Page:Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.djvu/76

 set, S.SE. At four o'clock in the afternoon we lost sight of her entirely. Many were the lingering and sorrowful looks we cast behind us.

It has appeared to me often since to have been, in the abstract, an extreme weakness and folly, on our parts, to have looked upon our shattered and sunken vessel with such an excessive fondness and regret; but it seemed as if in abandoning her we had parted with all hope, and were bending our course away from her, rather by some dictate of despair. We agreed to keep together, in our boats, as nearly as possible to afford assistance in case of accident, and to render our reflections less melancholy by each other's presence. I found it on this occasion true, that misery does indeed love company; unaided, and unencouraged by each other, there were with us many whose weak minds, I am confident, would have sunk under the dismal retrospections of the past catastrophe, and who did not possess either sense or firmness enough to contemplate our approaching destiny without the cheering of some more determined countenance than their own. The wind was strong all day; and the sea ran very high, our boat taking in water from her leaks continually, so that we were