ing but suffer the ship to drive dead before it.
Near midnight we were flung violently to the deck by a tremendous shock.
The ship was on shore, dashing her bottom out upon the rocks. And it
was so dark, senor, that we were unable to see each other. Oh! the
horror of that night; it is as fresh upon me now as it was at the moment
that it happened."

The poor fellow's face was streaming with perspiration. I begged he
would not distress himself by recalling such painful recollections, but
in spite of my remonstrance he continued his story.

"The ship broke up beneath our feet, and I found myself swimming, I knew
not where, in the midst of a quantity of floating wreck, to a piece of
which I clung. I was surrounded on every side by breakers; but not far
from me I could perceive, by the absence of the phosphorescence, that
the water was smooth. I urged myself, and the plank to which I clung,
in that direction, and soon reached the smooth water; after which I
suffered myself to drift. The water was quite warm, and I experienced
no inconvenience whatever from my immersion. After the lapse of perhaps
an hour, possibly more, I felt the ground beneath my feet, and
staggering out of the water, I flung myself upon the dry land, and,
notwithstanding the howling of the wind and the roar of the breakers, I
fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

"When I awoke the sun was beating fiercely down upon my uncovered head;
the sky was cloudless; and a calm had succeeded to the gale of the night
before. I rose to my feet, and on looking about me, discovered that I
had been cast upon one of those coral islands which so thickly stud some
portions of the Pacific. I was--as I am now--the only one who escaped
the wreck alive. The bodies of my shipmates lay scattered along the
shore; and a long and arduous day was spent in burying them where they
lay, in such shallow graves as I could scoop in the sand with the aid of
a piece of splintered plank. The beach was strewed with wreckage which
had been washed over the reef and into the smooth water; and I was
overjoyed to find amongst this the long-boat, perfectly uninjured. In
her I visited the scene of the wreck; and there, after diligent search,
I found the means and a sufficiency of appropriate materials to enable
me to fit her for a lengthened voyage.

"I was more than two months on the island before my preparations were
complete, for life was very enjoyable in that delightful spot, and