606 HUNGER A DISEASE.

nobody had taken it before, and afraid it would be taken from
me now.

“Though, after it was down, the thoughts of it filled me with
horror, yet it checked the fit of hunger; and I drank a draught
of fair water, and was composed and refreshed for some hours after
it. This was the fourth day, and thus I held it, till towards night,
when, within the compass of three hours, I had all these several
circumstances over again, one after another—namely, sick, sleepy,
eagerly hungry, pain in the stomach, then ravenous again, then
sick again, then lunatic, then crying, then ravenous again; and so
every quarter of an hour, and my strength wasted exceedingly.
At night I laid me down, having no comfort but in the hope that
T should die before morning.

“All this night I had no sleep; but the hunger was now turned
into a disease, and I had a terrible colic and griping by wind,
instead of food, having found its way into the bowels. And in this
condition I lay until morning, when I was surprised a little with
the cries and lamentations of my young master, who called out to
me that his mother was dead. I lifted myself up a little, for I
had not strength to rise; but found she was not dead, though she
was able to give very little signs of life.

“Thad then such convulsions in my stomach, for want of some
sustenance, that I cannot describe, with such frequent throes and
pangs of appetite that nothing but the tortures of death can imi-
tate. And in this condition I was when I heard the seamen above
ery out, ‘A sail! a sail!’ and halloo and jump about as if they
were distracted.

“T was not able to get off from the bed, and my mistress much
less; and my young master was so sick that I thought he had been
expiring ; so we could not open the cabin door, or get any account
what it was that occasioned such a combustion, nor had we any
conversation with the ship’s company for two days, they having
told us that they had not a mouthful of anything to eat in the ship;
and they told us afterwards they thought we had been dead.

“Tt was this dreadful condition we were in when you were sent
to save our lives; and how you found us, sir, you know as well ag
I, and better too.”