INTRODUCTORY 9 



of the voyage, and serious were the 'anticipations that the stock of 

 water would give out in the long voyage through the sweltering 

 equatorial region to Kio Janeiro. 



This picturesque port was not reached until the evening of the 

 4th of August, fifty-five days after leaving Teneriffe, and the inter- 

 vening ocean was not passed over without some difficulties, and 

 much discomfort from the heat and overcrowding. A month 

 before reaching Bio it had been found necessary to put all hands 

 on an allowance of three pints of water per day for all purposes 

 a quantity manifestly insufficient with a diet of salt provisions 

 within the tropical region. As instancing the disregard for ordinary 

 sanitary measures which then distinguished the mercantile marine, 

 it is related by Surgeon White that on the 18th of July he was sig- 

 nalled for to visit the Alexander on account of a violent outbreak 

 of alarming sickness that affected convicts and crew alike. On 

 proceeding to investigate the cause, he at once pronounced it to 

 be due to the neglect which had allowed the foul bilge water to 

 accumulate. To use his own words : "It had risen so high that 

 the panels of the cabin and the buttons of the officers' uniforms 

 had turned black from the noxious exhalations ". When the 

 hatches were removed the stench was overpowering, but in a couple 

 of days, when the ship had been pumped dry, the feverish epidemic 

 entirely disappeared. 



The loose behaviour of the female convicts was a source of 

 continual disquietude to the good surgeon, who found it impossible 

 to allow them the least latitude without demoralising the crews 

 and subverting discipline. Their confinement below in the hot 

 weather developed all kinds of hysterical outbreaks and successions 

 of fainting fits, but if the gratings were removed they were soon in 

 mischief, and sailors and marines were continually being had up 

 for punishment on their account Finally it became absolutely 

 necessary to insist on locking them below, except for the specified 

 hours of exercise on deck under surveillance, but they resented this 

 so strongly as actually to break down a most substantial bulkhead 

 that separated their quarters from the forecastle. 



Wind sails were rigged through every hatch, and all that was 

 understood of ventilation in those days was resorted to; but for 



