Page:Wonderful and surprising narrative of Capt. John Inglefield.pdf/13

 the same manner in a day or two, it was somewhat comfortable to reflect that dying of hunger was not so dreadful as our imagination had represented; others had complained of the symptoms in their throats, some had drunk their own urine, and all but myself had drunk salt water.

As yet despair and gloom had been successfully prohibited, and as the evenings closed in, the men had been encouraged by turns to sing a song, or relate a story instead of a supper, but this evening I found it impossible to raise either. As the night came on, it fell calm, and about midnight a breeze of wind sprang up, we guessed from the westward by the swell, but there not being a star to be seen we were afraid of running out of our way, and waited impatiently for the rising of the sun to be our compass. As soon as the dawn appeared we found the wind to be exactly as we had wished, at W. S. W. and immediately spread our sail, running before the sea at the rate of 4 miles an hour. Our last breakfast had been served out with the bread and water remaining, when John Gregory, quarter-master, declared with much confidence that he saw the land in the S. E. we had fog banks so often which had the appearance of land, that I did not trust myself to believe it, and cautioned the people, who were extravagantly elated, that they might not feel the effects of disappointment, till at length one of them broke out into a most extravagant fit of swearing, which I could not restrain, and declared he had never seen the land in his life if what he now saw was not it. We immediately shaped our course for it, though on my part with very little faith; the wind freshned, the boat went through the water at the rate of 5 or 6 miles an hour, and in two hours the land was plainly seen by every man in the boat, but at a very great distance, so that we did not reach it before 10 at night. It must have been at least 20 leagues from us when first discovered, and I cannot help remarking with much thankfulness on the providential favour showed to us in this instance. In every part of the horizon, except where the land was discovered, there was so thick a haze that we could not have discovered any thing or more than 3 or 4 leagues. Fayal by our reckoning bore E. and by N. which course we were steering, and