ail a raft over that long
distance was not to be thought of.

Had there been a stock of provisions and water, sufficient to have
lasted for weeks, then such an idea would have been more feasible; but
there was nothing of this, and the idea of sailing in search of land was
not entertained for a moment. The only hope was that a sail might
appear in sight, that some ship might be passing across the ocean, and
come sufficiently near to see us and pick us up. One and all were
agreed that this was our only chance of being saved.

A cheerless chance it appeared when examined in all its bearings; so
cheerless, indeed, that only the most sanguine of the party drew any
hope from it. Notwithstanding the hundreds of thousands of ships that
are constantly ploughing the mighty deep, and sailing from port to port,
you will meet with but a very few of them on any long voyage you may
make. You may go from England to the Cape of Good Hope, without seeing
more than one or two sail during the whole passage! and yet that would
be travelling upon one of the great highways of the ocean--in the track
of all the ships sailing to the vast world of the East Indies, and also
to those prosperous commercial colonies of Australia, whose mercantile
marine almost rivals that of England herself. Again, you may cross the
Atlantic upon another great water-way--that between Liverpool and New
York--and yet between one port and the other, you may see less than
half-a-dozen sail, and sometimes only two or three, during the whole of
your voyage. Vast and wide are the highways of the great ocean.

With a knowledge of these facts, but few of the men indulged in any very
strong expectation of our coming in sight of a sail. We were in that
very part of the Atlantic where the chances of such an encounter were
few and far between. We were out of the line of navigation between any
two great commercial countries; and although formerly Spanish vessels
had travelled a good deal near the track we were in--in their
intercourse with their South American colonies--this intercourse had
been greatly diminished by revolution, and most of the traffic with
these countries was now carried on in vessels belonging to the United
States, and these were not likely to sail so far to the eastward as we
were. Portuguese ships still traded to the Brazils in considerable
numbers, and upon these we built most of our hopes--these and the
chances that some ship engaged in the same