Page:Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.djvu/89

 the miseries of our life; the violence of raving thirst has no parallel in the catalogue of human calamities. It was our hard lot to have felt this in its extremest force, when necessity subsequently compelled us to seek resource from one of the offices of nature. We were not at first, aware of the consequences of eating this bread; and themselves to a degree of oppression that we could divine the cause of our extreme thirst. But, alas! it was not until the fatal effects of it had shown there was no relief. Ignorant, or instructed of the fact, it was alike immaterial; it composed a part of our subsistence, and reason imposed upon us the necessity of its immediate consumption, as otherwise it would have been lost to us entirely.

November 29th. Our boats appeared to be growing daily more frail and insufficient; the continual flowing of the water into them seemed increased, without our being able to assign it to any thing else than a general weakness, arising from causes that must in a short time, without some remedy or relief, produce their total failure. We did not neglect, however, to patch up and mend them, according to our means, whenever we could discover a broken or weak part. We this day