At length I filled my can and returned with it on deck, filling it up on my way at one of the water-casks. Then I went round and served it out to the people, and never was grog more thankfully received. It did them all a great deal of good, and I am certain that on this occasion, by pouring the spirit down their own throats, they were enabled to get a great deal more of the water out of the ship. I took very sparingly of it myself, for I never was in the habit of taking much liquor of any sort, and I felt the vast importance, under present circumstances especially, that it was for me to keep my head cool. Not only on this occasion, but on all others did I feel this; indeed, though the licence of the times allowed a great deal of hard drinking on shore, I held the vice in just abhorrence. In the navy especially, more men have been ruined body and soul by drunkenness than by any other way, and many a fine fellow who would have been an ornament to his profession have I seen completely lost to it and to his country by giving way to the vice. I will say that I considered it very creditable to my fellows that, although they might at any time have found their way to the spirit-room, they never for a moment left the pumps, and only took the grog I served out to them. Even the longest night must have an end. It was with no little satisfaction and gratitude also that I hailed the first faint streaks of light in the eastern sky. As the light increased, and I saw that we were surrounded by a number of vessels, with the Charon at no great distance, my spirits rose, and instead of wishing at once to abandon the Leviathan I bethought me that it still might be possible to get some of her cargo out of her before she went to the depths below, if go she must. Grampus agreed with me that this object might be effected. I signalled my intentions accordingly to the Charon, and very soon I had the satisfaction of seeing the commodore speaking a number of the merchantmen. They quickly replied, and he then signalled to me to set to work and get up the cargo as fast as I could. I could have wished to be supplied with more men, but, weak-handed as I was, after my faithful fellows had taken such food as could be found for breakfast, we set to work and rigged tackles and cranes to hoist up the indigo and sarsaparilla and anything on which we could lay hands. It was heavy work, for the old ship was still rolling very much, and we were all pretty well knocked up with what we had gone through in the night. The appearance of half-a-dozen boats or more, however, pulling towards us gave us fresh spirits. We sang away cheerily as we got saroon after saroon of indigo up on deck. This was, however, only part of the labour; the greatest difficulty was to lower them into the boats. The wind fortunately fell, and I was able to get up altogether during the day no less than 123 saroons of indigo, valued at sixteen thousand pounds.