The next morning, as soon as the day had come, we rowed away down the river in pursuit of our people, and after going about two leagues we were so fortunate as to overtake them at an Indian landing place, where they had been taking in water. They told us that we would not find water again for six days, and that we must without fail fill our jars. Although we made what haste we could, by the time our jars were filled our friends had all departed and were already out of sight. Such is the nature of the pirates; they care not in the least whom they lose or leave behind. We rowed after them as fast as we possibly could, but all in vain, for here in the mouth of the river the islands were so numerous that it was very easy for us to lose them a second time. After much trouble and toil we did at last find the mouth of the river, but here the tide was again coming in, so that though we were within a stone's throw from the mouth of the river, we could not go through it, but were forced to put ashore and wait for better water. Accordingly we hauled our canoe close by the bushes and fastened it to a tree which the tide had almost covered. [Illustration: WE ROWED AWAY DOWN THE RIVER IN PURSUIT] As soon as the tide began to turn, we rowed away again, crossing the Gulf of Miguel. Here we had a very hard time fighting the waves, which dashed against our canoe and might easily have filled and overwhelmed it, for the boat was nearly twenty feet long and not over one and a half broad where it was widest. At dark we landed on an island where we had the most sorrowful resting place I ever experienced in my whole life. It rained impetuously all night long, in so much that we were wet from head to foot and had not one dry thread about us; and so violent was the rain that we could not keep any fire going to warm or dry ourselves. Not one minute's sleep did we get during the whole night, and our plight was indeed an awful one, remote from our companions and wholly destitute of all human comfort. As morning broke, our plight was little relieved, for a vast sea surrounded us on one side, and on the other we could see nothing but high mountains and rocks. Our boat was but an eggshell, and we had few clothes to defend us from the weather. In fact, not one of us at that time had a shoe to his foot.