The men, who first volunteered their services for this duty, were some of the most disreputable of the passengers.
Their object in returning to the brig was simply to plunder. The boxes belonging to their fellow-passengers were broken open by these scoundrels, who appropriated to themselves every article of value they could conceal about their persons.
When the work of saving the provisions really commenced, it was found that there was but little to be saved. All the bread, and most of the other stores, had got soaked in the sea-water, and consequently spoilt. A barrel of beef, and another of pork, were all the stores that could be procured in a fit condition for food.
Before we had been ashore over an hour, we became acquainted with the unpleasant circumstance that no fresh water was to be found upon the island.
This intelligence produced great consternation; and the wreck was revisited—for the purpose of ascertaining if any could be procured there. But very little water fit for drinking could be had on board the brig—most of her supply being down in the hold, and of course submerged entirely out of reach.
Some mining tools and American axes had constituted a portion of the cargo. Some of these were now brought ashore, and put into requisition in the search for water.
With the picks and shovels we scooped out a deep hole in the centre of the island, which, to the delight of all, soon became filled with the wished-for fluid.
Our joy was of short continuance. We tasted the water. It was briny as the billows of the ocean. It was the sea-water itself—that went and came with the tides.
Next morning, the captain and six men were despatched in the pinnace—in the hope of then finding some ship to take us off, or reaching some inhabited island—where they might obtain the means of assisting us.
They took with them nearly all the water that remained—leaving over seventy people to depend on the milk of cocoa-nuts as a substitute.