Two Days
After This, While Going Along The Shore In Search Of The Usual Supply Of
Shell-Fish, One Of The Company Found A Very Large Fish Quite Recently Cast
Up By The Sea, Which Appeared To Weigh About Two Hundred Pounds, And Was
Quite Sweet And Fresh.
This most providential supply they cut into thin
slices and carried to their dwelling, where they immediately set to
Work to
broil and boil it; but so great was their famine, and so tempting its
smell, that they had not patience to wait till it was thoroughly dressed,
but devoured it eagerly half raw. They continued to gorge themselves with
this fish almost without intermission for four days; but at length the
evident and rapid decrease of this stock of food taught them more prudent
economy, and by using it sparingly in future it lasted them ten days more.
Those who staid behind in one of the tents near the place of their first
landing, sent one of their number to see what had become of the rest; and,
when he had been refreshed with some of the fish, he carried a portion to
his two companions, and the whole survivors were soon afterwards
reassembled in the wooden hut. During the whole time that they subsisted
upon the providentially found fish, the weather was so exceedingly
tempestuous that they certainly would not have been able to have looked out
for shellfish, and they must inevitably have perished of famine.
Having made an end of the large fish, which seems to have lasted them for
fourteen days, they were obliged to have recourse again to the precarious
employment of gathering shellfish along the shore for their subsistence.
About eight miles from the rock upon which they now were, which Fioravente
informs us was called Santi, or Sand-ey by the natives, there was another
isle named Rustene[1], which was inhabited by several families of
fishers.
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