d upon it, and
rendered to make it less hard; which also prevented the sea from
passing with such facility through the spaces between the different
planks, but the waves came across, and sometimes covered us
completely.

On this new theatre we resolved to meet death in a manner becoming
Frenchmen, and with perfect resignation. Our time was almost wholly
spent in speaking of our unhappy country. All our wishes, our last
prayers, were for the prosperity of France. Thus passed the last days
of our abode upon the raft.

Soon after our abandonment, we bore with comparative ease the
immersions during the nights, which are very cold in these countries;
but latterly, every time the waves washed over us, we felt a most
painful sensation, and we uttered plaintive cries. We employed every
means to avoid it. Some supported their heads on pieces of wood, and
made with what they could find a sort of little parapet to screen them
from the force of the waves; others sheltered themselves behind two
empty casks. But these means were very insufficient: it was only when
the sea was calm that it did not break over us.

An ardent thirst, redoubled in the day by the beams of a burning sun,
consumed us. An officer of the army found by chance a small lemon, and
it may be easily imagined how valuable such a fruit would be to him.
His comrades, in spite of the most urgent entreaties, could not get a
bit of it from him. Signs of rage were already manifested, and had he
not partly listened to the solicitations of those around him, they
would have taken it by force, and he would have perished the victim of
his selfishness. We also disputed about thirty cloves of garlic which
were found in the bottom of a sack. These disputes were for the most
part accompanied with violent menaces, and if they had been prolonged,
we might perhaps have come to the last extremities. There was found
also two small phials, in which was a spirituous liquid for cleaning
the teeth. He who possessed them kept them with care, and gave with
reluctance one or two drops in the palm of the hand. This liquor
which, we think, was a tincture of guiacum, cinnamon, cloves, and
other aromatic substances, produced on our tongues an agreeable
feeling, and for a short while removed the thirst which destroyed us.
Some of us found some small pieces of powder, which made, when put
into the mouth, a kind of coolness. One plan generally employed was to
put into a hat a quantity of sea-wate