University of Virginia Library

SHORT AND SINGULAR RATIONS.

AS many will remember, the clipper-ship
Hornet, of New-York, was burned at
sea on her passage to San Francisco.
The disaster occurred in lat. 2° 20′ north, long.
112° 8′ west. After being forty-three days
adrift on the broad Pacific, in open boats, the
crew and passengers succeeded in making Hawaii.
A tribute to the courage and brave endurance
of these men has been paid in a letter
detailing their sufferings, (the particulars being
gathered from their own lips,) from which the
following excerpt is made:

On Monday, the thirty-eighth day after the
disaster, “we had nothing left,” said the third
mate, “but a pound and a half of ham—the
bone was a good deal the heaviest part of it—
and one soup-and-bully tin.” These things
were divided among the fifteen men, and they

ate it all—two ounces of food to each man. I
do not count the ham-bone, as that was saved
for next day. For some time, now, the poor
wretches had been cutting their old boots into
small pieces and eating them. They would
also pound wet rags to a sort of pulp and eat
them.

On the thirty-ninth day the ham-bone was
divided up into rations, and scraped with knives
and eaten. I said, “You say the two sick men
remained sick all through, and after a while two
or three had to be relieved from standing watch;
how did you get along without medicines?”

The reply was, “Oh! we couldn't have kept
them if we'd had them; if we'd had boxes
of pills, or any thing like that, we'd have eaten
them. It was just as well—we couldn't have
kept them, and we couldn't have given them
to the sick men alone—we'd have shared them
around all alike, I guess.” It was said rather
in jest, but it was a pretty true jest, no doubt.

After apportioning the ham-bone, the captain
cut the canvas cover that had been around
the ham into fifteen equal pieces, and each man
took his portion. This was the last division of
food the captain made. The men broke up the

small oaken butter tub, and divided the staves
among themselves, and gnawed them up. The
shell of a little green turtle was scraped with
knives, and eaten to the last shaving. The third
mate chewed pieces of boots, and spit them out,
but ate nothing except the soft straps of two
pairs of boots — ate three on the thirty-ninth
day, and saved one for the fortieth.

The men seem to have thought in their own
minds of the shipwrecked mariner's last dreadful
resort—cannibalism; but they do not appear
to have conversed about it. They only
thought of the casting lots and killing one
of their number as a possibility; but even when
they were eating rags, and bone, and boots,
and shell, and hard oak wood, they seem to
have still had a notion that it was remote.
They felt that some one of the company must
die soon — which one they well knew; and
during the last three or four days of their terrible
voyage they were patiently but hungrily
waiting for him. I wonder if the subject of
these anticipations knew what they were thinking
of? He must have known it—he must have
felt it. They had even calculated how long he
would last. They said to themselves, but not

to each other—I think they said, “He will die
Saturday—and then!”

There was one exception to the spirit of
delicacy I have mentioned—a Frenchman—who
kept an eye of strong personal interest upon
the sinking man, and noted his failing strength
with untiring care and some degree of cheerfulness.
He frequently said to Thomas, “I think
he will go off pretty soon now, sir; and then
we'll eat him!” This is very sad.

Thomas, and also several of the men, state
that the sick “Portyghee,” during the five days
that they were entirely out of provisions, actually
ate two silk handkerchiefs and a couple of
cotton shirts, besides his share of the boots, and
bones, and lumber.

Captain Mitchell was fifty-six years old on
the twelfth of June—the fortieth day after the
burning burning of the ship and the third day before
the boat's crew reached land. He said it looked
somewhat as if it might be the last one he was
going to enjoy. He had no birthday feast except
some bits of ham-canvas—no luxury but
this, and no substantials save the leather and
oaken bucket-staves.

Speaking of the leather diet, one of the men

told me he was obliged to eat a pair of boots
which were so old and rotten that they were
full of holes; and then he smiled gently and
said he didn't know, though, but what the
holes tasted about as good as the balance of
the boot. This man was very feeble, and after
saying this he went to bed.