Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 by William O. S. Gilly
page 11 of 399 (02%)
page 11 of 399 (02%)
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the raft. Common suffering, instead of softening, hardened the hearts
of the survivors against each other. Some of them drank wine till they were in a frenzy of intoxication, and attempted to cut the ropes which kept the raft together. A general fight ensued, many were killed, and many were cast into the sea during the struggle; and thus perished from sixty to sixty-five. On the third day portions of the bodies of the dead were devoured by some of the survivors. On the fourth night another quarrel and another fight, with more bloodshed, broke out. On the fifth morning, thirty only out of the one hundred and fifty were alive. Two of these were flung to the waves for stealing wine: a boy died, and twenty-seven remained, not to comfort and to assist each other, but to hold a council of destruction, and to determine who should be victims for the preservation of the rest. At this hideous council twelve were pronounced too weak to outlive much more suffering, and that they might not needlessly consume any part of the remaining stock of provisions, such as it was, (flying fish mixed with human flesh.) these twelve helpless wretches were deliberately thrown into the sea. The _fifteen_, who thus provided for their own safety by the sacrifice of their weaker comrades, were rescued on the seventeenth day after the wreck by a brig, sent out in quest of the wreck of the Medusa by the six boats, which reached the shore in safety, and which might have been the means of saving all on the raft, had not the crews been totally lost to every sentiment of generosity and humanity, when they cast off the tow-lines. In fact, from the very first of the calamity which befel the Medusa, discipline, presence of mind, and every generous feeling, were at an end: and the abandonment of the ship and of the raft, the terrible loss of Life, the cannibalism, the cruelty, the sufferings, and all the disgraceful and inhuman proceedings, which have branded the modern |
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