Thomas Wentworth Higginson, A book of American explorers

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[85] children to look at us, who returned rich with the hawk-bells and beads that we gave them; and they came afterward on other days in the same way. As we found that we had been provisioned with fish, roots, water, and other things for which we asked, we determined to embark again, and pursue our course. We dug out our boat from the sand in which it was buried; and it became necessary that we should all strip ourselves, and go through great exertion to launch her, for we were in such state, that things very much lighter sufficed to make us much labor.

Thus embarked, at the distance of two cross-bow shots in the sea we shipped a wave that wet us all. As we were naked, and the cold was very great, the oars loosened in our hands; and the next blow the sea struck us capsized the boat. The assessor and two others held fast to her for preservation; but it happened to be for far otherwise, as the boat carried them over, and they drowned under her. As the surf near the shore was very high, a single roll of the sea threw the remainder into the waves, and half drowned us on the shore of the island, without our losing any more than the boat had taken under. Those of us who survived escaped naked as we were born, losing all that we had; and, although the whole was of little value, at that time it was worth much.

As it was then in the month of November, the cold severe, and our bodies so emaciated that the bones might have been counted with little difficulty, we had become perfect figures of death. For myself, I can say, that, from the month of May past, I had not eaten other thing than maize, and sometimes I found myself obliged