Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/508

470 shore, with no other provision than some bits of biscuit. The famished state to which he was reduced, rendered it imprudent for his friends to allow him to indulge his appetite, and in giving him food we tried gradually to bring into action the digestive powers of his stomach. His appearance, at first entirely discomposed, became by degrees re-animated. When he had recovered from the state of stupor into which he had been thrown by so long a privation of nourishment, he told us that, near the fire which we had found still burning, there was a little rill of fresh water, at which he had quenched his thirst; and that, by dint of searching among the plants, analogous to those which yield esculent fruits, he had discovered a shrub of the tribe of plaqueminiers which furnished him with some small fruits; but in a quantity insufficient for the supply of his necessities. On the first day of his absence, he found the spring, near which his things had been picked up. There he passed the night, and the next day he spent wholly in seeking the anchoring-place, without being able to find it. In all this painful peregrination, he had not met with a drop of water; but chance happily conducted him in the evening to the same spring, where he passed the second night. Having seen savages at a distance, he had attempted to obtain some intercourse with them,