OF THE SOUTH SEAS 177 



the wind was big still. The old man said that as we 

 had both latitude and longitude to run, we would run 

 out the latitude first, and then hope for a slant to the 

 land. We were then, he said, in latitude 31° south, 

 and longitude 121° west. That being so, we had about 

 three hundred miles to go south and about six hundred 

 east. He said that Pitcairn Island was but six hundred 

 miles away, but that the prevailing winds would not let 

 us sail there. We set the course, then, for Easter Island. 

 We wondered whether Easter Island had a place to 

 land, and whether there were any people on it. There 

 might be savages and cannibals. 



"It rained steady all night, and the sea spilled into 

 the boat now and then. Two of us had to bale all the 

 time to keep the boat afloat. We were soaked to the 

 skin with fresh and salt water, weak from the days of 

 exposure and hunger, and we were barely able to keep 

 from being thrown out of the boat by its terrible rock- 

 ing and pitching, and yet we all felt like singing a song. 

 All but the Japanese cook. Iwata had almost gone 

 mad, and was praying to his joss whenever anything 

 new happened. During that night a wave knocked 

 him over and crushed one of his feet against the tank of 

 drinking water. The salt water got into the wound and 

 swelled it, and he was soon unable to move. 



"The second day in the small boat was the captain's 

 forty-eighth birthday. The old man spoke of it in a 

 hearty way, hoping that when he was forty-nine he 

 would be on the deck of some good ship. There was no 

 sign of the El Dorado that morning. But with wind 

 and sea as they were, we could not have seen the ship 

 very far, and we had made some distance under oar- 



