ce a white butterfly, of the species so common
in France, appeared fluttering over our heads, and settled on our sail. The
first idea which, as it were, inspired each of us made us consider this
little animal as the harbinger, which brought us the news of a speedy
approach to land, and we snatched at this hope with a kind of delirium of
joy. But it was the ninth day that we passed upon the raft; the torments of
hunger consumed our entrails; already some of the soldiers and sailors
devoured, with haggard eyes, this wretched prey, and seemed ready to
dispute it with each other. Others considered this butterfly as a messenger
of heaven, declared that they took the poor insect under their protection,
and hindered any injury being done to it. We turned our wishes and our eyes
towards the land, which we so ardently longed for, and which we every
moment fancied we saw rise before us. It is certain that we could not be
far from it: for the butterflies continued, on the following days, to come
and flutter about our sail, and the same day we had another sign equally
positive: for we saw a (_goeland_) flying over our raft. This second
visitor did not allow us to doubt of our being very near to the African
shore, and we persuaded ourselves that we should soon be thrown upon the
coast by the force of the currents. How often did we then, and in the
following days, invoke a tempest to throw us on the coast, which, it seemed
to us, we were on the point of touching.

The hope which had just penetrated the inmost recesses of our souls,
revived our enfeebled strength, and inspired us with an ardour, an
activity, of which we should not have thought ourselves capable. We again
had recourse to all the means which we had before employed, to catch fish.
Above all, we eagerly longed for the (goeland), which appeared several
times tempted to settle on the end of our machine. The impatience of our
desire increased, when we saw several of its companions join it, and keep
following us till our deliverance; but all attempts to draw them to us were
in vain; not one of them suffered itself to be taken by the snares we had
laid for them. Thus our destiny, on the fatal raft, was to be incessantly
tossed between transitory illusions and continued torments, and we never
experienced an agreeable sensation without being, in a manner, condemned to
atone for it, by the anguish of some new suffering, by the irritating pangs
of hope always deceived.

Another ca