238 
VOYAGE TO THE 
As their numbers thinned, each thought, but dared not 
yet speak, of one means of sustaining life. On this day, the 
tenth of their misery, they looked at each other as they were 
committing a body to the deep—and it appeared as if each 
had understood the look; but still another, an old man, 
died—and again they forbore. That same night, however, 
a boy expired, and famine forced them to the unnatural 
food. 
The women bore these complicated evils better than the 
men. The young passenger, in particular, did, as they all 
confessed, contribute most of all to save such as did survive. 
Engaged to marry the ship’s steward on reaching England, 
she had the misery of seeing him expire before her—the 
still greater misery of reflecting, in after life, that the fren¬ 
zied love of existence that extreme famine is known to ex¬ 
cite, forced her, with her companions, to the horror of de¬ 
riving life from his death: yet she kept up the spirits of her 
companions ; she daily called upon them to pray with her ; 
she portioned out their unnatural food; and robbed their 
misery of half its horror, by her confidence in Providence, 
and her decency of conduct even in that wretched time. 
It is scarcely right, perhaps, to lay open such shocking 
tales of human misery as seem to degrade man, and display 
a state in which his animal cravings get the better of his 
