304 WHALING 



the rain water was impossible to drink. On December 8th, a 

 big storm caught them, and the mate's boat, leaky from the 

 start, seemed ready to break up at any minute. Yet somehow it 

 held together; then flying fish struck the sails and dropped into 

 the boat, and the men seized upon them wildly and ate them 

 alive. This carried them over a few days more in the terrifically 

 hot calm that followed the storm; they slid over the gunwales 

 into the sea to cool themselves; and, holding thus, they saw 

 clams on the bottom of the boat, pulled them off and ate them. 

 But raw clams are not very filling food and the men were about 

 desperate when, on December 20th, they raised land. 



It was Ducie's Island, uninhabited and barren. Fish, crabs, 

 and birds they did find, and with these they fortified themselves 

 as best they might. A kind of peppergrass served them for 

 "greens," too, but though they searched the island over, there 

 appeared to be no fresh water anywhere. Finally a very small 

 spring was discovered, hidden among the rocks by the shore and 

 accessible only at low tide. They literally drank it dry. At 

 the next low tide they drank again and began to fill their water 

 kegs. In a few days they had picked up about all the food there 

 was to be found, had repaired the mate's boat and, by repeated 

 raids on the little spring, had got all the water their few kegs 

 would hold; the captain wrote letters about their fate and that of 

 the Essex, put them in a tin box and nailed it to a tree, in the 

 bark of which they had found the words ''The Elizabeth" cut. 



Then on December 27th they set out again, this time for the 

 island of Juan Fernandez. When they took to their boats, 

 three of the crew actually preferred the known horrors of Ducie's 

 to the unknown horrors of the open sea, and accordingly were left 

 on the island. 



On January 10th the second mate died and was given sea 

 burial. On the 12th a storm blew up and the boats were sepa- 

 rated. On the 20th a man in the mate's boat died and was 

 buried. Then the dreams began. Night after night these 

 starving mariners on the open ocean dreamed of banquets and 

 of a ship coming to rescue them. On February 8th, another man 

 died — in convulsions. But now starvation and this too frequent 



