Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/429

Rh Spanish colours, might choose to go quite across with them. The iron, which most misled us, had undoubtedly been bought in Spanish America. Besides the botanist mentioned above, these ships were furnished with one or more draughtsmen, so that they have probably done some of our work for us.

21st. After petitioning and repetitioning the Council of the Indies, our affairs were at last settled, and orders given to heave down the ship with all expedition; so she this day went down to Kuyper, called by the English Cooper's Island, where a warehouse was allotted for her to lay up her stores, etc.

We now began sensibly to feel the ill effects of the unwholesome climate we were in. Our appetites and spirits were gone, but none were yet really sick except poor Tupia and Tayeto, both of whom grew worse and worse daily, so that I began once more to despair of poor Tupia's life. At last he desired to be moved to the ship, where, he said, he should breathe a freer air clear of the numerous houses, which he believed to be the cause of his disease, by stopping the free draught. Accordingly on the 28th I went down with him to Kuyper, and on his liking the shore had a tent pitched for him in a place he chose, where both sea and land breezes blew right over him, a situation in which he expressed great satisfaction.

The seamen now fell ill fast, so that the tents ashore were always full of sick. After a stay of two days I left Tupia well satisfied in mind, but not at all better in body, and returned to town, where I was immediately seized with a tertian, the fits of which were so violent as to deprive me entirely of my senses, and leave me so weak as scarcely to be able to crawl downstairs. My servants, Peter and James, were as bad as myself, and Dr Solander now felt the first attacks of the fever, but never having been in his lifetime once ill, resisted it, resolved not to apply to a physician. But the worst of all was Mr. Monkhouse, the ship's surgeon; he was now confined to his bed by a violent fever, which grew worse and worse notwithstanding all the efforts of the physician.