Immediate preparations were made for departure. Of one hundred and twenty-two persons on board the Nautilus, when she struck, fifty-eight had perished. Eighteen were drowned when she was wrecked, five were lost in the small boat, and thirty-four died of famine. About fifty now embarked in four fishing vessels, and landed the same evening at Cerigotto; making sixty-four in all, including those saved in the whale-boat. During their six days sojourn on the rock, they had nothing to subsist on, save human flesh.
[pg 249]
They landed at a small creek. The Greeks received them with great hospitality, but had not skill to cure their wounds, and had no bandages but those procured by tearing up their own shirts. Wishing to procure some medical assistance, they desired to reach Cerigo, an island twenty miles distant, on which an English vice-consul resided. Fourteen days elapsed before they could set sail. They bade adieu to these kind preservers, and in six or eight hours reached Cerigo, where all possible help was afforded them. Thence they were conveyed by a Russian ship to Corfu; where they arrived on the 2d of March, 1807, about two months after their melancholy disaster.
[pg 250]
GALLANT EXPLOITS OF COMMODORE DECATUR.
