The whole seventeen days on the wreck were spent in one place, in a cabin amidships, or rather in the two cabins which been knocked into one by the force of the sea at the time of the striking. The greater part of the ship was under water, when she had settled, and even this cabin, whick was on the promenade deck, was jed;.80 that all the time the solitary place of refuge left to them was never free of water. Indeed, "for much of the time the poor creatures sat huddled together with the water neatly up to their knees.
The survivors took no sort of credit to themselves for any bravery in remaining on the wreck and refusing to geoff in the remained behind was that the attempt to boat. The ree feeling of those who make Socotra, which was the only land possible, was a foolhardy venture. It was nearly certain death to remain, but it was absolutely certain death to go, they considered, and it was the law of self-preservation and not bravery, they report, which led them to stick to the wreck.
The question of food early became an urgent one. The little they found was divided into rations, which gradually diminished in quantity until they consisted of nothing but nuts. Fifteen nuts a day per head, with soda-water, the rations sank to and then it was that, as told in our cable-grein, the four men—Valpy, White, Cave, and Kelt—volunteered toleada*
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.