IX THE BOAT. 59 



flannel, with the poor little atom of mortality tightly clasped in her arms. I thought 

 she would die before the day was over." 



At last they were all in the boat : four women, five children, the second mate, and 

 sixteen sailors. The captain stayed on the ship, providing for the safety of the drunken 

 creatures who could not take care of themselves, and then he came off. How small the 

 boat looked by the side of the tall ship ! And they had to get quickly out of her reach, 

 for she was rolling so heavily that the waters near her boiled up like a maelstrom. 



Away they drifted, a mere speck upon the ocean. Before night there came a storm 

 of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, that lasted through the darkness, and by which they 

 were drenched through and through. "I sat up," says the narrator, "for some twelve or 

 fourteen hours on a narrow plank, with my child in my arms, utterly miserable, cold, 

 and hopeless, soaked to the skin, blinded by the salt spray, my face and hands smarting 

 intolerably with the unusual exposure." 



During the storm and confusion the greater part of their biscuit had be^eii soaked 

 with salt water, and made useless. It was also discovered that the food collected for the 

 captain's boat had been thrown by mistake into the other, therefore it was necessary at once 

 to put them on allowance : half a pint of water and half a biscuit a day to each person. 

 Except the biscuit, there were only a few small tins of preserved strawberries and Indian 

 corn, and these were given to the ladies. " How the poor children cried with hunger as 

 the days dragged on ! " 



The boat leaked from the beginning, and the sailors by turns baled the water out in 

 little cans. Exposed to the glare of a tropical sun for hours together, nearly mad with 

 thirst, bearing her child in her weak arms, for she was too much exhausted to stand, 

 Mrs. Murray says that often she would sit for hours without any thought at all, vacantly 

 gazing on the ocean. 



" We had," says she, " three days of dead calm. The sun glared down upon us 

 pitilessly, and I thought how pleasant it would be to throw myself into the se,a, and sink 

 calmly to death beneath its waves. I lost all wish to live for life seemed horrible. 1 

 cannot describe the days as they passed separately, one by one ; when I look back upon 

 them, they all seem to have been one misery. I remember that on the third day out 

 poor Kitty's baby died indeed, it had been dying from the first. It never had a chance 

 of living, for it had no n't attention and no sustenance. The poor mother cried bitterly 

 when at last it became cold on her bosom, but its death was a merciful release. Wrapped 

 in a shawl of bright colours, it was thrown overboard, but was so light that it could not 

 sink, and floated for hours on a sea so calm in the hot sun that scarce a ripple could be 

 seen. At last it disappeared suddenly, the prey of some hungry shark, and when 

 afterwards the horrid monsters crowded round our boat they added to our misery. 

 Hitherto the children had been plunged into the sea every morning to preserve them in 

 health, but we dared not continue this practice with those horrid creatures on our lee. 

 .... I must not forget one incident, trifling in itself, but which might have caused the 

 death of one of the sailors. On the day of the wreck I had caused two or three bottles of 

 ale and one of claret to be put in the boat, thinking it might be of great use to us. 

 On the third or fourth night out, when we were shivering helplessly after a drenching 



