At one of the islands belonging to Juan de Ampues, the pilot ran away.
Cifuentes and his crew, all equally ignorant of navigation, made sail
for San Domingo, were dismasted in a gale of wind, and driven in the
night upon the "Serrana" shoals; the crew, a flask of powder and steel,
were saved, but nothing else. They found sea-calves and birds upon the
island, and were obliged to eat them raw, and drink their blood, for
there was no water. After some weeks, they made a raft with fragments of
the wreck, lashed together with calf-skin thongs: three men went off
upon it, and were lost. Two, and a boy, staid upon the island--one of
whom, Moreno, died four days afterwards raving mad, having gnawed the
flesh off his arms: the survivors, Master John and the boy, dug holes in
the sand with tortoise-shells, and lined them with calf-skins to catch
the rain. Where the vessel was wrecked, they found a stone which served
them for a flint; this invaluable prize enabled them to make a fire.
Two men had been living upon another island two leagues from them, in
similar distress, for five years; these saw the fire, and upon a raft
joined their fellow sufferers. They now built a boat with the fragments
of the wreck, made sails of calf-skins, and caulked her with their fat,
mixed with charcoal: one man and the boy went away in her: Master John,
and one whose name has not been preserved, would not venture in her:
they made themselves coracles with skins, and coasted round the shoals,
which they estimated at twelve leagues long. At low water there were
seventeen islands, but only five which were not sometimes overflowed.
Fish, turtle, sea-calves, birds, and a root like purslane, was their
food. The whites of turtle-eggs, when dried and buried for a fortnight,
turned to water, which they found good drink: five months in the year
these eggs were their chief food. They clothed themselves and covered
their huts with calf-skins, and made an enclosure to catch fish,
twenty-two fathoms long, with stones brought out of the sea--and raised
two towers in the same laborious way, sixteen fathoms in circumference
at the base, and four in height, at the north and south extremities of
the island: upon these they made fires as signals. To avoid the crabs
and snails which tormented them at night, they slept in the day time.
Three years after the other went way, John's sufferings began to affect
his reason: in a fit of despair, he applied to the devil for that relief
his prayers had failed to bring; and, rising in the dark, he fancied the
devil was close to the hut. John awakened his companion, and taking a
crucifix for protection, ran praying to the other end of the island.
About a fortnight afterwards, John thought he heard his visiter again,
but did not see him. And it now pleased God to relieve them: they saw a
ship, and made a great smoke upon their tower, which was seen. John and
his companion were carried to the Havannah, where their appearance and
story attracted great attention. John was twice sick during the eight
years, both times in August, and both times bled himself.--_Southey's
Chronological History of the West Indies._
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