Will this frail float, forty feet by twenty, bear us in safety? Sink
it cannot; the material of which it is composed is of a kind that
must surmount the waves. But it is questionable whether it will hold
together. The cords that bind it will have a tremendous strain to bear
in resisting the violence of the sea. The most sanguine amongst us
trembles to face the future; the most confident dares to think only of
the present. After the manifold perils of the last seventy-two days’
voyage all are too agitated to look forward without dismay to what in
all human probability must be a time of the direst distress.
Vain as the task may seem, I will not pause in my work of registering
the events of our drama, as scene after scene they are unfolded before
our eyes.
Of the twenty-eight persons who left Charleston in the “Chancellor,”
only eighteen are left to huddle together upon this narrow raft; this
number includes the five passengers, namely M. Letourneur, Andre,
Miss Herbey, Falsten, and myself; the ship’s officers, Captain Curtis,
Lieutenant Walter, the boatswain, Hobart the steward, Jynxstrop the
cook, and Dowlas the carpenter; and seven sailors, Austin, Owen, Wilson,
O’Ready, Burke, Sandon, and Flaypole.
Such are the passengers on the raft; it is but a brief task to enumerate
their resources.
The greater part of the provisions in the store-room were destroyed at
the time when the ship’s deck was submerged, and the small quantity that
Curtis has been able to save will be very inadequate to supply the wants
of eighteen people, who too probably have many days to wait ere they
sight either land or a passing vessel. One cask of biscuit, another of
preserved meat, a small keg of brandy, and two barrels of water complete
our store, so that the utmost frugality in the distribution of our daily
rations becomes absolutely necessary.
Of spare clothes we have positively none; a few sails will serve for
shelter by day, and covering by night. Dowlas has his carpenter’s tools,
we have each a pocket-knife, and O’Ready an old tin pot; of which he
takes the most tender care; in addition to these, we are in possession
of a sextant, a compass, a chart, and a metal tea-kettle, everything
else that was placed on deck in readiness for the first raft having been
lost in the partial submersion of the vessel.
Such then is our situation; critical indeed, but after all perhaps
not desperate. We have one great fear; some there are amongst us whose
courage, moral as well as physical, may give way, and over failing
spirits such as these we may have no control.