JANUARY 16.—If the crew of any passing vessel¹ had caught sight of us as we lay still and inanimate upon our sail-cloth, they would scarcely, at first sight, have hesitated to pronounce us dead.

 

My sufferings were terrible; tongue, lips, and throat were so parched² and swollen³ that if food had been at hand I question whether I could have swallowed it. So exasperated⁴ were the feelings of us all, however, that we glanced at each other with looks as savage⁵ as though we were about to slaughter⁶ and without delay eat up one another.

 

The heat was aggravated⁷ by the atmosphere being somewhat stormy. Heavy vapors⁸ gathered on the horizon, and there was a look as if it were raining all around. Longing⁹ eyes and gasping¹⁰ mouths turned involuntarily toward the clouds, and M. Letourneur, on bended knee, was raising his hands, as it might be in supplication¹¹ to the relentless¹² skies.

 

It was eleven o'clock in the morning. I listened for distant rumblings which might announce an approaching storm, but although the vapors had obstructed¹³ the sun's rays, they no longer presented the appearance of being charged with electricity. Thus our prognostications ended in disappointment; the clouds, which in the early morning had been marked by the distinctness of their outline, had melted one into another and assumed an uniform dull gray

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