that we found the advantage of the preparations already made. Little remained to be done, and that which was done, was much better done than if we had waited until the wreck was half full of water, and the seas were combing in upon her. The captain took charge of the launch, putting Mr. Marble, Rupert, Neb, myself and the cook, into the jolly-boat, with orders to keep as close as possible to himself. Both boats had sails, and both were so arranged as to row in calms, or head-winds. We took in rather more than our share of provisions and water, having two skillful caterers in the chief-mate and cook; and, having obtained a compass, quadrant, and a chart, for our portion of the indispensables, all hands were ready for a start, in about two hours after the ship had struck.

It was just noon when we cast off from the wreck, and stood directly off the land. According to our calculations, the wind enabled us to run, with a clean full, on our true course. As the boats drew out into the ocean, we had abundant opportunities of discovering how many dangers we had escaped; and, for my own part, I felt deeply grateful, even then, as I was going out upon the wide Atlantic in a mere shell of a boat, at the mercy we had experienced. No sooner were we fairly in deep water, than the captain and mate had a dialogue on the subject of the currents again. Notwithstanding all the difficulties his old theory had brought him into, the former remained of opinion that the true current set to windward, and that we should so find it as soon as we got a little into the offing; while the mate was frank enough to say he had been of opinion, all along, that it ran the other way. The latter added that Bourbon was rather a small spot to steer for, and it might be better to get into its longitude, and then find it by meridian observations, than to make any more speculations about matters of which we knew nothing.

The captain and Mr. Marble saw things differently, and we kept away accordingly, when we ought to have luffed all we could. Fortunately the weather continued moderate, or our little boat would have had a bad time of it. We outsailed the launch with ease, and were forced to reef in order not to part company. When the sun set, we were more than twenty miles from the land, seeing no more of the coast, though the mountains inland were still looming up grandly in the distance. I confess, when night shut in upon us, and I found myself on the wide ocean, in a boat much smaller than that with which I used to navigate the Hudson, running every minute farther and farther into the watery waste, I began to think of Clawbonny, and its security, and quiet nights, and well-spread board, and comfortable beds in a way I had never thought of either before. As for food, however, we were not stinted; Mr. Marble setting us an example of using our teeth on the half boiled pork, that did credit to his philosophy. To do this man justice, he seemed to think a run of four hundred miles in a jolly-boat no great matter, but took everything as regularly as if still on the deck of the John. Each of us got as good a nap as our cramped situations would allow.

The wind freshened in the morning, and the sea began to break. This made it necessary to keep still more away, to prevent filling at times, or to haul close up, which might have done equally well. But the captain preferred the latter course, on account of the current. We had ticklish work of it, in the jolly-boat, more than once that day, and were compelled to carry a whole sail in order to keep up with the launch, which beat us, now the wind had increased. Marble was a terrible fellow to carry on everything, ship or boat, and we kept our station admirably, the two boats never getting a cable's length asunder, and running most of the time within hail of each other. As night approached, however, a consultation was held on the subject of keeping in company. We had now been out thirty hours, and had made near a hundred and fifty miles, by our calculation. Luckily the wind had got to be nearly west, and we were running ahead famously, though it was as much as we could do to keep the jolly-boat from filling. One hand was kept bailing most of the time, and sometimes all four of us were busy. These matters were talked over, and the captain proposed abandoning the jolly-boat altogether, and to take us into the launch, though there was not much vacant space to receive us. But the mate resisted this, answering that he thought he could take care of our boat a while longer, at least. Accordingly, the old arrangement was maintained, the party endeavouring to keep as near together as possible.

