“Only the oar had been cast up by the waves; neither the pork breaker, which had contained one or two junks of meat that might have been useful to us, nor the stern-sheet grating, which I had lashed together with it, being observable anywhere on the strand, so they must have been carried by the current round the cape.
“I retraced my way sadly to our meeting-place; for, as I argued, if I couldn’t see the mouth of any river there they wouldn’t find one in the bush, as the ground shelved down gradually towards the sea in the neighbourhood, so if there was any water stream, it was bound to find its way there, not being able to run uphill!
“During all this time I could hear our chaps hollering and calling out to each other, sometimes the voices being far away and then again close at hand; but when I had got up to the cocoa-nut trees there they all were once more, with the same story of an unsuccessful search. Diving beneath the brushwood and jungle they had peeped and peered into every likely spot they came across, without finding a trace of water, nor even the empty bed of what had been a stream in the rainy season. It was evident that the valley we were in was too northerly for the rivers that I had heard entered the sea mostly on the west side of the island; and that to come to such we would have to make our way over one of the intervening chains of hilly land lying between.
“The men, however, were too tired to attempt this now, for instead of an hour, we had been nigher three searching through the forest and coast; and, it being close on noontide, from the elevation of the sun, which being in the zenith was right over our heads, I called a halt—all of us lying down under the trees till it should get a bit cooler towards evening. All, too, were so thirsty, and clamouring out so much for water, that I and Magellan had to give in to their entreaties and serve out another half-pint apiece, which we told them would have to last them until noon next day; but still, this second allowance all round made a serious drain on our store, for there being six of us now, and each, including myself, having had half a pint in the pannikin before, that made six pints out of the two and a half gallons the water barrico originally held—nearly a third of the whole quantity. If we went on at that rate, why it would only last for three days, or two more at the outside, when, as I calculated, it would take us a week at least to reach Majunga, that is if we could manage to surmount the mountain ranges that I was aware lay between where we were and that port. I said a word or two to that effect to the men, but they didn’t pay much attention to my caution, all being tired out and the majority falling asleep as soon as they drank their allowance, without waiting to see the next served out even, they were so drowsy.
“I tried to keep watch for a bit, but the exertion of walking about had been too much for me too, and I soon followed suit in dropping off with the others, not waking up until it was close on sunset, when the slanting rays of the fiery orb shining right into my eyes roused me and made me turn out, although I took care not to wake the rest.
“I felt thirsty now no longer but hungry as a hunter, and started up to see if I could find anything to eat. I thought there might be cocoa-nuts about, for these when they are old, as you generally only see them in England, contain, instead of juice, or ‘milk’ as they term it in the tropics, which the nut is filled with when young, a valuable amount of solid matter, which is not only tasty to eat but nourishing as well, being mostly a kind of vegetable fat or oil. However, on looking up at the trees over our sheltering place I could see no cocoa-nuts; while a hunt amongst the bushes disclosed nothing there in the fruit line either. I saw some tamarind trees certainly, but the beans on these were only just sprouting out from the blossom; and although I gathered some of these and chewed them, thinking they might have an acid taste which would alleviate thirst if it did not allay hunger, they were so nasty that I had to spit them out again and wash my mouth out with sea-water to take away their flavour, going down to the shore for this purpose, as well as to see if there was anything eatable there to pick up.
“Presently, Magellan woke up too, and then the others, all suffering like myself from hunger. One chap said he could eat his boots; but then we had all pulled those off when the pinnace was labouring in the sea before she foundered. I told them about my unsuccessful try for cocoa-nuts and fruit, so they were perfectly satisfied that if I failed it would be useless for them to worry themselves by searching; and after a time chatting together and planning out that, next day, we would try to cross the mountains to Majunga, we all settled down to sleep again after the sun had gone down in the west—when night came on suddenly, without any twilight the same as you have here, enveloping the forest and all our surroundings in a darkness so dense that it could almost be felt, no moon rising or any stars peeping out until long after we were snoring, that is, if any at all came out then.
“The next morning, we made a terrible discovery.
“Through some carelessness or other in putting back the bung-stopper of the barrico, or from one of the chaps getting up in the night and ‘sucking the monkey’ while we were all asleep, every drop of water had disappeared from the vessel, and although we all awoke thirsty, the same as we had done the previous morning, there was nothing left now to quench our drought with.
“The men were so angry over it that they nearly came to blows, Magellan and I having much difficulty in pacifying them; the more especially, as some of them complained that if they had been allowed to have had their fill before going to sleep, at all events the water would have done some good then instead of being wasted, and they would besides not have been so thirsty as they now were, while they also would have been able to hold out longer till they got more.