better able to resist the force of the waves:  some were obliged to fasten themselves.  In the middle of the night the weather was very bad; very heavy waves rolled upon us, and often threw us down with great violence; the cries of the people were mingled with the roaring of the billows; a dreadful sea lifted us every moment from the raft, and threatened to carry us away.  This scene was rendered still more awful by the horrors of a very dark night; for some moments we thought that we saw fires at a distance.  We had taken the precaution to hang, at the top of the mast, some gun-powder and pistols, with which we had provided ourselves on board the frigate:  we made signals by burning a great many charges of powder; we even fired some pistol-shot, but it seems that these fires were only an illusion of the eyesight, or perhaps they were nothing but the dashing of the breakers.

This whole night we contended against death, holding fast by the ropes which were strongly fastened.  Rolled by the waves from the back to the front, and from the front to the back, and sometimes precipitated into the sea, suspended between life and death, lamenting our misfortune, certain to perish, yet still struggling for a fragment of existence with the cruel element which threatened to swallow us up.  Such was our situation till day-break; every moment were heard the lamentable cries of the soldiers and sailors; they prepared themselves for death; they bid farewell to each other, imploring the protection of Heaven, and addressing fervent prayers to God:  all made vows to him, notwithstanding the certainty that they should never be able to fulfil them.  Dreadful situation!  How is it possible to form an idea of it, which is not below the truth!

About seven o’clock, in the morning, the sea fell a little, the wind blew with less fury; but what a sight presented itself to our view!  Ten or twelve unhappy wretches, having their lower extremities entangled in the openings between the pieces of the raft, had not been able to disengage themselves, and had lost their lives; several others had been carried off by the violence of the sea.  At the hour of repast we took fresh numbers, in order to leave no break in the series:  we missed twenty men:  we will not affirm that this number is very exact, for we found that some soldiers, in order to have more than their ration, took two, and even three numbers.  We were so many persons crowded together, that it was absolutely impossible to prevent these abuses.

Amidst these horrors, an affecting scene of filial piety forced us to shed tears:  two young men raised and recognised, for their father, an unfortunate man who was stretched senseless under the feet of the people; at first, they thought he was dead, and their despair expressed itself by the most affecting lamentations; it was perceived, however, that this almost inanimate body still had breath; we lavished on him all the assistance in our power; he recovered by degrees, and