'Drifting
in calms all day.' And baking hot, of course; I have been down there,
and I remember that detail. 'Even as the captain says, all romance has
long since vanished, and I think the most of us are beginning to look the
fact of our awful situation full in the face.' 'We are making but little
headway on our course.' Bad news from the rearmost boat: the men are
improvident; 'they have eaten up all of the canned meats brought from the
ship, and are now growing discontented.' Not so with the chief mate's
people--they are evidently under the eye of a man.
Under date of May 11: 'Standing still! or worse; we lost more last night
than we made yesterday.' In fact, they have lost three miles of the
three hundred of northing they had so laboriously made. 'The cock that
was rescued and pitched into the boat while the ship was on fire still
lives, and crows with the breaking of dawn, cheering us a good deal.'
What has he been living on for a week? Did the starving men feed him
from their dire poverty? 'The second mate's boat out of water again,
showing that they over-drink their allowance.
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