of high discipline. Only this one death
occurred, and all the rest were saved.

The Juno, a rotten and unseaworthy ship,
sailed from Rangoon for Madras, with a cargo
of teak-wood. She had been out three weeks,
and had already struck upon a sandbank and
sprung a leak, which the crew imperfectly
stopped, when she became a wreck in a
tremendous storm. The second mate and
others, including the captain's wife, climbed
into the mizen-top, and made themselves fast
to the rigging. The second mate is the narrator
of their distresses, and opens them with
this remarkable avowal. "We saw that we
might remain on the wreck till carried off by
famine, the most frightful shape in which
death could appear to us. I confess it was
my intention, as well as that of the rest, to
prolong my existence by the only means that
seemed likely to occur—eating the flesh of
any whose life might terminate before my
own. But this idea we did not communicate,
or even hint to each other, until long afterwards;
except once, that the gunner, a
Roman Catholic, asked me if I thought there
would be a sin in having recourse to such an
expedient." Now, it might reasonably be
supposed, with this beginning, that the wreck
of the Juno furnishes some awful instances
of the "last resource" of the Esquimaux
stories. Not one. But, perhaps no unhappy
creature died, in this mizen-top where the
second mate was? Half a dozen, at least,
died there; and the body of one Lascar
getting entangled in the rigging, so that the
survivors in their great weakness could not
for some time release it and throw it
overboard—which was their manner of disposing
of the other bodies—hung there, for two or
three days. It is worthy of all attention,
that as the mate grew weaker, the terrible
phantom which had been in his mind at first
(as it might present itself to the mind of any
other person, not actually in the extremity
imagined), grew paler and more remote. At
first, he felt sullen and irritable; on the
night of the fourth day he had a refreshing
sleep, dreamed of his father, a country clergyman,
thought that he was administering
the Sacrament to him, and drew the cup
away when he stretched out his hand to take
it. He chewed canvas, lead, any substance
he could find—would have eaten his shoes,
early in his misery, but that he wore none.
And yet he says, and at an advanced stage of
his story too, "After all that I suffered, I
believe it fell short of the idea I had formed
of what would probably be the natural
consequence of such a situation as that to which
we were reduced. I had read or heard that
no person could live without food, beyond a
few days; and when several had elapsed, I
was astonished at my having existed so long,
and concluded that every succeeding day
must be the last. I expected, as the agonies
of death approached, that we should be
tearing the flesh from each other's bones."
Later still, he adds: "I can give very little
account of the rest of the time. The sensation
of hunger was lost in that of weakness;
and when I could get a supply of fresh water
I was comparatively easy." When land was
at last descried, he had become too indifferent
to raise his head to look at it, and continued
lying in a dull and drowsy state, much as
Adam the interpreter lay, with Franklin at
his side.

The Peggy was an American sloop, sailing
home from the Azores to New York. She
encountered great distress of weather, ran
short of provision, and at length had no food
on board, and no water, " except about two
gallons which remained dirty at the bottom
of a cask." The crew ate a cat they had on
board, the leather from the pumps, their
buttons and their shoes, the candles and the
oil. Then, they went aft, and down into the
captain's cabin, and said they wanted him to
see lots fairly drawn who should be killed to
feed the rest. The captain refusing with
horror, they went forward again, contrived to
make the lot fall on a negro whom they had
on board, shot him, fried a part of him for
supper, and pickled the rest, with the exception
of the head and fingers which they threw
overboard. The greediest man among them,
dying raving mad on the third day after this
event, they threw his body into the sea—it
would seem because they feared to derive a
contagion of madness from it, if they ate it.
Nine days having elapsed in all since the
negro's death, and they being without food
again, they went below once more and
repeated their proposal to the captain (who
lay weak and ill in his cot, having been
unable to endure the mere thought of touching
the negro's remains), that he should see
lots fairly drawn. As he had no security but
that they would manage, if he still refused,
that the lot should fall on him, he consented.
It fell on a foremast-man, who was the
favourite of the whole ship. He was quite
willing to die, and chose the man who had
shot the negro, to be his executioner. While
he was yet living, the cook made a fire in the
galley; but, they resolved, when all was ready
for his death, that the fire should be put out
again, and that the doomed foremast-man
should live until an hour before noon
next day; after which they went once more
into the captain's cabin, and begged him to
read prayers, with supplications that a sail
might heave in sight before the appointed
time. A sail was seen at about eight
o'clock next morning, and they were taken
off the wreck.

Is there any circumstance in this case to
separate it from the others already described,
and from the case of the lost Arctic voyagers?
Let the reader judge. The ship was laden
with wine and brandy. The crew were
incessantly drunk from the first hour of their
calamities fulling upon them. They were
not sober, even at the moment when they