The Winds
Being Favourable, We Reached The Gulf In Ten Days, But We Could Find No
Water, After An Anxious And Hazardous Search.
Surrounded on all sides
with the most discouraging difficulties, we weighed anchor again on the
13th of April, when I brought our people to a resolution not to
surrender on any account, let the consequence be what it might.
We had
not now forty gallons of water in the ship, and no other liquids, when
we came to an allowance of half a pint each for twenty-four hours, even
this being too large, considering we could get none nearer than the
island of Quibo, which was about 160 leagues from the gulf of Amapala,
and we were forty-three in number, including our negroes.
[Footnote 274: About forty-two marine leagues E.S.E.]
We accordingly steered for Quibo, having very uncertain winds and
variable weather, and were thirteen days on this short allowance. No one
who has not experienced it can conceive our sufferings in this sultry
climate, by the perpetual extremity of thirst, which would not permit us
to eat an ounce of victuals in a day. We even drank our urine, which
moistened our mouths indeed, but excited our thirst the more. Some even
drank large draughts of sea-water, which had like to have killed them.
[275] On the 25th April we came to the island of Cano, in lat. 8 deg. 47'
N. which, by the verdure, promised to yield us water, if our canoe could
get on shore.
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