384 ‘A MISERABLE SPECTACLE.

eating too much, even of that little we gave them. The mate, or
commander, brought six men with him in his boat, but these poor
wretches looked like skeletons, and were so weak they could hardly
sit to their oars. The mate himself was very ill and half starved;
for he declared he had reserved nothing from the men, and went
share and share alike with them in every bit they ate.

I cautioned him to eat sparingly, but set meat before him im-
mediately, and he had not eaten three mouthfuls before he began
to be sick and out of order. So he stopped a while, and our sur-
geon mixed him up something with some broth, which he said to
him would be both food and physic; and after he had taken it, he
grew better. In the meantime, I forgot not the men; I ordered
victuals to be given them, and the poor creatures rather devoured
than ate it. They were so exceeding hungry, that they were in a
kind ravenous, and had no command of themselves; and two of
them ate with so much greediness that they were in danger of
their lives the next morning.

The sight of these people’s distress was very moving to me, and
brought to mind what I had a terrible prospect of at my first
coming on shore in the island, where I had neither the least
mouthful of food nor any prospect of securing any, besides the
hourly apprehension I had of being made the food of other
creatures. But all the while the mate was thus relating to me the
miserable condition of the ship’s company, I could not put out of
my thought the story he had told me of the three poor creatures in
the great cabin, namely, the mother, her son, and the maid-
servant, whom he had heard nothing of for two or three days, and
whom he seemed to confess they had wholly neglected, their own
extremities being so great; by which I understood that they had
really given them no food at all, and that therefore they must be
perished, and be all lying dead, perhaps, on the floor or deck of the
cabin.

As I therefore kept the mate, whom we then called captain, on
board with his men to refresh them, so I also forgot not the starv-
ing crew that were left on board, but ordered my own boat to go
on board the ship, and with my mate and twelve men to carry
rhem a sack of bread and four or five pieces of beef to boil. Our