[Diary entry] Sunday, June 10.  Latitude 18 degrees 40 minutes, longitude 142 degrees 34 minutes.  A pretty good night last night, with some wettings, and again another beautiful Sunday.  I cannot but think how we should all enjoy it at home, and what a contrast is here!  How terrible their suspense must begin to be!  God grant that it may be relieved before very long, and He certainly seems to be with us in everything we do, and has preserved this boat miraculously; for since we left the ship we have sailed considerably over three thousand miles, which, taking into consideration our meagre stock of provisions, is almost unprecedented.  As yet I do not feel the stint of food so much as I do that of water.  Even Henry, who is naturally a good water-drinker, can save half of his allowance from time to time, when I cannot.  My diseased throat may have something to do with that, however.

Nothing is now left which by any flattery can be called food.  But they must manage somehow for five days more, for at noon they have still eight hundred miles to go.  It is a race for life now.

This is no time for comments or other interruptions from me—­every moment is valuable.  I will take up the boy brother’s diary at this point, and clear the seas before it and let it fly.

     Henry Ferguson’s log: 

Sunday, June 10.  Our ham-bone has given us a taste of food to-day, and we have got left a little meat and the remainder of the bone for tomorrow.  Certainly, never was there such a sweet knuckle-one, or one that was so thoroughly appreciated ....  I do not know that I feel any worse than I did last Sunday, notwithstanding the reduction of diet; and I trust that we may all have strength given us to sustain the sufferings and hardships of the coming week.  We estimate that we are within seven hundred miles of the Sandwich Islands, and that our average, daily, is somewhat over a hundred miles, so that our hopes have some foundation in reason.  Heaven send we may all live to see land!

June 11.  Ate the meat and rind of our ham-bone, and have the bone and the greasy cloth from around the ham left to eat to-morrow.  God send us birds or fish, and let us not perish of hunger, or be brought to the dreadful alternative of feeding on human flesh!  As I feel now, I do not think anything could persuade me; but you cannot tell what you will do when you are reduced by hunger and your mind wandering.  I hope and pray we can make out to reach the islands before we get to this strait; but we have one or two desperate men aboard, though they are quiet enough now.  It is my firm trust and belief that we are going to be saved.

     All food gone.—­Captain’s Log.[3]

[Ferguson’s log continues]