g their deserts.

On the morning of the 6th of July, at five o'clock, all the boats were
under way on the route to Senegal. The boats of MM. Schmaltz and
Lachaumareys took the lead along the coast, and all the expedition
followed. About eight, several sailors in our boat, with threats,
demanded to be set on shore; but M. Laperere, not acceding to their
request, the whole were about to revolt and seize the command; but the
firmness of this officer quelled the mutineers. In a spring which he
made to seize a firelock which a sailor persisted in keeping in his
possession, he almost tumbled into the sea. My father fortunately was
near him, and held him by his clothes, but he had instantly to quit him,
for fear of losing his hat, which the waves were floating away. A short
while after this slight accident, the shallop, which we had lost sight
of since the morning, appeared desirous of rejoining us. We plied all
hands to avoid her, for we were afraid of one another, and thought that
that boat, encumbered with so many people, wished to board us to oblige
us to take some of its passengers, as M. Espiau would not suffer them to
be abandoned like those upon the raft. That officer hailed us at a
distance, offering to take our family on board, adding, he was anxious
to take about sixty people to the Desert. The officer of our boat,
thinking that this was a pretence, replied, we preferred suffering where
we were. It even appeared to us that M. Espiau had hid some of his
people under the benches of the shallop. But, alas! in the end we deeply
deplored being so suspicious, and of having so outraged the devotion of
the most generous officer of the Medusa.

Our boat began to leak considerably, but we prevented it as well as we
could, by stuffing the largest holes with oakum, which an old sailor
had had the precaution to take before quitting the frigate. At noon the
heat became so strong--so intolerable, that several of us believed we
had reached our last moments. The hot winds of the Desert even reached
us; and the fine sand with which they were loaded, had completely
obscured the clearness of the atmosphere. The sun presented a reddish
disk; the whole surface of the ocean became nebulous, and the air which
we breathed, depositing a fine sand, an impalpable powder, penetrated to
our lungs, already parched with a burning thirst. In this state of
torment we remained till four in the afternoon, when a breeze from the
north-west brought us