Of course this feature will grow more and more trying, but it will be human nature to cease to set it down; there will be five weeks of it yet —­we must try to remember that for the diarist; it will make our beds the softer.

May 9 the sun gives him a warning:  ’Looking with both eyes, the horizon crossed thus +.’  ’Henry keeps well, but broods over our troubles more than I wish he did.’  They caught two dolphins; they tasted well.  ’The captain believed the compass out of the way, but the long-invisible north star came out—­a welcome sight—­and endorsed the compass.’

May 10, ’latitude 7 degrees 0 minutes 3 seconds N., longitude 111 degrees 32 minutes W.’  So they have made about three hundred miles of northing in the six days since they left the region of the lost ship.  ’Drifting in calms all day.’  And baking hot, of course; I have been down there, and I remember that detail.  ’Even as the captain says, all romance has long since vanished, and I think the most of us are beginning to look the fact of our awful situation full in the face.’  ’We are making but little headway on our course.’  Bad news from the rearmost boat:  the men are improvident; ’they have eaten up all of the canned meats brought from the ship, and are now growing discontented.’  Not so with the chief mate’s people—­they are evidently under the eye of a man.

Under date of May 11:  ’Standing still! or worse; we lost more last night than we made yesterday.’  In fact, they have lost three miles of the three hundred of northing they had so laboriously made.  ’The cock that was rescued and pitched into the boat while the ship was on fire still lives, and crows with the breaking of dawn, cheering us a good deal.’  What has he been living on for a week?  Did the starving men feed him from their dire poverty?  ’The second mate’s boat out of water again, showing that they over-drink their allowance.  The captain spoke pretty sharply to them.’  It is true:  I have the remark in my old note-book; I got it of the third mate in the hospital at Honolulu.  But there is not room for it here, and it is too combustible, anyway.  Besides, the third mate admired it, and what he admired he was likely to enhance.

They were still watching hopefully for ships.  The captain was a thoughtful man, and probably did not disclose on them that that was substantially a waste of time.  ’In this latitude the horizon is filled with little upright clouds that look very much like ships.’  Mr. Ferguson saved three bottles of brandy from his private stores when he left the ship, and the liquor came good in these days.  ’The captain serves out two tablespoonfuls of brandy and water—­half and half—­to our crew.’  He means the watch that is on duty; they stood regular watches—­four hours on and four off.  The chief mate was an excellent officer—­a self-possessed, resolute, fine, all-round man.  The diarist makes the following note—­there is character in it:  ’I offered one bottle of brandy to the chief mate, but he declined, saying he could keep the after-boat quiet, and we had not enough for all.’