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The mountain at the foot of which we were cast, was the coast of a very large island. This coast was covered all over with wrecks, and by the vast number, of mans bones we saw everywhere, and which filled us with horror, we concluded that aboundance of people had died there. It is also incredible to tell, what a quantity of goods and riches we found cast ashore there. All those objects served only to augment our grief. Whereas in all other places, rivers run from their channels into the sea, here a great river of fresh water runs out of the sea into a dark cave, whose entrance is very high and large.
We continued on the shore, like men out of their senses, and expected death every day. At first we divided our provisions as equally as we could, and so every one lived a longer or a shorter while, according to their temper, and the use they made of their provisions.
Those who died first were interred by the rest and as for my part, I paid the last duty to all my companions: nor are you to wonder at this; for I husbanded the provisions that fell to my share better then they; yet when I buried the last, I had so little remaining, that I thought I could not hold out any longer. So that I digged a grave, resolving to lie down in it, because there was none left alive to inter me.
But it pleased God once more to take compassion on me, and put in my mind to go to the bank of the river which runs into the great cave, where considering the river with great attention, I said to myself, "This river, which runs thus underground must come out some where or other.' If I make a float, and leave myself to the current, Providence may bring me to some inhabited country where I may, perhaps, find some new occasion of enriching myself.
After this, I immediately made a float, and
