same rapidness of the currents.  This thought was no sooner in my head, but I cast my eye upon a little hill which sufficiently overlooked the sea both ways, and from whence I had a clear view of the currents, or sets of the tide, and which way I was to guide myself in my return:  here I found, that as the current of the ebb set out close by the south point of the island, so the current of the flood set in close by the shore of the north side; and that I had nothing to do but to keep to the north of the island in my return, and I should do well enough.

Encouraged with this observation, I resolved the next morning to set out with the first of the tide; and reposing myself for that night in the canoe, under the great watch-coat I mentioned, I launched out.  I made first a little out to sea full north, till I began to feel the benefit of the current, which sat eastward, and which carried me at a great rate, and yet did not so hurry me as the southern side current had done before, and so as to take from me all government of the boat; but having a strong steerage with my paddle, I went, I say, at a great rate, directly for the wreck, and in less than two hours I came up to it.

It was a dismal sight to took at:  the ship, which by its building was Spanish, stuck fast, jambed in between two rocks; all the stern and quarter of her was beaten to pieces with the sea; and as her forecastle, which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her main-mast and fore-mast were brought by the board, that is to say, broken short off, but her boltsprit was sound, and the head and bow appeared firm.  When I came close to her, a dog appeared upon her, which, seeing me coming, yelped and cried, and as soon as I called him, jumped into the sea to come to me:  and I took him into the boat, but found him almost dead for hunger and thirst:  I gave him a cake of my bread, and he ate like a ravenous wolf that had been starving a fortnight in the snow:  I then gave the poor creature some fresh water, with which, if I would have let him, he would have burst himself.

After this I went on board.  The first sight I met with was two men drowned in the cook-room, or forecastle of the ship, with their arms fast about one another.  I concluded, as is indeed probable, that when the ship struck, it being in a storm, the sea broke so high, and so continually over her, that the men were not able to bear it, and were strangled with the constant rushing in of the water, as much as if they had been under water.  Besides the dog, there was nothing left in the ship that had life, nor any goods that I could see, but what were spoiled by the water:  there were some casks of liquor, whether wine or brandy I knew not, which lay lower in the hold, and which, the water being ebbed out, I could see; but they were too big to meddle with:  I saw several chests, which I believed belonged to some of the seamen, and I got two of them into the boat without examining what was in them.