The port boat has not been heard of since Mr.
Macdonald quitted her, and is believed to have sunk on the 21st, when the wind rose to a gale. Perhaps this is the happier view, for it was no better provisioned than the starboard boat, and the sufferings in that were terrible. Four days from the wreck (22nd No- vember) men began to die mad, from thirst and drinking salt water, and on the 23rd the survivors began living on the dead bodies, eating the livers and drinking the blood. By the 27th, all except Mr. Macdonald and four more had died mad, and three of the survivors were nearly senseless and two mad. 'These two died on board the British Sceptre' before she reached St. Helena, where the three survivors landed. If the first-mate and the port boat are rescued, it must be between the wreck and Ascension, as the current sets that way, and after horrors among the passengers equal to those endured in the starboard boat. The power of thirst, unlike that of hunger, is irresistible,—men under its full influence will drink the sea-water, though they know its effect, and then come madness and suicide. The per- sons on whose bodies the survivors were maintained must have committed suicide, as, we believe, except in sudden deaths, the blood coagulates too quickly to quench thirst.
Previous page
