[123] {101}["The third day we began to suffer exceedingly ... from hunger and thirst. I then seized my dog, and plunged the knife in his throat. We caught his blood in the hat, receiving in our hands and drinking what ran over; we afterwards drank in turn out of the hat, and felt ourselves refreshed."—"Shipwreck of the Betsy," Remarkable Shipwrecks, Hartford, 1813, p. 177.]
[124] {102}["One day, when I was at home in my hut with my Indian dog, a party came to my door, and told me their necessities were such that they must eat the creature or starve. Though their plea was urgent, I could not help using some arguments to endeavour to dissuade them from killing him, as his faithful services and fondness deserved it at my hands; but, without weighing my arguments, they took him away by force and killed him.... Three weeks after that I was glad to make a meal of his paws and skin which, upon recollecting the spot where they had killed him, I found thrown aside and rotten."—The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron, etc., 1768, pp. 47, 48.]
[125] {103}[Being driven to distress for want of food, "they soaked their shoes, and two hairy caps in water; and when sufficiently softened ate portions of the leather." But day after day having passed, and the cravings of hunger pressing hard upon them, they fell upon the horrible and dreadful expedient of eating each other; and in order to prevent any contention about who should become the food of the others, "they cast lots to determine the sufferer."—"Sufferings of the Crew of the Thomas [Twelve Men in an Open Boat, 1797]," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii 356.]
[126] ["The lots were drawn: 'the captain, summoning all his strength, wrote upon slips of paper the name of each man, folded them up, put them into a hat, and shook them together. The crew, meanwhile, preserved an awful silence; each eye was fixed and each mouth open, while terror was strongly impressed upon every countenance.' The unhappy person, with manly fortitude, resigned himself to his miserable associates."—"Famine in the American Ship Peggy, 1765," Remarkable Shipwrecks, Hartford, 1813, pp. 358, 359.]
[127] ["He requested to be bled to death, the surgeon being with them, and having his case of instruments in his pocket when he quitted the vessel."—"Sufferings of the Crew of the Thomas," Shipwrecks, etc., 1812, iii. 357.]
[128] {104}["Yet scarce was the vein divided when the operator, applying his own parched lips, drank the stream as it flowed, and his comrades anxiously watched the last breath of the victim, that they might prey upon his flesh."—Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 357.]
[129] ["Those who indulged their cannibal appetite to excess speedily perished in raging madness," etc.—Ibid.]
[130] {105}["Another expedient we had frequent recourse to, on finding it supplied our mouths with temporary moisture, was chewing any substance we could find, generally a bit of canvas, or even lead."—"The Shipwreck of the Juno on the Coast of Aracan," 1795, Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 270.]
[131] ["At noon, some noddies came so near to us that one of them was caught by hand.... I divided it into eighteen portions. In the evening we saw several boobies."—A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty, by William Bligh, 1790, p. 41.]