I will not tell them
all in particular detail, it is enough to say that those can scarcely
imagine them who have never stood for hour after hour in a barrel,
bare-headed and parched with thirst, while the fierce heat of a tropical
sun beat down on them from above, and was reflected upward from the
glassy surface of the water. In time, indeed, I grew faint and dizzy,
and could hardly save myself from falling into the sea, and at last I
sank into a sort of sleep or insensibility, from which I was awakened by
a sound of screaming birds and of falling water. I looked and saw to
my wonder and delight, that what I had taken to be a bank of mist was
really low-lying land, and that I was drifting rapidly with the tide
towards the bar of a large river. The sound of birds came from great
flocks of sea-gulls that were preying on the shoals of fish, which fed
at the meeting of the fresh and salt water. Presently, as I watched, a
gull seized a fish that could not have weighed less than three pounds,
and strove to lift it from the sea. Failing in this, it beat the fish on
the head with its beak till it died, and had begun to devour it, when I
drifted down upon the spot and made haste to seize the fish. In another
moment, dreadful as it may seem, I was devouring the food raw, and never
have I eaten with better appetite, or found more refreshment in a meal.
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