"As soon as our thirst was appeased, all of us began to feel ravenously hungry; the men, to my eyes, seeming by the looks they were casting at each other as if they would turn cannibals if no other proper food turned up. Glancing about the little glade where we were resting, I fortunately saw just by the side of the streamlet some lace-like leaves of a climbing plant which resembled very much what I knew in the West Indies as the water yam--a very good vegetable that serves the niggers there instead of our potato, and indeed some folks, myself included, like it better than that even, when roasted, with lots of butter on it.
"I told Jem of this; and he, fortunately having his knife with him slung on to the lanyard round his trouser band--he was the only one of us that had a weapon of any sort--at once began to dig about the roots of the plants, soon dragging out from the ground a large bulb something like an elongated beet-root. It was the water yam, sure enough. I recognised it the moment I looked at it, and I was glad that the leaf had attracted my attention; so, telling Jem it was all right, he at once sliced it up into six pieces and shared it out to us. I can't say it tasted nice, being raw; but it was something in the food line at any rate, and we ate it all ravenously, the same as we would have eaten the leather of our boots if we had any.
"Jem Magellan dug out three more yams, one of which he shared out in the same way and which was just as quickly demolished; but the two others he reserved for the next day, in case we should not chance to come across any more plants. Then, we had another good drink of water, which tasted not the less sweet the more we had of it; and as the sun was now setting we turned in for the night by the bank of the stream, intending to stay there a bit until we had recruited ourselves after all the exhausting privation and terribly hard work we had experienced in getting through the bush since quitting Cocoa-nut Bay, as we had christened the place we had come ashore from the wreck of the pinnace.
"Next morning we woke up more at our usual time aboard ship, soon after the sun rose, the rest and food and drink having refreshed us so greatly that we felt almost ourselves again; but we were still mighty hungry and polished off our two yams for breakfast in a brace of shakes, the men not listening to the injunctions of Magellan and myself that perhaps they would feel the want of them more before the day was out. Now they had had their ravenous cravings appeased, they thought they had come to the end of all their privations. Poor chaps, they and myself had to suffer a good deal more yet before we had quite done with Madagascar!