Read "In the Sargasso Sea" by Thomas A. Janvier online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The morning was well spent by the time that I had made my mind up, and I was growing hungry again. I made a good meal on what was left in the second tin of beans that I had opened for my breakfast; and when I was done I tried to get a light for my pipe by rubbing bits of wood together, but made nothing of it at all. I had read about castaways on desert islands getting fire that way -- but they went at it with dry wood, I fancy, and in my mist-sodden desert all the wood was soaked with damp.
For that afternoon I decided to go forward only as far as I could fetch it to be back on board the barque again by sunset, taking with me as many tins of beans as I could carry and leaving them where I made my turn: by which arrangement I would save the carriage of my supper and my breakfast, and would have a little store of victuals to fall back upon -- when I should be fairly started on my journey -- without coming all the way again to the barque.