The Malay Archipelago, Volume 2 _ The Land - Alfred Russel Wallace

but this time they had succeeded and brought with them my two lost men, in
tolerable health, though thin and weak. They had lived exactly a month on the
island had found water, and had subsisted on the roots and tender flower-stalks
of a species of Bromelia, on shell-fish and on a few turtles' eggs. Having swum
to the island, they had only a pair of trousers and a shirt between them, but had
made a hut of palm-leaves, and had altogether got on very well. They saw that I
waited for them three days at the opposite island, but had been afraid to cross,
lest the current should have carried them out to sea, when they would have been
inevitably lost. They had felt sure I would send for them on the first opportunity,
and appeared more grateful than natives usually are for my having done so;
while I felt much relieved that my voyage, though sufficiently unfortunate, had
not involved loss of life.