The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-05-01


our throats were soon moistened afresh
with the Internal poison, the use of
which had brought us where we were:
Valiant men were we. We abused the
whale, and dared him to stop and fight
it out-called him fool and coward
when he didn't do 1t; Mr.. s. said he
would hang on to him until the girlbaby
he had left at home was grandmother;
and we boosted, quarreled and laughed,
drank and slept, until the moon rose
high and fell, and the first faint streaks
of daylight warned US that we had
spent night in the boat.
Suddenly the boat lost her way, and
| the general cry of "loose," and ''line
parted" was answered by the third
mate-''not parted-cut. I've cut 1t.
Where's the ship?" To say that we
were sobered would exceed the truth;
but the officers "Where's the ship?" did
startle us into q semi-consciousness of
our position, and our disorderly crew
became suddenly silent. Mr.. 8. was
| sober. "Boatsteerer get out the COM
pass, and see how the wind u.s." said
he, and I at once obeyed. We knew
| that the whale had been going dead to
windward all the time, and we sup.
the wind to find the ship. But boats
whose chances had been better than
ours had been lost, and there was GER
| tainly possibility that ours might add
one more to the number, and this was
enough to make us each secretly un.
! easy, as we ran down at the rate of five
or six knots before the wind, with our
sprit.sa doomed out with an oar.
The sun rose clear and hot, and as he
climbed higher and higher, the heat,
and the expiring effects of the acc ursed
rum, made US thirsty almost to torture,
We had water in the boat-keg--six gal
Ions but the officer, who realized the
position which our ineXperience could
not fully comprehend, would only al
low us small quantity each, and at
what we thought unreasonablY long
intervals of time. We took turns In
sleeping, Mr.. s. and I relieving each
other at the steering oar, until! noon,
close his eyes-all were looking out
eagerly for the good ship H.
The sun reached the zenith and we
saw no ship. Hour after hour wore on,
and as the sun went down In tie after.
noon sky, so did our spirits drOop, and
changed from hope to anxiety-fron
anxiety to something near akin to des-
pair, For long while the third mate
did not speak, but with the practiced
gaze of an old seaman, swept the hori-
ION for speck, until the sun had set;
then he run the stearing-oar In, hauled
in the sheet, and as the boat came to the
wind sat down on the loggerhead, and
said quite colly, Sits no use, men. We
are passed her, and you may as we'll
make up your minds to take 1t easy W
We were adrift, sure enough. Had we
known (what we afterwards learned)
that the wind had hauled four points,
that is, fotty-fve degrees, at midnight,
we could probably have found the ship.
AS 1t was, we ran long way astern OF
her: while the captain and officers,
convinced that some disaster had des"
troyed US, were beating the ship to
windward, and keeping sharp look
out for anything in the shape OF an
overturned boat or a dead whale,
neither of which they found. For two
DAYS the ship was turned to windward,
and then her course was shaped for
another cruising ground, and the third
mate and boats crew logged as lost.
Lost we certainly were. We had no
instruments with which to determine
our position, and If we had should have
been no better off, for not man IN the
boat could have used them; the third
mate, although good sailor and
good whaleman 1.-TWO qualifications that
no navigator. We had good compass
and we knew that Peru was some
twelve hundred miles to the eastward,
but that was a long distance to pull on
short allowance OF water; and the
southeast trade wind was an obstacle
hoped to reach the Galapagos or Turtle
Islands, which we knew to be but half
as far distant as the main land but we
did not know that they were hundreds
OF miles to the northward, and OF course
we came nowhere near them.
II could interest no one were | to at
tempt a record of our hopes and fears,
our falling strength and weary pro-
gress, the gradual reduction of our ra-
lions of food and allowance OF water,
our comparatively slight sutferings
from hunger, or the indescrib able tor
lures OF excessive thirst-So will pass
over the time from our giving up the
eighth day of our excursion: In the
meantime we had been working our
wav. with oars or sail, in a northeast
erIY direction, and hoped we were now
in the track or California bound ships;
we had caught dolphin, two benitas,
and a number of flying fish, which had
helped exc out our bread, of which we
still had some left: but the last small
taste of water-just enough to moisten
our hot tongues and throats-had been
shared out, and we were without one
drop now, no land nor ship In sight,
and within fifteen degrees of the equa-
tor.
On more than one occasion since that
time have suffered from hunger-far
more than I did in the boat; have
been SO far gone that felt no particu-
lar craving for food, but only sinking
hollowness and Indifference, and was
only restored by great care and skill;
but as far as physical suffering Is con-
cerned, 1 would prefer to starve to
death fifty times, were it possible, than
to again undergo the tortures from
thirst Of the last twenty-four hours in
that whale-bo
The eighth day opened, like the other
DAYS, clear and hot. No one rowed-
hope was nearly gone. The midship
oarsman, by far the strongest man in
the boat, was talking nonsense to him
but little. Mr.. 8. still maintained his
seat on the sternsheets of the boat, and,
as the wind freshened with the days
advance, he steered as he could the
course we had been making. How the
dav wore away for others l don't
know, but had sense enough left TO
feel that Twas going mad-strange fan
cies and sights were present-rivers OF
fresh water, wells from which had
drank, and brooks l had damned up
when a boy, and every delicious drink
l had ever tasted-but no thought of
home or friends, time or eternity
nothing but water! water! before my
Imagination all the time.
1t was afternoon, perhaps about two
O'Clock, when the third mate deserted a
smoke to leeward. 1t was smoke,
evidently a steamer coming to wind
ward, probably a mail boat from Cali
fornia or Panama bound to Valparaiso.
The prospect of speedy relief galvan-
lied us into something like liie-even
the midship oarsman got his oar ready,
to help pull alongside when the vessel
got up to US. Our sail was rolled up,
the mast struck, and the little blue