During the first days and nights of our being abandoned, the weather was very cold, but we bore the immersion pretty well; and during the last nights that we passed on the raft, every time that a wave rolled over us, it produced a very disagreeable sensation, and made us utter plaintive cries, so that each of us employed means to avoid it:  some raised their heads, by means of pieces of wood, and made with whatever they could find a kind of parapet, against which the wave broke:  others sheltered themselves behind empty casks which were placed across, along side each other; but these means often proved insufficient; it was only when the sea was very calm that it did not break over us.

A raging thirst, which was redoubled in the daytime by the beams of a burning sun, consumed us:  it was such, that we eagerly moistened our parched lips with urine, which we cooled in little tin cups.  We put the cup in a place where there was a little water, that the urine might cool the sooner; it often happened that these cups were stolen from those who had thus prepared them.  The cup was returned, indeed, to him to whom it belonged, but not till the liquid which it contained was drank.  Mr. Savigny observed that the urine of sum of us was more agreeable than that of others.  There was a passenger who could never prevail on himself to swallow it:  in reality, it had not a disagreeable taste; but in some of us it became thick, and extraordinarily acrid:  it produced an effect truly worthy of remark:  namely, that it was scarcely swallowed, when it excited an inclination to urine anew.  We also tried to quench our thirst by drinking sea-water.  Mr. Griffon, the governor’s secretary, used it continually, he drank ten or twelve glasses in succession.  But all these means only diminished our thirst to render it more severe a moment afterwards.

An officer of the army, found by chance, a little lemon, and it may be imagined how valuable this fruit must be to him; he, in fact, reserved it entirely for himself; his comrades, notwithstanding the most pressing entreaties, could not obtain any of it; already emotions of rage were rising in every heart, and if he had not partly yielded to those who surrounded him, they would certainly have taken it from him by force, and he would have perished, the victim of his selfishness.  We also disputed for about thirty cloves of garlic, which had been found accidentally in a little bag:  all these disputes were generally accompanied with violent threats, and if they had been protracted we should, perhaps, have come to the last extremities.

We had found, also, two little phials which contained a spirituous liquor to clean the teeth; he who possessed them, kept them carefully, and made many difficulties to give one or two drops of this liquid in the hollow of the hand.  This liquor, which we believe was an essence of guiacum, cinnamon, cloves, and other aromatic substances, produced on our tongues a delightful sensation, and removed for a few moments the thirst which consumed us.  Some of us found pieces of pewter, which, being put into the mouth produced a kind of coolness.