In This Forlorn State, We Had To Range About The Woods In
Search Of Fruits And Roots, Which Last We Had To Dig From The Ground
With Our Fingers For Want Of Any Instruments.
Hunger had quite abated
the nicety of our palates, and we were glad to feed on every thing we
could find that was eatable.
Necessity soon reconciled us to going
naked, for our clothes becoming rotten with our sweat fell from our
backs by degrees, so that at length we had scarcely rags left to cover
our nakedness. We were not only forced to provide ourselves in food, but
had to find fuel and utensils to dress it. We made a pot of clay dried
in the sun, in which we boiled our roots, and roasted the berries in the
embers, feasting every evening on these varieties. At night we slept on
the bare ground, making a great fire round us to scare away the wild
beasts.
What with the entire change in our manner of living, and the heat and
unhealthiness of the climate, our people sickened apace; and in a short
time our original number of nine was reduced to three. To those who died
it was a release from misery, but we who remained were rendered more
forlorn and helpless than before. At length, when we had abandoned all
hopes of relief, a French ship arrived on the coast, which took us on
board and carried us to France, which was then at war with England,
where we were detained prisoners.
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