they rested their hopes of safety.

In order to ascertain the proper course, the adventurers paid daily
observance to the rising and setting of the sun and moon, and the
position of the stars pointed out how they should steer. All their
sustenance in the meantime was a small piece of pork once in
twenty-four hours, and this they were even obliged to relinquish on
the fourth day, from the heat and irritation it occasioned of their
bodies. Their beverage was a glass of brandy taken from time to time,
but it inflamed their stomachs without assuaging the thirst that
consumed them. Abundance of flying fish were seen; the impossibility
of catching any of which only augmented the pain already endured,
though M. de la Fond and his companions tried to reconcile themselves
to the scanty pittance that they possessed. Yet the uncertainty of
their destiny, the want of subsistence, and the turbulence of the
ocean, all contributed to deprive them of repose, which they so much
required, and almost plunged them in despair. Nothing but a feeble ray
of hope preserved them under their accumulated sufferings.

The eighth night was passed by M. de la Fond at the helm; there he had
remained above ten hours, after soliciting relief, and at last sunk
down under fatigue. His miserable companions were equally exhausted,
and despair began to overwhelm the whole.

At last when the united calamities of hunger, thirst, fatigue and
misery, predicted speedy annihilation, the dawn of Wednesday, the 3d
of August, shewed this unfortunate crew the distant land. None but
those who have experienced the like situation, can form any adequate
idea of the change which was produced. Their strength was renovated,
and they were aroused to precautions against being drifted away by the
current. They reached the coast of Brazil, in latitude 6 south, and
entered Tresson Bay.

The first object of M. de la Fond and his companions was to return
thanks for the gracious protection of Heaven; they prostrated
themselves on the ground, and then in the transport of joy rolled
among the sand.

They exhibited the most frightful appearance; nothing human
characterized them, which did not announce their misfortune in glaring
colors. Some were quite naked; others had only shirts, rotten and torn
to rags. M. de la Fond had fastened a piece of the scarlet cloth
about his waist, in order to appear at the head of his companions.
Though rescued from imminent danger, they had still