ve very
wholesome; but I no longer felt, as I had previously done, that I should
be starved to death.

I am afraid that I could boast of very few good qualities, but I
possessed at all events that of perseverance. Perhaps I had gained it
during my experience as a fisherman, when I used to sit for hours by the
side of a pond waiting for a bite, and seldom failed to get one at last.
I therefore again hung up my knife. I can't tell how often it fell,
but at last I caught one rat much as I had done the first, though at the
expense of a bite on the thumb. By this time I was again hungry, and
very soon had the rat's flesh between my teeth.

To those who have not suffered as I had, my proceeding must appear very
disgusting, but I would only advise any fellow who thinks so to try what
he would do after going without food for three or four days. I
certainly, during that time, had had nothing but two buns and unlimited
draught of cold water. The cold water and the long spells of sleep I
had enjoyed. I believe in reality that I was much longer than four days
after I had finished the last bun, but I will not be positive, lest
people should doubt the fact. The greater part of the time, however,
was spent in sleep. My rat-dream, as I call it, might have occupied
several hours, for I have not put down half of what I heard said, nor
described the curious antics I saw, as I supposed, of the rats' play. I
have since recollected that the words with which the president began his
speech were those used by Mark Antony at the commencement of his oration
over the dead body of Caesar, which I learnt at school.

After eating the second rat I felt greatly revived, and resolved to
continue my explorations, but a drowsiness came over me before I made my
way to the further end of the hold. I returned to my couch and lay down
to sleep.

It would be a good opportunity of sounding the praises of sleep, and if
I were a poet I might indulge my fancy and produce something wonderfully
novel; but as I never wrote a line in my life worthy of being called
poetry, I will not inflict anything of this sort on my friends.

I was becoming wonderfully accustomed to my solitary life. Having
rolled myself in the old sail, I closed my eyes with as much sense of
security as I should have done in my own bed at home. I had ceased to
think of my friends there, or of Aunt Deb and Mr Butterfield. I could
not go on for ever troubling myself with thoughts of