nough to hold fifty men, if required, so we
brought our bedding and chests and all our cooking apparatus on shore,
made a fire-place outside the tent with the little cabouse we had on
board of the vessel, sent a man to obtain water from the hole, and put
on some meat to boil for our dinners. In the evening we all went out
to turn turtle, and succeeded in turning three, when we decided that
we would not capture any more until we had made a turtle-pond to put
them in, for we had not more than two months' provisions on board of
the vessel, and did not know how long we might be detained. The men
behaved very well, and indeed seemed determined to make themselves as
comfortable as they could under existing circumstances. The next day
we put out some lines in deep water, and caught several large fish,
and then we went to find a proper spot for a turtle-pond. We selected
a hole in the reef which we thought would answer, as we had only one
end of it to fill up, and we commenced breaking away the rock with
crowbars, and worked hard the whole of the day, some breaking and
others carrying the masses broken off. By degrees they rose to the
surface of the water, and in two days more we calculated that the pond
would be ready to receive the turtle. We had killed one turtle in the
morning, and we now lived upon it altogether, as we wished to save our
salt provisions. The captain and I had many consultations as to what
we should do, and what attempts we should make to get off from this
spot. Build a boat we could not, as we had not a carpenter among us,
or the means of making the iron-work necessary. We had some tools,
such as are usually used on board of vessels, and several pounds of
large nails, but none fit for boat-building. I proposed that we should
examine the bottom of the xebeque, and see what damage was done to it.
We did so, and found that the garboard streak was broken and two of
her timbers, but they were easy to repair; in every other respect she
was sound. I then proposed that we should cut down the xebeque to a
large boat, which we could easily do by ripping off her planks and
decks, and sawing down her timbers to the height we required. It would
be a heavy boat, it was true, but we should be able to launch her with
rollers, and the draught of water would be so small that we could get
her over the reefs, which we could not possibly do the xebeque. The
captain approved of the idea, and we agreed that as soon as the
turtle-