would; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and join company
no more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for
theirs. We then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and I saw
the men's heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars again.

These arrangements had occupied the general attention advantageously for
all, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they ended in a
sorrowful feeling. I now said a few words to my fellow-voyagers on the
subject of the small stock of food on which our lives depended if they
were preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessity of our
eking it out in the most frugal manner. One and all replied that
whatever allowance I thought best to lay down should be strictly kept to.
We made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-plating and some
twine, and I got together for weights such of the heaviest buttons among
us as I calculated made up some fraction over two ounces. This was the
allowance of solid food served out once a-day to each, from that time to
the end; with the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimes half a one,
when the weather was very fair, for breakfast. We had nothing else
whatever, but half a pint of water each per day, and sometimes, when we
were coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each, served out as a
dram. I know how learnedly it can be shown that rum is poison, but I
also know that in this case, as in all similar cases I have ever read
of--which are numerous--no words can express the comfort and support
derived from it. Nor have I the least doubt that it saved the lives of
far more than half our number. Having mentioned half a pint of water as
our daily allowance, I ought to observe that sometimes we had less, and
sometimes we had more; for much rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas
stretched for the purpose.

Thus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempestuous part