we can, and get in the route of vessels.  Such being the determination, it became necessary to cast off the other boat, which, after a good deal of unpleasantness, was done, we again dividing water and stores, and taking Cox into our boat.  This makes our number fifteen.  The second mate’s crew wanted to all get in with us, and cast the other boat adrift.  It was a very painful separation.

So these isles that they have struggled for so long and so hopefully have to be given up.  What with lying birds that come to mock, and isles that are but a dream, and ‘visions of ships that come to naught,’ it is a pathetic time they are having, with much heartbreak in it.  It was odd that the vanished boat, three days lost to sight in that vast solitude, should appear again.  But it brought Cox—­we can’t be certain why.  But if it hadn’t, the diarist would never have seen the land again.

[Diary entry] Our chances as we go west increase in regard to being picked up, but each day our scanty fare is so much reduced.  Without the fish, turtle, and birds sent us, I do not know how we should have got along.  The other day I offered to read prayers morning and evening for the captain, and last night commenced.  The men, although of various nationalities and religions, are very attentive, and always uncovered.  May God grant my weak endeavour its issue!

Latitude, May 24, 14 degrees 18 minutes N. Five oysters apiece for dinner and three spoonfuls of juice, a gill of water, and a piece of biscuit the size of a silver dollar.  ’We are plainly getting weaker—­God have mercy upon us all!’ That night heavy seas break over the weather side and make everybody wet and uncomfortable besides requiring constant baling.

Next day ‘nothing particular happened.’  Perhaps some of us would have regarded it differently.  ’Passed a spar, but not near enough to see what it was.’  They saw some whales blow; there were flying-fish skimming the seas, but none came aboard.  Misty weather, with fine rain, very penetrating.

Latitude, May 26, 15 degrees 50 minutes.  They caught a flying-fish and a booby, but had to eat them raw.  ’The men grow weaker, and, I think, despondent; they say very little, though.’  And so, to all the other imaginable and unimaginable horrors, silence is added—­the muteness and brooding of coming despair.  ’It seems our best chance to get in the track of ships with the hope that some one will run near enough to our speck to see it.’  He hopes the other boards stood west and have been picked up. (They will never be heard of again in this world.)