If they are
driven thither by a wind from the sea, the wind and the current
ruin them; and if they come into it when a land-wind blows, which
might seem to favour their getting out again, the height of the
mountain stops the wind, and occasions a calm, so that the force of
the current runs them ashore, where they are broken to pieces, as
ours was; and that which completes the misfortune is that there is
no possibility to get to the top of the mountain, or to get out any
manner of way.
We continued upon the shore, like men out of their senses, and
expected death every day. At first we divided our provisions as
equally as we could, and thus everyone lived a longer or shorter
time, according to their temperance, and the use they made of their
provisions.
Those who died first were interred by the rest; and, for my part, I
paid the last duty to all my companions. Nor are you to wonder at
this; for besides that I husbanded the provision that fell to my
share better than they, I had provision of my own, which I did not
share with my comrades; yet when I buried the last, I had so little
remaining that I thought I could not hold out long: so I dug a
grave, resolving to lie down in it, because there was none left to
inter me.
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