ns of
relief. The ship had some good Philadelphia porter in her, and a bottle
of it stood on a shelf over his berth. This object caught his eye, and
he actually longed for a draught of that porter. He had sufficient
strength to raise himself high enough to reach it, but it far exceeded
his powers to draw the cork, even had the ordinary means been at hand,
which they were not. There was a hammer on the shelf, however, and with
that instrument he did succeed in making a hole in the side of the
bottle, and in filling a tumbler. This liquor he swallowed at a single
draught. It tasted deliciously to him, and he took a second tumbler
full, when he lay down, uncertain as to the consequences. That his head
was affected by these two glasses of porter, Mark himself was soon
aware, and shortly after drowsiness followed. After lying in an uneasy
slumber for half an hour, his whole person was covered with a gentle
perspiration, in which condition, after drawing the sheet around him,
the sick man fell asleep.

Our patient never knew how long he slept, on this all-important
occasion. The period certainly included part of two days and one entire
night; but, afterwards, when Mark endeavoured to correct his calendar,
and to regain something, like a record of the time, he was inclined to
think he must have lain there two nights with the intervening day. When
he awoke, Mark was immediately sensible that he was free from disease.
He was not immediately sensible, nevertheless, how extremely feeble
disease had left him. At first, he fancied he had only to rise, take
nourishment, and go about his ordinary pursuits. But the sight of his
emaciated limbs, and the first effort he made to get up, convinced him
that he had a long state of probation to go through, before he became
the man he had been a week or two before. It was well, perhaps, that his
head was so clear, and his judgment so unobscured at this, his first
return to consciousness.

Mark deemed it a good symptom that he felt disposed to eat. How many
days he had been altogether without nourishment he could not say, but
they must have been several; nor had he received more than could be
obtained from a single ship's biscuit since his attack. All this came to
his mind, with a distinct recollection that he must be his own physician
and nurse. For a few minutes he lay still, during which he addressed
himself to God, with thanks for having spared his life until reason was
restored. Then he