Page:Wonderful and surprising narrative of Capt. John Inglefield.pdf/12

 Conio, in this however we were disappointed, and we feared that the southerly wind had driven us far to the northward. Our prayers were now for a northerly wind; our condition began to be truly miserable both from hunger and cold, for on the fifth we had discovered our provisions were nearly spoiled by salt water, and it was necessary to go to an allowance. One biscuit divided into 12 morsels for breakfast, and the same for dinner; the neck of a bottle broke off with the cork in, served for a glass, and this filled with water was the allowance for 24 hours to each man. This was done without any sort of partiality or distinction, but we must have perished even thus, had we not caught 6 quarts of rain water; and this we could not have been blessed with, had we not found in the boat a pair of sheets, which by accident had been put there, these were spread when it rained, and when thoroughly wet wrung into the kidd with which we bailed the boat. With this short allowance, which was rather tantalizing than sustaining, in our comfortless condition we began to grow very feeble, and our clothes continually wet, our bodies were in many places chaffed into sores.

On the 13th day it fell calm, and soon after a breeze of wind sprung up from the N. N. W. and blew to a gale, so that we ran before the wind at the rate of 5 or 6 miles an hour under our blanket, till we judged we were to the southward of Fayal, and to the westward 60 leagues, but blowing strong we could not attempt to steer for it. Our wishes were now for the wind to shift to the westward, this was the fifteenth day we had been in the boat; and we had only one day’s bread, and one bottle of water remaining of a second supply of rain. Our sufferings were now as great as human strength could bear, but were convinced that good spirits were a better support than great bodily strength, for on this day Thomas Matthews quarter-master, the stoutest man in the boat perished from hunger and cold; on the day before, he had complained of want of strength in his throat, as he expressed it, to swallow his morsel, and in the night drank salt water, grew delirious and died without a groan. As it became next to a certainty that we should all perish in