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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 637 of 842
Words from 173926 to 174187
of 230997
