The morning of the fourteenth at length dawned, and the weather
still continued clear and pleasant, with a steady but very light
breeze from the N. W. The sea was now quite smooth, and as, from some
cause which we could not determine, the brig did not lie so much along
as she had done before, the deck was comparatively dry, and we could
move about with freedom. We had now been better than three entire
days and nights without either food or drink, and it became
absolutely necessary that we should make an attempt to get up
something from below. As the brig was completely full of water, we
went to this work despondently, and with but little expectation of
being able to obtain anything. We made a kind of drag by driving some
nails which we broke out from the remains of the companion-hatch into
two pieces of wood. Tying these across each other, and fastening them
to the end of a rope, we threw them into the cabin, and dragged them
to and fro, in the faint hope of being thus able to entangle some
article which might be of use to us for food, or which might at least
render us assistance in getting it. We spent the greater part of the
morning in this labour without effect, fishing up nothing more than a
few bedclothes, which were readily caught by the nails. Indeed, our
contrivance was so very clumsy that any greater success was hardly to
be anticipated.

We now tried the forecastle, but equally in vain, and were upon
the brink of despair, when Peters proposed that we should fasten a
rope to his body, and let him make an attempt to get up something by
diving into the cabin. This proposition we hailed with all the
delight which reviving hope could inspire. He proceeded immediately
to strip off his clothes with the exception of his pantaloons; and a
strong rope was then carefully fastened around his middle, being