Language can not describe the awful change that a few weeks of dire
suffering had wrought in the minds of the wretched and pitiable
beings. Those who one month before would have shuddered and sickened
at the thought of eating human flesh, or of killing their companions
and relatives to preserve their own lives, now looked upon the
opportunity the acts afforded them of escaping the most dreadful of
deaths as providential interference in their behalf.
Calculations were coldly made, as they sat around their gloomy camp
fires, for the next succeeding meals. Various expedients were
devised to prevent the dreadful crime of murder, but they finally
resolved to kill those who had least claims to longer existence.
Just at this moment some of them died, which afforded the rest
temporary relief. Some sank into the arms of death cursing God for
their miserable fate, while the last whisperings of others were
prayers and songs of praise to the Almighty. After the first few
deaths, but the one all-absorbing thought of individual
self-preservation prevailed. The fountains of natural affection
were dried up. The chords that once vibrated with connubial,
parental, and filial affection were torn asunder, and each one
seemed resolved, without regard to the fate of others, to escape
from impending calamity.
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