"We took each a stick and hung it around our neck, and every day cut a
notch, which was the method we took to keep time.
"In this manner we travelled, living upon fruit, turtle eggs, and
sometimes turtle, which we cooked every night with the fire we built
to secure us from wild beasts, they being in great plenty,--such as
buffaloes, tigers, jackanapes, leopards, lions, and baboons and
monkies.
"On the 30th day of our traveling we met with nothing we could eat and
found no water. At night we found some fruit which appeared to the
eyes to be very delicious, different from any we had seen in our
travels. It resembled a fruit which grows in the West Indies, called a
Jack, about the size of an orange. We being very dry and hungry
immediately gathered some of this fruit, but finding it of a sweet,
sickish taste, I eat but two. Randall eat freely. In the evening we
found we were poisoned: I was sick and puked considerably, Randall was
sick and began to swell all round his body. He grew worse all night,
but continued to have his senses till the next day, when he died, and
left me to mourn my greater wretchedness,--more than 400 miles from
any settlement, no companion, the wide ocean on one side, and a
prowling wilderness on the other, liable to many kinds of death, more
terrible than being shot.
"I laid down by Randall's body, wishing, if possible, that he might
return and tell me what course to take.
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