Yet This Was An Ample Allowance In Comparison, As Our Half Pint Was Soon Reduced To A Quarter, And Even At This Reduced Rate Our Store Was Rapidly Disappearing, Insomuch That It Was Deemed Necessary For Our Preservation To Put Into Some Port In Ireland To Procure Water.

We accordingly endeavoured to do this, being obliged, when near that coast, to lie to all night, waiting for

Day light; but when it appeared we had drifted so far to leeward in the night that we could fetch no part of Ireland, we were therefore constrained to return again, with heavy hearts, and to wait in anxious expectation till it should please God to send us a fair wind either for England or Ireland.

In the mean time we were allowed for each man two or three spoonfuls of vinegar at each meal, having now no other drink, except that for two or three meals we had about as much wine, which was wrung out of the remaining lees. Under this hard fare we continued near a fortnight, being only able to eat a very little in all that time, by reason of our great want of drink. Saving that now and then we enjoyed as it were a feast, when rain or hail chanced to fall, on which occasions we gathered up the hail-stones with the most anxious care, devouring them more eagerly than if they had been the finest comfits. The rain-drops also were caught and saved with the utmost careful attention; for which purpose some hung up sheets tied by the four corners, having a weight in the middle, to make the rain run down there as in a funnel into some vessel placed underneath. Those who had no sheets hung up napkins or other clouts, which when thoroughly wet they wrung or sucked to get the water they had imbibed. Even the water which fell on the deck under foot, and washed away the filth and soil of the ship, though as dirty as the kennel is in towns during rain, was carefully watched and collected at every scupper-hole, nay, often with strife and contention, and caught in dishes, pots, cans, and jars, of which some drank hearty draughts, mud and all, without waiting for its settlement or cleansing. Others cleaned it by filtrating, but it went through so slowly that they could ill endure to wait so long, and were loath to lose so much precious liquid. Some licked the water like dogs with their tongues from the decks, sides, rails, and masts of the ship. Others, that were more ingenious, fastened girdles or ropes about the masts, daubing tallow between these and the mast, that the rain might not run down between; and making one part of these girdles lower than the rest, fixed spouts of leather at these lower parts, that the rain running down the masts might meet and be received at these spouts. He who was fortunate enough to procure a can of water by these means, was sued to, and envied as a rich man.

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