ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
built a Dreadnought. There we all sat by the side of her, 
my men looking at her in a sceptical way, saying that it 
was just as well, perhaps, to die drowned instead of 
dying of starvation. 
We took a last glance around to see if we could dis¬ 
cover some other fruit or something to eat, but we found 
nothing. We postponed the launching of our vessel, 
which I named the Victory, until the next morning, as 
had she perchance had an accident that night — accidents 
at night seem so much worse than in the daytime — it 
would have been too severe a blow for us, from which we 
never could have recovered. 
My feet were in such a terrible condition — so full 
of thorns, so swollen with numberless jiggers which had 
bored channels under my nails and under the soles — 
that I really felt I could not walk another step. If that 
raft did not float I knew that we were lost for good. 
The entire night I could not sleep, speculating on 
whether the raft would float or not. As far as I could 
judge, she seemed to me to have just capacity enough 
to keep afloat, with all of us on board. 
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