Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/207

Rh tenant Bligh commented, "and that it would require my utmost resolution to enforce it. However, on representing to the people the necessity of guarding against casual delays, from adverse winds, and other causes, they all cheerfully assented."

There was never a more methodical man than this Lieutenant William Bligh. When they caught a couple of boobies, sea-fowl as large as a duck, the bodies were divided into seventeen portions, and one man was detailed to turn his back while another pointed at the pieces and asked, "Who is to have this?" The first sailor named a companion at random, and drew the fragment designated. In this manner a fair distribution was assured, and the man who drew the feet of the bird to chew could have no quarrel with the lucky sailor who got a bit of the breast.

Bligh was a capable navigator with the quadrant and compass which the mutineers had given him and he was driving for a passage to the southward of Endeavor Straits and an offing on the coast of New Holland, as Australia was then called. His crew was exceedingly low-spirited, but he diverted them with the hope of finding smoother water inside the far-flung reefs and a landing where they might eat fresh fruits and ease their weary bones for a little while.