, was extremely
slender. They had also this additional misfortune, that the cutter,
the only boat they had along with them, broke loose from their stern,
and was staved to pieces, so that, when their provisions and water
failed, they had frequently no means of getting on shore in search of
a supply.

The captain and those who remained with him, now proposed to proceed
to the northward in the barge and yawl; but the weather was so bad,
and the difficulty of subsisting so great, that it was two months
after the departure of the long boat, before they were able to put to
sea. It seems that the place where the Wager was lost, was not a
part of the continent, but an island at some distance from the main,
affording no other sort of provisions besides shell-fish, and a few
herbs; and, as the greatest part of what they had saved out of the
wreck had been carried off in the long-boat, the captain and his
people were often in extreme want of food, especially as they chose
to preserve what little remained to them of the ship's provisions, to
serve them as sea-store, when they should proceed to the northward.
During their residence at this place, which was called Wager Island
by the seamen, they were now and then visited by a straggling canoe or
two of Indians, who came and bartered their fish and other provisions
with our people. This was some little relief to their necessities,
and might perhaps have been greater at another season; for there were
several Indian huts on the shore, whence it was supposed that, in some
years, many of these savages might resort thither in the height of
summer, to catch fish. Indeed, from what has been related in the
account of the Anna pink, it would seem to be the general practice of
these Indians, to frequent this coast in the summer season, for the
purpose of fishing, and to retire more to the northwards in winter,
into a better climate.

It is worthy of remark, how much it is to be lamented that the people
of the Wager had no knowledge of the Anna pink being so near them on
the coast;[4] for, as she was not above thirty leagues from them at
the most, and came into that neighbourhood about the same time that
the Wager was lost, and was a fine roomy ship, she could easily have
taken them all on board, and have carried them to Juan Fernandez.
Indeed, I suspect that she was still nearer them than is here
estimated; for, at different times, several of the people belonging to
the Wager heard the rep