Page:Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.djvu/69

 of heavy blows. We continued to watch the wreck for any serviceable articles that might float from her, and kept one man during the day, on the stump of her foremast, on the lookout for vessels. Our work was very much impeded by the increase of the wind and sea, and the surf breaking almost continually into the boats gave us many fears that we should not be able to prevent our provisions from getting wet; and above all served to increase the constant apprehensions that we had of the insufficiency of the boats themselves during the rough weather that we should necessarily experience. In order to provide as much as possible against this, and withal to strengthen the slight materials of which the boats were constructed, we procured from the wreck some light cedar boards (intended to repair boats in cases of accidents) with which we built up additional sides, about six inches above the gunwale; these, we afterwards found, were of infinite service for the purpose for which they were intended; in truth, I am satisfied we could never have been preserved without them; the boats must otherwise have taken in so much water that all the efforts of twenty such weak, starving men as we afterwards