XV.] DEATH OF THE BOATSWAIN. 353 



{Nasiterna fygmccct), hardly larger than the species figured on page 

 297. Both the King-bird and Lesser Bird of Paradise were in 

 the collection, the former being tolerably abundant, but neither the 

 Seleucides nor the Ptiloris, or Papuan Eitle-bird, had been obtained, 

 and there is very little doubt that the former bird does not exist 

 upon the island. 



We paid the men of the prau, giving to each a knife, an axe, a 

 sarong, a coloured handkerchief, and a small roll of blue cloth, and 

 towards midnight of the same day sailed for Batchian, being able 

 to make our way out of the harbour in the dark, thanks to the 

 rough chart we had pre^dously made of it. 



Our voyage was saddened by an unlooked-for event. On the 

 11th December our boatswain, Samuel Scarff, of whom I have 

 made mention on a previous page, died of scurvy. He had been 

 ailing for some little time, but had only sought ad^dce about three 

 weeks before. In spite of everything that could be done for him, 

 he got gradually w^eaker from day to day, and sank rapidly at the 

 end. The disease was almost typical from its onset, except perhaps 

 in the rapidity of its course. 



I had always considered, in common, no doubt, with the 

 majority of physicians, that scurvy was pre-eminently the pre- 

 ventible disease, and that — given the necessary antidotes — no case 

 of it should ever prove fatal. Yet here, in a well-fovmd yacht, 

 which had left a regular port (Banda) but ten days, and another 

 (Amboina) — at which a week's stay had been made — only fourteen, 

 we had evidence that this rule is not an invariable one. There are 

 certain cases of the so-called " land-scurvy " in which antiscorbutics 

 are of little or no avail, and the disease appears to progress steadily 

 towards a fatal termination. Ovir poor shipmate's case, which was 

 an isolated one, seemed to be much of this nature, and the vegetable 

 diet which we were able to give him was of no efiicacy whatever, 

 although adopted from the very onset of the disease. I have been 

 led to mention the occurrence as we are perhaps rather too prone 

 to regard lime-juice as absolutely prophylactic, and to attach blame 

 VOL. II. 2 A 



