about nine o'clock in the morning
I next experimented with my makeshift paddle , and although the hatch proved so terribly crank that I was several times in imminent danger of capsizing by the mere sway of my body from side to side , I presently acquired the trick of keeping my balance , and found , to my great delight , that I could actually progress , although only slowly and at the cost of great exertion . Strangely enough , I had not thus far suffered very greatly from thirst , although something like eighteen hours had elapsed since the last draught had passed my lips ; but my sense of hunger was by this time painfully acute . I had no means , however , of satisfying my gnawing craving for food , and I , therefore , addressed myself to the task of paddling my tiny raft shoreward , fully convinced that the only hope of saving my life lay in reaching the land before the scanty remains of my strength became exhausted . I estimated , from the height of the sun above the horizon , that it was about nine o'clock in the morning when I fairly started upon my shoreward voyage , and the exasperating slowness with which I drew away from the rest of the wreckage caused me to put my speed through the water at not more than a mile an hour at the utmost , while the grey misty appearance of the land for which I was making convinced me that it must be at least twenty miles distant ; I had , therefore , something like another twenty-four hours of continuous laborious paddling before me before I might once more hope to feel the solid earth beneath my feet , and find something -- were it no more than a little wild fruit -- wherewith to stay my hunger . But this was not all : the skin of my hands had become so exceedingly soft and tender through long immersion in the water that the sharp edges of the board which I was using as a paddle quickly caused them to blister , and although I paused long enough in my labours to enable me to trim those sharp edges away with my knife , and to work the board into somewhat more convenient shape , the blistering process continued until within about an hour my palms were quite raw , and smarting most atrociously from the salt in the water . Moreover , I had lost my hat , and the sun struck down so fiercely upon my unprotected head that I was soon nearly delirious with headache and the throbbing of my old wound , received in the attack upon the pirate brigantine on the Costa Firme . Still , headache or no headache , blisters or no blisters , there was the land , yet a long distance off , and it had to be reached before my strength gave out , or my life would pay the forfeit ; so I set my teeth and paddled doggedly on , hour after hour , my hunger ever growing keener , while now I began to experience in addition the torments of thirst , my whole body became racked with aches and pains as though I had been unmercifully bruised and beaten , my head throbbed until it seemed as if it would burst open , and , as for my hands , they at length felt as though the rough paddle were white-hot iron ; I had certainly never in all my life before experienced such a complication of agonising pains .