OF THE SOUTH SEAS 179 



and kept the boat's head to the seas. We fastened it 

 to the ring in the stern. We used this sea-anchor many- 

 times throughout our voyage, and without it we would 

 have gone down sure. Of course we took in a great 

 deal of water, anyhow ; but we could keep her baled out, 

 and the sea-anchor prevented her from swamping. 



"The nights were frightful, and many times all of us 

 had terrible dreams, and sometimes thought we were 

 on shore. Men would cry out about things they 

 thought they saw, and other men would have to tell 

 them they were not so. We were always up and down 

 on top of the swells, and our bodies ached so terribly 

 from the sitting-down position and from the joggling 

 of the motion that we would cry with pain. The salt 

 water got in all of our bruises and cracked our hands 

 and feet, but there was no help for us, and we had to 

 grin and bear it. A shark took hold of our sea-anchor 

 and we were afraid that he would tear it to pieces. 



"Every day the captain took an observation when 

 he could, and told us where we were. We made about a 

 hundred miles a day, but very often we steered out of 

 our course because we had no matches or lantern. 



"On the eighteenth we were in latitude 26° 53' South, 

 and the captain said that Easter Island was in the 27th 

 degree, so after all we had steered pretty well. 



"On the night of the nineteenth, we had a fearful 

 storm. It seemed worse than the hurricane we had 

 on the El Dorado. All night long we thought that 

 every minute would end us, and we lay huddled in 

 misery, not caring much whether we went down or not. 

 But the next morning, we set part of the sail again, and 

 at noon that day the captain took a sight and found that 



