Page:Melancholy consequences of two sea storms.pdf/15

(15) me near me, I grasped it ineffectually, till at it was completely carried away, but not before d cut and battered and bruised me in several es, and in a manner that at any other time I ld have thought dreadful.

Death seemed inevitable; and all that occured to me now to do, was to accelerate it, and get of its pangs as speedily as possible; for, though ew how to swim; the tremendous surf rendered swimming useless, and all hope from it would have  ridiculous. I therefore began to swallow as much water as possible; yet, still rising by the ant principle of the waves to the surface, my, er thoughts began to recur; and whether it that, of natural instinct, which survived the temporary impressions of despair, I know not; but endeavoured to swim, which I had not done long, n I again-discovered the log of wood I had lost ting near me, and with some difficulty caught  hardly had it been an instant in my hands, n, by the same unlucky means I lost it again, I  often heard it said in Scotland, that if a man throw himself flat on his back in the water, quite straight and stiff, and suffer himself to sink  the water gets into his ears, he will continue to t so for ever: this occurred to me now, and I determined to try the experiment; so I threw myself  my back in the manner I have described, and  myself to the disposal of Providence; nor was it g before I found the truth of the saying -for I ted with hardly an effort, and began for the first e to conceive something like hopes of preservation,

After lying in this manner, committed to the retion of the tides, I soon saw the vessel it was a considerable distance behind  earliest hope began to play about my heart, and fluttered with a thousand gay fancies in my d: I began to form the favourable conclusion,