I woke as hungry as a hound, but with a comfortable and natural sort of hunger that I set myself to satisfying with good strong food: eating a tin of meat with a lively relish and without any following stomach-ache, and drinking the juice of a tin of peaches after it--there being no water fit to drink on board. My meal began to set me on my feet again; but I still felt so tired and so shaky that I decided to stay where I was until the next morning--having at last a comforting sense of security that took away my desire to hurry and made me wholly easy in my mind. And this feeling got stronger as the sun fell away westward and made a crimson bank of mist along the horizon, against which I saw the funnels of more than a dozen steamers--and so knew that the coast of my continent surely was close by. What I would do when I got to the steamers was a matter that I did not bother about. For the moment I was satisfied with the certainty that I would find aboard of them food in plenty and a comfortable place to sleep in, and that was enough. And so I did not make any plans, or even think much; but just ate as much supper as I could stow away in my carcase, and then settled myself in the schooner's cabin for the night. In the morning I was so well rested, and felt so fresh again, that I was eager to get on; and I was so light-hearted that I fell to singing as I pushed forward briskly, being full of hope once more and of airy fancies that I had only to reach the edge of the wreck-pack in order to hit upon some easy way of getting off from it out over the open sea. A little thinking would have shown me, of course, that my fancies had nothing to rest on, and that coming once more to the coast of my continent was only to be where I was when my long journey through that death-stricken mass of rottenness began; but the reaction of my spirits was natural enough after the gloom that for so long had held them, and so was the castle-building that I took to as I went onward as to what I would do with my great treasure when at last I had it safe out in the living world. Although I did not doubt that food of some sort was to be found on board of all the vessels which I should cross that day, I guarded against losing time in looking for it by carrying along with me a couple of tins of meat--slung on my shoulders in a wrapping of canvas--and on one of these, about noon-time, I made a good meal. When I had finished it I was sorry enough that I had not brought a tin of peaches too, for the meat was pretty well salted and made me as thirsty as a fish very soon after I got it down.