Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-03-24
into those prodigious leagues of ocean which

inoo those prod1g1ous leagues Of ocean which lay stretched under the sky.
 had risen to step the boats mast, and was standing and grasping it while directed slow look round the horizon, in God knows what vain hope of beholding a sail, when, my eye coming to the brig, observed that she was sinking. She went down very slowly; there was horrible gurgling sound of water rushing into her, and her main deck blew tlp with loud clap or blast of noise. could follow the line of her bulwarks fiuctuating and waving in the clear dark blue when she was some feet under. A number of whirl- pools spun round over her, but the slowness of her laundering was solemnly marked by the gradual descent of the ruin of masts and yards which were attached to the hull by their rigging, and which she dragged down with her. On a sudden, when the last fragment of mast had disappeared, and when the hollows of the whirlpools were flattening to the level surface of the sea, up rose a body, with a sort of leap. It was the sailor that had lain drowned on the starboard side of the forward deck. Being frozen stiff he rose in the posture in which he had expired that is, with his arms extended so that whe nhe jumped to the surface, he came with his hands lifted up to heaven, and thus he stayed a minute, sustained by the eddies, whichalso revolved him.
 The shock occasioned by this melancholy object was so great it came near to causing me to swoon. He sank when the water ceased to twist him, and was unspeallingly thankful to see him vanish, for his posture had all the horror of spectral appeal, and such was the state of my mind that imagina- tion might quickly have worked the appari- hon, had it fingered, into an instrument for the unsettling of my reason.
 rose from the seat on to which had sunk and loosed the sail, and hauling the sheet aft put the oar over the stern and brought the little crafts head to an easterly course. The draught of air was extremely weak and scarce furnished impulse enough to the sail to raise @ bubble alongside The boat was about fifteen feet long; she would be but a small boat for summer pleasuring in Eng fish July lake waters-yet here was I in her in the heart of vast ocean, many leagues south and west of the stormiest, most inhospitable point of land in the world, with distances before me almost infinite for such boat as this to measure ere could heave a civilized coast or a habitable island into view!
 At the start had a mind to steer north west and blow, as the wind would suffer, into he South sea, where perchance might meet @ whaler or a southseaman from New Hol- land; but my heart yank at the prospect of the leagues of water which rolled between me and the islands and the western American seaboard. Indeed, I understood that my only hope of deliverance lay in being picked up; and that, though by heading east should be clinging to the stormy parts, was more likely to meet with ship hereabouts than by sailing into the great desolation of the north- west. The burden of my loneliness weighed down upon me so crushingly that cannot but consider my senses must have been some what dulled by suffering; for had they been active to their old accustomed height, I am persuaded my heart must have broken, and that should have died of grief.