s on the desolate island, and brought them away.'

Captain Pollard closed his dreary narrative with saying, in a tone of
despondency never to be forgotten by him who heard it, 'After a time I
found my way to the United States, to which I belonged, and got another
ship. That, too, I have lost by a second wreck off the Sandwich Islands,
and now I am utterly ruined. No owner will ever trust me with a whaler
again, for all will say I am an _unlucky_ man.'

The following account respecting the three men that were left on the
uninhabited island, is given in a note of the same work, and said to be
extracted from a religious tract, No. 579, issued by the Society in
Paternoster Row.

'On the 26th of December the boats left the island: this was, indeed, a
trying moment to all: they separated with mutual prayers and good
wishes, seventeen[45] venturing to sea with almost certain death before
them, while three remained on a rocky isle, destitute of water, and
affording hardly anything to support life. The prospects of these three
poor men were gloomy: they again tried to dig a well, but without
success, and all hope seemed at an end, when providentially they were
relieved by a shower of rain. They were thus delivered from the
immediate apprehension of perishing by thirst. Their next care was to
procure food, and their difficulties herein were also very great; their
principal resource was small birds, about the size of a blackbird, which
they caught while at roost. Every night they climbed the trees in search
of them, and obtained, by severe exertions, a scanty supply, hardly
enough to support life. Some of the trees bore a small berry which gave
them a little relief, but these they found only in small quantities.
Shell-fish they searched for in vain; and although from the rocks they
saw at times a number of sharks, and also other sorts of fish, they were
unable to catch any, as they had no fishing tackle. Once they saw
several turtles, and succeeded in taking five, but they were then
without water: at those times they had little inclination to eat, and
before one of them was quite finished the others were become unfit for
food.

'Their sufferings from want of water were the most severe, their only
supply being from what remained in holes among the rocks after the
showers which fell at intervals; and sometimes they were five or six
days without any; on these occasions they were compelled to suck the
blood of the birds they caugh