l;
we should have had the grief of seeing them perish before our eyes, without
being able to afford them any assistance: this is not all, the following is
what relates to myself personally. A few minutes before we took in the
people of the yawl, I had undressed myself in order to dry my clothes,
which had been wet for forty-eight hours, from my having assisted in lading
the water out of the long-boat. Before I took off my pantaloons I felt my
purse, which contained the four hundred francs; a moment after I had lost
it; this was the completion of all my misfortunes. What a happy thought was
it to have divided my eight hundred francs with Mr. de Chasteluz who now
had the other four hundred.

The heat was very violent on the sixth. We were reduced to an allowance of
one glass of dirty or corrupted water: and therefore to check our thirst,
we put a piece of lead into our mouths; a melancholy expedient!

The night returned; it was the most terrible of all: the light of the moon
shewed us a raging sea: long and hollow waves threatened twenty times to
swallow us up. The pilot did not believe it possible to avoid all those
which came upon us; if we had shipped a single one it would have been all
over with us. The pilot must have let the helm go, and the boat would have
sunk. Was it not in fact better to disappear at once than to die slowly?

Towards the morning the moon having set, exhausted by distress, fatigue,
and want of sleep I could not hold out any longer and fell asleep;
notwithstanding the waves which were ready to swallow me up. The Alps and
their picturesque scenery rose before my imagination. I enjoyed the
freshness of their shades, I renewed the delicious moments which I have
passed there, and as if to enhance my present happiness by the idea of past
evils, the remembrance of my good sister flying with me into the woods of
Kaiserslautern to escape the Cossacks, is present to my fancy. My head hung
over the sea; the noise of the waves dashing against our frail bark,
produced on my senses the effect of a torrent falling from the summit of a
mountain. I thought I was going to plunge into it. This pleasing illusion
was not complete; I awoke, and in what a state! I raised my head with pain;
I open my ulcerated lips, and my parched tongue finds on them only a bitter
crust of salt, instead of a little of that water which I had seen in my
dream. The moment was dreadful, and my despair was extreme. I thought of
throwing my