Page:History of Botany-Bay.pdf/16

( 16 ) girls, of five or six years of age, wanting these two joints, and several married women whose fingers were all perfect. Paterson, in his travels through Africa, says, he met with a tribe of Hottentots, all of whom wanted a joint of the little finger; the reaction they gave, was, that it was a cure for a certain disease, to which they were when young.

When the plan of the settlement was first projected, it was apprehended, that the stores sent from England, together with the produce of the country, would be sufficient for the support of the people, till they should receive a further supply; but the eatable vegetable productions being scarce, the animal productions not abounding in that degree as was imagined, and the fisheries proving unsuccessful, they were, in consequence, reduced to an allowance of two ounces of meat a day; and fresh provisions became scarcer than in a blockaded town. The little live-stock, which, at so much expence, and with so many difficulties, had been brought on shore, prudence forbade the use of; and fish, which, for a short time, had been tolerably plenty, were now scarce, and had it not been for a stray kanguroo, which now and then fell in the way, they would, in general, have had no fresh food. No wonder then that the scurvy began its usual ravages, and extended its baneful influence