of provisions, would be spoiled, if not lost altogether.

After further search I came upon the jar broken in two. It was
especially strong, so that the bottle of pickles would have had no
chance of escaping. I had fortunately my handkerchief, and I managed to
pick up several olives, which I put into it. Creeping along I came at
last upon the pickle-bottle, and nearly cut my hand in feeling for it.
A few pickles were near it. I drew them out of the water which had
escaped from the butt. Their flavour I guessed would be gone and all
the vinegar which was so cooling and refreshing; but almost spoiled as
they were, I was glad to recover them. I found, however, scarcely a
fourth of the olives and pickles. The loss of the biscuits was the most
serious. They, if long in the water, would be mashed up into a pulp,
and perhaps dispersed throughout the bottom of the ship. The sooner I
could recover whatever remained the better. I ate three or four olives
and a piece of pickle to stay the gnawings of hunger, and went on with
my search.

The ship, it must be remembered, was all this time rolling to and fro.
I searched and searched, my hopes of recovering the biscuits in a form
fit to be eaten growing fainter and fainter; still I knew that the keg,
either entire or broken, must be somewhere within my prison-house, for
so I must call it. I stopped at last to consider in what direction it
could have been thrown. Perhaps being lighter and of larger bulk than
the other things, it might have been jerked farther off, and rolling
away got jammed in the casks or cases. My search proved to me that it
could not be close beneath the kelson; I therefore felt backwards and
forwards everywhere I could get my hand. I tried to recollect whether I
had, when last taking a biscuit out, fixed on the head tightly or not.
Having smashed it in, in order to broach the cask, it was not very easy
to do so, and I had an unpleasant feeling that I had put on the top only
sufficient to prevent the rats jumping down into the inside. If so, the
chance of the biscuits having escaped was small indeed.

At length I touched the cask, which had been thrown from one end of the
hold to the other. It was on its side. With trembling eagerness I put
in my hand. Alas! Only a few whole biscuits and a few broken ones
remained. These I transferred to my pocket-handkerchief with the olives
and pickles, for fear of losing them. The remainder must be somewher