I
Took Charge Of This Small Store, Engaging, With God's Blessing, That It
Should Serve To Keep Us All In
Life, till it might please God to send us
to some inhabited place, and when I slept I secured it
In my bosom, that
I might not be robbed of my precious deposit. We were nine days rowing
along the coast, finding nothing but an uninhabited country and desert
islands, where even grass would have been esteemed a luxury in our
miserable state. We found indeed some leaves of trees, but so hard that
we could not chew them. We had wood and water enough, and could only row
along with the flood tide, as when it ebbed we had to make fast our boat
to one of the desert islands. On one of these days, it pleased God that
we discovered a nest or hole, in which were 144 tortoise eggs, which
proved a wonderful help to us, as they were as large as hens eggs,
covered only by a tender skin, instead of a shell. Every day we boiled a
kettle full of these eggs, mixing a handful of rice among the broth. At
the end of nine days, it pleased God that we discovered some fishermen
in small barks, employed in catching fish. We rowed immediately towards
them with much delight and thankfulness, for never were men more glad
than we, being so much reduced by famine that we could hardly stand on
our legs; yet, according to the allotment we had made of our rice, we
still had as much as would have served four days.
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