[Diary entry] June 7.  Latitude 16 degrees 35 minutes N., longitude 136 degrees 30 minutes W. Night wet and uncomfortable.  To-day shows us pretty conclusively that the American Isles are not there, though we have had some signs that looked like them.  At noon we decided to abandon looking any farther for them, and to-night haul a little more northerly, so as to get in the way of Sandwich Island vessels, which fortunately come down pretty well this way—­say to latitude 19 degrees to 20 degrees to get the benefit of the trade-winds.  Of course all the westing we have made is gain, and I hope the chronometer is wrong in our favour, for I do not see how any such delicate instrument can keep good time with the constant jarring and thumping we get from the sea.  With the strong trade we have, I hope that a week from Sunday will put us in sight of the Sandwich Islands, if we are not safe by that time by being picked up.

It is twelve hundred miles to the Sandwich Islands; the provisions are virtually exhausted, but not the perishing diarist’s pluck.

[Diary entry] My cough troubled me a good deal last night, and therefore I got hardly any sleep at all.  Still, I make out pretty well, and should not complain.  Yesterday the third mate mended the block, and this P.M. the sail, after some difficulty, was got down, and Harry got to the top of the mast and rove the halyards through after some hardship, so that it now works easy and well.  This getting up the mast is no easy matter at any time with the sea we have, and is very exhausting in our present state.  We could only reward Harry by an extra ration of water.  We have made good time and course to-day.  Heading her up, however, makes the boat ship seas and keeps us all wet; however, it cannot be helped.  Writing is a rather precarious thing these times.  Our meal to-day for the fifteen consists of half a can of ‘soup and boullie’; the other half is reserved for to-morrow.  Henry still keeps up grandly, and is a great favourite.  God grant he may be spared.

     A better feeling prevails among the men.—­Captain’s Log.

[Diary entry] June 9.  Latitude 17 degrees 53 minutes.  Finished to-day, I may say, our whole stack of provisions.[2] We have only left a lower end of a ham-bone, with some of the outer rind and skin on.  In regard to the water, however, I think we have got ten days’ supply at our present rate of allowance.  This, with what nourishment we can get from boot-legs and such chewable matter, we hope will enable us to weather it out till we get to the Sandwich Islands, or, sailing in the meantime in the track of vessels thither bound, be picked up.  My hope is in the latter, for in all human probability I cannot stand the other.  Still, we have been marvellously protected, and God, I hope, will preserve us all in His own good time and way.  The men are getting weaker, but are still quiet