Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/91

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and chapters of the Koran. As they have no priest among them, they cannot partake of any other acts of worship.

The slaves belonging to the company, who amount to several hundreds, are lodged and boarded in a spacious house erected for that purpose, where they are likewise kept at work. Another great building serves as an hospital for the sailors belonging to the Dutch East-India ships, which touch here, and commonly have prodigious numbers of sick on board, on their voyage from Europe towards India. The vast number of men, sometimes six, seven, or eight hundred, which these ships carry out to supply the military in India, the small room to which they are confined, and the short allowance of water and salt provision, they receive on a long voyage through the torrid zone, generally make considerable havock among them: it is therefore no uncommon circumstance at the Cape, that a ship on her passage thither from Europe, loses eighty or a hundred men, and sends between two