In the Sargasso Sea by Thomas A. Janvier

The steamer that I had come aboard of proved to be French; and that she had not long been abandoned I knew by finding an abundance of ice in her cold-room and a great deal of fresh meat there too. Had she been manned by a stiff-necked crew she would not have been abandoned at all. She had been in collision, and her bow-compartment was full of water; but the water had not got aft of her foremast, and except that she was down by the head a little she was not much the worse for her bang. That her captain had tried to carry on after the accident was shown by the sail that had been set in place very snugly over her smashed bows; and I greatly wondered why he had given up the fight, until I found -- getting a look at her stern from one of the wrecks lying near her -- that her screw was gone. This second accident evidently had been too much for her people and they had taken to the boats and left her. But I think that an English or an American crew would have stood by her, and would have succeeded in getting her towed into port -- or even would have brought her in under her own sails. She was called the _Ville de Saint Remy_, and was a fine boat of about five thousand tons.

All that I had hoped to find aboard of her in the way of comforts and luxuries was there, and more too. Indeed, if a good bed, and the best of food, and excellent wines and tobacco, had been all that I wanted I very well might have settled myself on the _Ville de Saint Remy_ for the balance of my days. But I almost resented the luck which had brought me all these things -- for which I had been longing so keenly but a few hours before -- because I did not find with them what I desired still more earnestly: the means that would enable me to get away seaward and leave them all behind. What such means would be, it is only fair to add, I could not imagine; at least, I could not imagine anything at all reasonable -- for the only thing I could think of that would carry me out across that weed-covered ocean to open water was a balloon.