Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/112

 (OA8'l 01 AU9TItAL1A. 91 Bay and,Cape Levtque, had produe.d the/r bad .#. ' effects upon the constitutions of our people. Every ,r, means were taken to prevent sickness: preserved ,, . meats were issued two days in the week in lieu of salt provisions; and this diet, with the usual proport/ons of lemon-juice and sugar, proved so good an ant/.scorbutic that, with a few trifling exceptions, no case of scurvy occurred. Our dry provisions had suffered much from rats and cock- roaches; but this was not the only way these vermin annoyed us, for, on opening a keg of musquebball cartridges, we found, out of 750 �rounds, more than half the number quite stroyed, and the remainder so injured as to be quite useless. The following day we made very little pro- gress, from light winds in the morning and a �dead calm the whole of the evening. At sunset we anchored at about four miles from the shore, in seventeen fathoms sandy ground. During the arnoon we were surrounded by an immense number of whales, leaping out of the water and thrashing the aea with their ; the noise of which, from the c!mness and' -perfect stillnmm of the air, was as loud as the re- port of a volley ofmnsquetry. Some remora were also swimming about the vessel the whole day, �and a snake about four feet long, of .a yellowiah

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