About midnight it began to blow in squalls, and two or three times we found it necessary to take in our sails, our oars, and pull the boat head to sea, in order to prevent her swamping. The consequence was, that we lost sight of the launch, and, though we always kept away to our course as soon as the puffs would allow, when the sun rose we saw nothing of our late companions. I have sometimes thought Mr. Marble parted company on purpose, though he seemed much concerned next morning when he had ascertained the launch was nowhere to be seen. After looking about for an hour, and the wind moderating, we made sail close on the wind; a direction that would soon have taken us away from the launch, had the latter been close alongside when we first took it. We made good progress all this day, and at evening, having now been out fifty-four hours, we supposed ourselves to be rather more than half-way on the road to our haven. It fell calm in the night, and the next morning we got the wind right aft. This gave us a famous shove, for we sometimes made six and seven knots in the hour. The fair wind lasted thirty hours, during which time we must have made more than a hundred and fifty miles, it falling nearly calm about an hour before dawn, on the morning of the fourth day out. Everybody was anxious to see the horizon that morning, and every eye was turned to the east, with intense expectation, as the sun rose. It was in vain; there was not the least sign of land visible. Marble looked sadly disappointed, but he endeavoured to cheer us up with the hope of seeing the island shortly. We were then heading due east, with a very light breeze from the north-west. I happened to stand up in the boat, on a thwart, and, turning my face to the southward, I caught a glimpse of something that seemed like a hummock of land in that quarter. I saw it but for an instant; but, whatever it was, I saw it plain enough. Mr. Marble now got on the thwart, and looked in vain to catch the same object. He said there was no land in that quarter—could be none—and resumed his seat to steer to the eastward, a little north. I could not be easy, however, but remained on the thwart until the boat lifted on a swell higher than common, and then I saw the brown, hazy-looking spot on the margin of the ocean again. My protestations now became so earnest, that Marble consented to stand for an hour in the direction I pointed out to him. “One hour, boy, I will grant you, to shut your mouth,” the mate said, taking out his watch, “and that you need lay nothing to my door hereafter.” To make the most of this hour, I got my companions at the oars, and we all pulled with hearty good-will. So much importance did I attach to every fathom of distance made, that we did not rise from our seats until the mate told us to stop rowing, for the hour was up. As for himself, he had not risen either, but kept looking behind him to the eastward, still hoping to see land somewhere in that quarter.

My heart beat violently as I got upon the thwart, but there lay my hazy object, now never dipping at all. I shouted “land ho!” Marble jumped up on a thwart, too and no longer disputed my word. It was land, he admitted, and it must be the island of Bourbon, which we had passed to the northward, and must soon have given a hopelessly wide berth. We went to the oars again with renewed life, and soon made the boat spin. All that day we kept rowing, until about five in the afternoon, when we found ourselves within a few leagues of the island of Bourbon, where we were met by a fresh breeze from the southward, and were compelled to make sail. The wind was dead on end, and we made stretches under the lee of the island, going about as we found the sea getting to be too heavy for us, as was invariably the case whenever we got too far east or west. In a word, a lee was fast becoming necessary. By ten, we were within a mile of the shore, but saw no place where we thought it safe to attempt a landing in the dark; a long, heavy sea setting in round both sides of the island, though the water did not break much where we remained. At length the wind got to be so heavy, that we could not carry even our sail double-reefed, and we kept two oars pulling lightly in, relieving each other every hour. By daylight it blew tremendously, and glad enough were we to find a little cove where it was possible to get ashore. I had then never felt so grateful to Providence as I did when I got my feet on terra-firma.

We remained on the island a week, hoping to see the launch and her crew; but neither appeared. Then we got a passage to the Isle of France, on arriving at which place we found the late gale was considered to have been very serious. There was no American consul in the island, at that time; and Mr. Marble, totally without credit or means, found it impossible to obtain a craft of any sort to go to the wreck in. We were without money, too, and, a homeward-bound Calcutta vessel coming in, we joined her to work our passages home, Mr. Marble as dickey, and the rest of us in the forecastle. This vessel was called the Tigris, and belonged to Philadelphia. She was considered one of the best ships out of America, and her master had a high reputation for seamanship and activity. He was a little man of the name of Digges, and was under thirty at the time I first knew him. He took us on board purely out of a national feeling, for his ship was strong-handed without us, having thirty-two souls, all told, when he received us five. We afterwards learned that letters sent after the ship had induced Captain Digges to get five additional hands in Calcutta, in order to be able to meet the picaroons that were then beginning to plunder American vessels, even on their own coast, under the pretence of their having violated certain regulations made by the two great belligerents of the day, in Europe. This was just the commencement of the quasi war which broke out a few weeks later with France.

