We Were Now Through All Our Work, And Had Nothing More To Do Until
The Pilgrim Should Come Down Again.
We had nearly got through
our provisions too, as well as our work; for our officer had
been very wasteful of them, and the tea, flour, sugar, and molasses,
were all gone.
We suspected him of sending them up to the town;
and he always treated the squaws with molasses, when they came
down to the beach. Finding wheat-coffee and dry bread rather
poor living, we dubbed together, and I went up to the town on
horseback with a great salt-bag behind the saddle, and a few reáls
in my pocket, and brought back the bag full of onions, pears, beans,
water-melons, and other fruits; for the young woman who tended
the garden, finding that I belonged to the American ship, and that
we were short of provisions, put in a double portion. With these
we lived like fighting-cocks for a week or two, and had, besides,
what the sailors call "a blow-out on sleep;" not turning out in the
morning until breakfast was ready. I employed several days in
overhauling my chest, and mending up all my old clothes, until I
had got everything in order - patch upon patch, like a sand-barge's
mainsail. Then I took hold of Bowditch's Navigator, which I had
always with me. I had been through the greater part of it, and now
went carefully through it, from beginning to end working out most
of the examples.
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