304 MY LIFE [Chap. 



wine. Then there were corks to stop the holes in the boats, 

 oars, masts, sails, and rudders to be looked up, spare spars, 

 cordage, twine, canvas, needles, carpenter's tools, nails, etc. 

 The crew brought up their bags of clothes, and all were 

 bundled indiscriminately into the boats, which, having been 

 so long in the sun, were very leaky and soon became half full 

 of water, so that two men in each of them had to be constantly 

 baling out the water with buckets. Blankets, rugs, pillows, 

 and clothes were all soaked, and the boats seemed overloaded, 

 though there was really very little weight in them. All being 

 now prepared, the crew were again employed pouring water 

 in the cabin and hatchway. 



*' The cargo of the ship consisted of rubber, cocoa, anatto, 

 balsam-capivi, and piassaba. The balsam was in small casks, 

 twenty stowed in sand, and twenty small kegs in rice- 

 chaff, immediately beneath the cabin floor, where the fire 

 seemed to be. For some time we had heard this bubbling 

 and hissing as if boiling furiously, the heat in the cabin was 

 very great, flame soon broke into the berths and through the 

 cabin floor, and in a few minutes more blazed up through 

 the skylight on deck. All hands were at once ordered into 

 the boats, which were astern of the ship. It was now about 

 twelve o'clock, only three hours from the time the smoke 

 was first discovered. I had to let myself down into the 

 boat by a rope, and being rather weak it slipped through 

 my hands and took the skin off all my fingers, and finding 

 the boat still half full of water I set to baling, which made 

 my hands smart very painfully. We lay near the ship all 

 the afternoon, watching the progress of the flames, which 

 soon covered the hinder part of the vessel and rushed up the 

 shrouds and sails in a most magnificent conflagration. Soon 

 afterwards, by the rolling of the ship, the masts broke off and 

 fell overboard, the decks soon burnt away, the ironwork at the 

 sides became red-hot, and last of all the bowsprit, being burnt 

 at the base, fell also. No one had thought of being hungry 

 till darkness came on, when we had a meal of biscuit and 

 raw ham, and then disposed ourselves as well as we could for 

 the night, which, you may be sure, was by no means a pleasant 



