ken off short. As I approached near, I perceived a dog on board,
who seeing me coming, yelped and cried, and no sooner did I call him,
but the poor creature jumped into the sea, out of which I took him up,
almost famished with hunger and thirst; so that when I gave him a cake
of bread, no ravenous wolf could devour it more greedily; and he drank
to that degree of fresh water, that he would have burst himself, had I
suffered him.

The first sight I met with in the ship, were two men drowned in the
cook-room or forecastle, inclosed in one another's arms: hence I very
probably supposed, that _when the vessel struck in the storm, so high
and incessantly did the waters break in and over her, that the men not
being able to bear it, were strangled by the constant rushing in of the
waves_. There were several casks of liquor, whether wine of brandy, I
could not be positive, which lay in the lower hold, as were plainly
perceptible by the ebbing out of the water, yet were too large for me to
pretend to meddle with; likewise I perceived several chests, which I
supposed to belong to the seamen, two of which I got into my boat,
without examining what was in them. Had the stern of the ship been
fixed, and the forepart broken off, I should have made a very prosperous
voyage; since by what I after found in these two chests, I could not
otherwise conclude, but that the ship must have abundance of wealth on
board; nay, if I must guess by the course she steered, she must have
been bound from the Buenos Ayres, or the Rio de la Plata, in the
southern parts of America, beyond the Brazils, to the Havannah, in the
gulf of Mexico, and so perhaps to Spain. What became of the rest of the
sailors, I could not certainly tell; and all her riches signified
nothing at that time to any body.

Searching farther, I found a cask containing about twenty gallons, full
of liquor, which, with some labour, I got into my boat; in her cabin
were several muskets, which I let remain there; but took away with me a
great powder horn, with about four pounds of powder in it. I took also a
fire-shovel and tongs, two brass kettles, a copper pot to make
chocolate, and a gridiron; all which were extremely necessary to me,
especially the fire-shovel and tongs. And so with this cargo,
accompanied with my dog, I came away, the tide serving for that purpose;
and the same evening, about an hour within night, I attained the island,
after the greatest toil and fatigue imaginable