130 cook's FIRST VOYAGE JUNE, 



i 



despair of success : that no time might be lost, the 

 water was immediately started in the hold, and 

 pumped up ; six of our guns, being all we had upon 

 the deck, our iron and stone ballast, casks, hoop 

 staves, oil jars, decayed stores, and many other 

 things that lay in the way of heavier materials, were 

 thrown overboard with the utmost expedition, every 

 one exerting himself with an alacrity almost ap- 

 proaching to cheerfulness, without the least repining 

 or discontent ; yet the men were so far imprest with 

 a sense of their situation, that not an oath was heard 

 among them, the habit of profaneness, however 

 strong, being instantly subdued by the dread of 

 incurring guilt when death seemed to be so near. 



While we were thus employed, day broke upon 

 us, and we saw the land at about eight leagues 

 distance, without any island in the intermediate 

 space, upon which, if the ship should have gone to 

 pieces, we might have been set ashore by the boats, 

 and from which they might have taken us by dif- 

 ferent turns to the main : the wind however gradual- 

 ly died away, and early in the forenoon it was a 

 dead calm ; if it had blown hard, the ship must in- 

 evitably have been destroyed. At eleven in the 

 forenoon we expected high water, and anchors were 

 got out, and every thing made ready for another 

 effort to heave her off if she should float, but to our 

 inexpressible surprise and concern, she did not float 

 by a foot and a half, though we had lightened her 

 near fifty ton ; so much did the day-tide fall short of 

 that in the night. We now proceeded to lighten 

 her still more, and threw overboard every thing that 

 it was possible for us to spare : hitherto she had not 

 admitted much water, but as the tide fell, it rushed 

 in so fast, that two pumps, incessantly worked, could 

 scarcely keep her free. At two o'clock, she lay 

 heeling two or three streaks to starboard, and the 

 pinnace, which lay under her bows, touched the 

 ground : we had now no hope but from the tide at 



