d been taught to reckon the degree of latitude from the
number of inches of my shadow. After a time I altered my course to west
by south, hoping that I might come upon one of the islands of the Dutch
Indies,--Timorland, for instance, but day after day passed without land
coming in sight.

Imagine the situation, if you can: alone on a disabled ship in the
limitless ocean,--tortured with doubts and fears about the fate of my
comrades, and filled with horror and despair at my own miserable
prospects for the future.

I did not sail the ship at night, but got out a sea-anchor (using a float
and a long coir rope), and lay-to while I turned in for a sleep. I would
be up at day-break next morning, and as the weather continued beautifully
fine, I had no difficulty in getting under way again. At last the
expected happened. One afternoon, without any warning whatsoever, the
vessel struck heavily on a reef. I hurriedly constructed a raft out of
the hatches and spare spars, and put biscuits and water aboard, after
which I landed on the rocks. When the tide reached its lowest point the
stern of the _Veielland_ was left fully _twenty feet out of water_,
securely jammed between two high pinnacles of coral rock. The sight was
remarkable in the extreme. The sails were still set, and the stiff
breeze that was blowing dead against them caused them to belly out just
as though the craft were afloat, and practically helped to keep the
vessel in position. The bows were much higher than the stern, the line
of the decks being at an angle of about forty-five degrees. In this
remarkable situation she remained secure until the turning of the tide.
My only hope was that she would not suffer from the tremendous strain to
which she was necessarily being subjected. It seemed to me every minute
that she would free herself from her singular position between the rocks,
and glide down bows foremost into the sea to disappear for ever. But the
sails kept her back. How earnestly I watched the rising of the waters;
and night came on as I waited. Slowly and surely they crept up the bows,
and the ship gradually assumed her natural level until at length the
stanch little craft floated safe and sound once more, apparently very
little the worse for her strange experience. And then away I went on my
way--by this time almost schooled to indifference. Had she gone down I
must inevitably have succumbed on those coral reefs, for the stock of
biscuits an