Of all these hostile symptoms, however, I then knew little and cared less. Even Mr. Marble had never heard of them and we five joined the Tigris merely to get passages home, without entertaining second thoughts of running any risk, further than the ordinary dangers of the seas.

The Tigris sailed the day we joined her, which was the third after we reached Mauritius, and just fifteen days after we had left the wreck. We went to sea with the wind at the southward, and had a good run off the island, making more than a hundred miles that afternoon and in the course of the night. Next morning, early, I had the watch, and an order was given to set top-gallant studding-sails. Rupert and I had got into the same watch on board this vessel, and we both went aloft to reeve the gear. I had taken up the end of the halyards, and had reeved them, and had overhauled the end down, when, in raising my head, I saw two small lug-sails on the ocean, broad on our weather-bow, which I recognised in an instant for those of the John's launch. I cannot express the feeling that came over me at that sight. I yelled, rather than shouted, “Sail ho!” and then, pushing in, I caught hold of a royal-backstay, and was on deck in an instant. I believe I made frantic gestures to windward, for Mr. Marble, who had the watch, had to shake me sharply before I could let the fact be known.

As soon as Marble comprehended me, and got the bearings of the boat, he hauled down all the studding-sails, braced sharp up on a wind, set the mainsail, and then sent down a report to Captain Digges for orders. Our new commander was a humane man, and having been told our whole story, he did not hesitate about confirming all that had been done. As the people in the launch had made out the ship some time before I saw the boat, the latter was running down upon us, and, in about an hour, the tiny sails were descried from the deck. In less than an hour after this, our mainyard swung round, throwing the topsail aback, and the well-known launch of the John rounded-to close under our lee; a rope was thrown, and the boat was hauled alongside.

Everybody in the Tigris was shocked when we came to get a look at the condition of the strangers. One man, a powerful negro, lay dead in the bottom of the boat; the body having been kept for a dreadful alternative, in the event of his companions falling in with no other relief. Three more of the men were nearly gone, and had to be whipped on board as so many lifeless bales of goods. Captain Robbins and Kite, both athletic, active men, resembled spectres, their eyes standing out of their heads as if thrust from their sockets by some internal foe; and when we spoke to them, they all seemed unable to answer. It was not fasting, or want of food, that had reduced them to this state, so much as want of water. It is true, they had no more bread left than would keep body and soul together for a few hours longer; but of water they had tasted not a drop for seventy odd hours! It appeared that, during the gale, they had been compelled to empty the breakers to lighten the boat, reserving only one for their immediate wants. By some mistake, the one reserved was nearly half-empty at the time; and Captain Robbins believed himself then so near Bourbon, as not to go on an allowance until it was too late. In this condition had they been searching for the island quite ten days, passing it, but never hitting it. The winds had not favoured them, and, the last few days, the weather had been such as to admit of no observation. Consequently, they had been as much out of their reckoning in their latitude, as in their longitude.

A gleam of intelligence, and I thought of pleasure, shot athwart the countenance of Captain Robbins, as I helped him over the Tigris's side. He saw I was safe. He tottered as he walked, and leaned heavily on me for support. I was about to lead him aft, but his eye caught sight of a scuttlebutt, and the tin-pot on its head. Thither he went, and stretched out a trembling hand to the vessel. I gave him the pot as it was, with about a wine-glass of water in it This he swallowed at a gulp, and then tottered forward for more. By this time Captain Digges joined us, and gave the proper directions how to proceed. All the sufferers had water in small quantities given them, and it is wonderful with what expressions of delight they received the grateful beverage. As soon as they understood the necessity of keeping it as long as possible in their mouths, and on their tongues, before swallowing it, a little did them a great deal of good. After this, we gave them some coffee, the breakfast being ready, and then a little ship's biscuit soaked in wine. By such means every man was saved, though it was near a month before all were themselves again. As for Captain Robbins and Kite, they were enabled to attend to duty by the end of a week, though nothing more was exacted of them than they chose to perform.