We could not proceed farther, and were obliged on this account to seek shelter in one of the huts which the fishermen hail erected among the white sand-hills.

There we remained, and I saw the stranding of a vessel: I shall never forget it! An American ship lay not a musket-shot from land.

They cut the mast; six or seven men clung fast to it in the waters.

O, how they rocked backward and forward in the dashing spray! The mast took a direction toward the shore; at length only three men were left clinging to the mast; it was dashed upon land, but the returning waves again bore it away; it had crushed the arms and legs of the clinging wretches--ground them like worms! I dreamed of this for many nights.

The waves flung the hull of the vessel up high on the shore, and drove it into the sand, where it was afterward found.