this time she was unfortunately upset in the surf, though no
lives were lost.

When the men left on the wreck saw themselves thus deprived of the
last chance of escape, they raised the most piteous cries for
assistance, although they knew that their comrades had no means of
affording it. It has been said that 'man is a bundle of
inconsistencies,' and here was a proof of the assertion. These were in
all probability the very men who had betaken themselves to their
hammocks a short time before, and had refused to assist in providing
for their own safety; they had disobeyed orders, and despised
discipline, and now we find them imploring others for that deliverance
which they had neglected to provide for themselves. Most of them had
been drinking the spirits, and were so stupified that they were
incapable of taking advantage of the floating spars and planks to
which they might have clung, and so gained the land.

By drunkenness the bed of the ocean has been rendered a foul and
gloomy charnel house, where the bones of thousands of our fellow-men
await the summons of the Archangel's trumpets, when 'the sea shall
give up her dead.' The reckless seamen, though unprepared for another
world, hurry themselves into the presence of their Judge, to meet the
drunkard's doom.

It has been related that upon one occasion, when the shipwreck of a
large packet seemed inevitable, the sailors grew tired of working at
the pumps, and shouted 'to the spirit-room!' They saw death staring
them in the face, and to drown their terror for the moment, they
desired to die drunk. A post-captain in the navy, who was on board the
packet, knowing what would be the result if they got at the spirits,
took his stand at the door of the spirit-room, with a pistol in each
hand, and declared in the most solemn manner, that he would shoot the
first man who attempted to enter. The men seeing themselves defeated,
returned to the pumps, and by the blessing of God, the vessel was
brought in safe with all her crew.[15]

Unfortunate as was the situation of the helpless creatures on the
wreck of the Penelope, it was only a few degrees more wretched than
that of the officers and men on the shore. They had been cast at the
base of a steep mountain, bruised and benumbed by the cold; their
clothes were actually freezing on their backs, and they were without
provisions of any kind. Their first care was to search for wood and
kindle fires, which they at last succeeded in