not longer; but I had been schooled, and
could now say with fervency, "Thy will, O Lord, and not mine, be done."

We remained on board of the vessel that night, and the next morning the
gale had ceased, and the waters, to our astonishment, had receded, so as
to leave us at least sixty yards from the sea, which was now almost
calm. We first took a survey of the island, to ascertain if there was
any water, and, as the island was not more than two miles in
circumference, this did not take us long. Fortunately, in the centre we
found a deep hole sunk in the soft coral rock by some other people who
had been wrecked here, and in the hole the water was, although a little
brackish, somewhat palatable. It evidently was the sea-water filtered
through the soft rock.

The whole of the island was surrounded with coral reefs, with lanes of
deep water running between them, and the fish were sporting in thousands
after the storm, but there was not a tree or vestige of vegetation upon
the whole island. We soon, however, discovered that it was frequented
by turtle, for we found some eggs, fresh-buried, in the sand. Having
made this survey, we then went back to the vessel, and with spars and
sails rigged a tent upon the highest point of the island, which might be
ten or fifteen feet above the level of the sea. The tent was large
enough 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 caboose 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. B