CHAPTER XXXIII.
GRIEF AND PAIN.
It was even worse than I feared.

Reckoning neither on a longer voyage than five or six days nor on being so far from the coast that, in case of emergency, we could not obtain fresh supplies, we had used both provisions and water rather recklessly, and now I found that of the latter we had no more than, at our recent rate of consumption, would last eighteen hours, while of food we had as much as might suffice us for twenty-four.

It was necessary to reduce our allowance forthwith, and I put it to Yawl whether we could not make for some nearer port than Callao.

Better risk the loss of my diamonds than die of hunger and thirst.

Yawl's answer was unfavorable.