Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/187

 CHAPTER XI.

here, besides the vessels, seventeen boats had been actively engaged in surveying the different islands,  reefs, and bays. We were sometimes absent from the ship fifteen or eighteen days at a time, without ever being  out of the boats, and were continually in danger from  the treachery of the natives, who were ever watching for  an opportunity to entrap us.

The ship’s launch, Lieutenant Oliver H. Perry, grandson of Commodore Perry of Lake Erie fame, and the first cutter, Lieutenant Samuel R. Knox, grandson of General  Knox, one of the old Revolutionary heroes, while surveying one of the Windward Islands experienced a very  heavy gale from the south. We sought shelter in Sualib Bay. Here we lay five days waiting for the gale to abate. During this time we saw but few natives. Our store of provisions was exhausted, and we subsisted upon  the few fish we could catch, and those we were obliged  to eat raw. Occasionally we would secure a few cocoanuts which were drifting by the boats. The third night the rain came down in torrents, and we filled our ten-gallon breaker. This precious supply we used sparingly. On the fourth day a native swam out to the cutter with five bananas, which were equally divided between the