thus for the time were rescued from the certain death that awaited
them if they remained on board.

The rock, which they reached with difficulty, was scarcely above
water; it was between three and four hundred yards long, and two
hundred wide; and upon this spot, in the midst of the deep, nearly a
hundred men were thrown together, without food, almost without
clothing, and with very little hope that they should ever escape from
the perils that surrounded them. They had only left the wreck in time
to hear her dashed to pieces against the rocks; her timbers quivering,
rending, and groaning, as they were riven asunder by the remorseless
waves. When day dawned upon the cheerless group, its light only
revealed new horrors: the sea on all sides was strewed with fragments
of the wreck; not a sail was visible on the waters, and many of their
comrades were seen clinging to spars and planks, tossed hither and
thither by the waves. The situation of the survivors was truly
distressing; they were at least twelve miles from the nearest island,
and their only chance of relief was in the possibility of a ship
passing near enough to see the signal which they hoisted on a long
pole fixed to the rocks.

The day was bitterly cold, and with much difficulty the unfortunate
men contrived to kindle a fire, by means of a knife and flint that
were happily in the pocket of one of the sailors, and a small barrel
of damp powder that had been washed on to the rock. They next
constructed a tent with pieces of canvas, boards, and parts of the
wreck, and so they were enabled to dry the few clothes they had upon
them. And now they had to pass a long and dreary night, exposed to
hunger, cold, and wet; but they kept the fire burning, hoping that it
might be visible in the darkness, and be taken for a signal of