ith threats,
demanded to be set on shore; but M. Laperere, not acceding to their
request, the whole were about to revolt and seize the command; but the
firmness of this officer quelled the mutineers. In a spring which he
made to seize a firelock which a sailor persisted in keeping in his
possession, he almost tumbled into the sea. My father fortunately was
near him, and held him by his clothes, but he had instantly to quit
him, for fear of losing his hat, which the waves were floating away. A
short while after this slight accident, the shallop, which we had lost
sight of since the morning, appeared desirous of rejoining us. We
plied all hands to avoid her, for we were afraid of one another, and
thought that that boat, encumbered with so many people, wished to
board us to oblige us to take some of its passengers, as M. Espiau
would not suffer them to be abandoned like those upon the raft. That
officer hailed us at a distance, offering to take our family on board,
adding, he was anxious to take about sixty people to the Desert. The
officer of our boat, thinking that this was a pretence, replied, we
preferred suffering where we were. It even appeared to us that
M. Espiau had hid some of his people under the benches of the shallop.
But alas; in the end we deeply deplored being so suspicious, and of
having so outraged the devotion of the most generous officer of the
Medusa.

Our boat began to leak considerably, but we prevented it as well as we
could, by stuffing the largest holes with oakum, which an old sailor
had had the precaution to take before quitting the frigate. At noon
the heat became so strong--so intolerable, that several of us believed
we had reached our last moments. The hot winds of the Desert even
reached us; and the fine sand with which they were loaded, had
completely obscured the clearness of the atmosphere. The sun presented
a reddish disk; the whole surface of the ocean became nebulous, and
the air which we breathed, depositing a fine sand, an impalpable
powder, penetrated to our lungs, already parched with a burning
thirst. In this state of torment we remained till four in the
afternoon, when a breeze from the northwest brought us some relief.
Notwithstanding the privations we felt, and especially the burning
thirst which had become intolerable, the cool air which we now began
to breathe, made us in part forget our sufferings. The heavens began
again to resume the usual serenity of those latitudes, and