And now there floated ashore bales of red broadcloth, which was promptly cut up for clothing. It was grotesque to see the sailors and passengers parading in gorgeous tunics and robes of crimson, with white turbans fashioned from bolts of muslin. With bamboo-poles, also washed from the ship, Captain Greig set his men to making tents for the women. There was very little material, however, and most of the people sat around in a sort of wretched stupor, drenched, benumbed, hopeless. Several barrels of strong liquors came rolling in with the surf, and the sailors, of course, drank all they could hold. One of them, an old barnacle named John Dulliver, showed a streak of marked sagacity. After tapping a barrel of Holland gin and guzzling to the limit of his stowage space, he stove in one end, emptied the barrel, and crawled snugly into it to slumber. This seemed such a brilliant notion that as fast as the ship’s water-barrels drifted ashore they were tenanted by castaways who resembled so many hermit-crabs. For six days the party forlornly existed in continuous rain, with no means of kindling a fire, and eating raw pork that was cast up by the sea and such birds as they could obtain. Then a case of surgical instruments was found on the beach, and it contained a providential flint and steel. Fire was made, and spears were contrived of poles, with knives lashed to them, so that the monstrous sea-lions could be killed and used for food. There were millions of penguins, and their eggs could be had for the gathering. It was hard, revolting fare, but other castaways had lived for months and even years on food no worse, and the horrors of famine were averted. Captain Greig was taken ill, and his authority therefore amounted to little. His officers were not the men for such a crisis as this, and they do not appear to have been able to master it. The sailors were insolent and lazy, no doubt of it, and young Mr. Greig devotes many pages of his diary to abuse of them. It is quite evident, however, that the officers and passengers felt themselves to be superior beings and expected the sailors to wait on them as menials. In such a situation as this one man was as good as another, and the doctrines of caste and rank properly belonged in the discard. It was rather pitiful and absurd, as one catches glimpses of it in the ingenuous narrative of the very young Mr. Greig.