Being almost naked, and washed by every wave, their sufferings were very great. Destitute of food or fresh water, scorched by a burning sun during the day, and chilled with cold during the night, they thus remained twenty days. Delirium and death relieved the raft of part of its load of misery, two blacks being the first to sink under their sufferings. The question naturally suggests itself, How did the survivors support life? Some persons would be almost afraid to put the question, or hear the answer. There is nothing, however, to wound our feelings, but much to admire in the admirable conduct of Lieutenant Wilson and his men during these melancholy and miserable twenty days. Showers of rain occasionally fell; they caught some water in their little sail, which they drank, and put some into a small keg that had floated out of the vessel. The sea was almost always breaking over the spars of the raft, which was surrounded by voracious sharks. The famishing sailors actually caught with a bowling-knot a shark eight feet in length, with their bare hands, and hauled it upon the raft; they killed it, drank the blood, and ate part of the flesh, husbanding the remainder. In this way three other sharks were taken, and upon these sharks the poor fellows managed to prolong their lives till picked up (in sight of the land) in what may be termed the very zero of living misery. Lieutenant Wilson and four seamen survived, and recovered their strength. Order and discipline were maintained upon the raft; fortitude, forethought, a reliance upon Divine Providence, and good conduct, enabled these Englishmen to surmount such horrible sufferings, while the Kroomen and Portuguese sank under them. CAPTURE OF A SLAVER--1845.