consult them.  This distrust came from their thinking, that, by a stratagem, we had concealed all our people under the benches, to rush upon them when they should be near enough, and so great was this distrust that they resolved to fly us like enemies.  They feared every thing from our crew, whom they thought to be in a state of mutiny:  however, we proposed no other condition on receiving some people, than to take in some water, of which we began to be in want, as for biscuit we had a sufficient stock.

Above an hour had passed after this accident, when the sea ran very high.  The yawl could not hold out against it:  being obliged to ask assistance, it came up to us.  My comrade de Chasteluz was one of the fifteen men on board of her.  We thought first of his safety, he leaped into our boat, I caught him by the arm to hinder his falling into the sea, we pressed each others hands, what language.

Singular concatenation of events!  If our sixty-three men had not absolutely insisted upon landing, we could not have saved the fifteen men in the yawl; we should have had the grief of seeing them perish before our eyes, without being able to afford them any assistance:  this is not all, the following is what relates to myself personally.  A few minutes before we took in the people of the yawl, I had undressed myself in order to dry my clothes, which had been wet for forty-eight hours, from my having assisted in lading the water out of the long-boat.  Before I took off my pantaloons I felt my purse, which contained the four hundred francs; a moment after I had lost it; this was the completion of all my misfortunes.  What a happy thought was it to have divided my eight hundred francs with Mr. de Chasteluz who now had the other four hundred.

The heat was very violent on the sixth.  We were reduced to an allowance of one glass of dirty or corrupted water:  and therefore to check our thirst, we put a piece of lead into our mouths; a melancholy expedient!

The night returned; it was the most terrible of all:  the light of the moon shewed us a raging sea:  long and hollow waves threatened twenty times to swallow us up.  The pilot did not believe it possible to avoid all those which came upon us; if we had shipped a single one it would have been all over with us.  The pilot must have let the helm go, and the boat would have sunk.  Was it not in fact better to disappear at once than to die slowly?

Towards the morning the moon having set, exhausted by distress, fatigue, and want of sleep I could not hold out any longer and fell asleep; notwithstanding the waves which were ready to swallow me up.  The Alps and their picturesque scenery rose before my imagination.  I enjoyed the freshness of their shades, I renewed the delicious moments which I have passed there, and as if to enhance my present happiness by the idea of past evils, the remembrance of my good sister flying with me into the woods of Kaiserslautern