196 Memoir of Charles Alexander Lcsiieur. 



squall, and the Geographe continued her route alone to the straits 

 of Banks and Bass, and thence to the survey of the extensive 

 region which lies on the southern part of the continent, between 

 Port Western and Nuyts' Archipelago : a country named, by the 

 geographers of the expedition, Terre Napoleon, on the supposi- 

 tion that they were the first to explore it, not being aware, at the 

 time, that Captains Grant and Flinders had already explored a 

 considerable part of it.* 



The accidents and risks, which generally attend a voyage in 

 unknown seas, were fully experienced by our navigators; but 

 dangers, quite as formidable, presented themselves in other forms, 

 those of want and disease. The scurvy, which had succeeded 

 to the dysentery, pervaded the ship, to an alarming extent. " Al- 

 ready," says Peron, n several men had been consigned to the 

 deep; already more than half of our crew were incapable of any 

 duty ; and of our helmsmen, two alone could keep the deck. 

 The progress of this epidemic was frightful. Could it be other- 

 wise ? Three-fourths of a bottle of fetid water was our daily 

 ration ; during more than a year we had not tasted wine ; we had 

 not a drop of brandy ; and in lieu of these liquors, so indispens- 

 able to European seamen, especially in voyages like ours, we 

 were allowed but three-sixteenths of a bottle per man of the de- 

 testable rum distilled at the Isle of France, and which there the 

 negroes alone make use of. Our biscuit was full of insects; all 

 our salt provisions were rotten, to the full extent of the term; 

 and so offensive were these meats, that the most hungry sailors, 

 refusing to partake of them, sometimes, even in the presence of 

 the commander, threw their rations into the sea. In short, there 

 were no refreshments of any kind. And those consolations, on 

 the part of authority, so grateful to the feelings of all, so condu- 

 cive to the alleviation of the most painful privations — these also 

 were wanting. The officers and the naturalists, reduced to a 

 similar allowance with the men, had equal pains to endure both 

 of body and mind." 



Winter had now set in, and it became evident that any farther 

 attempts at discovery, at that period, would be abortive, in conse- 

 quence of their deplorable state. Relief being absolutely neces- 

 sary, all sail was made for Van Diemens Land ; and the ship an- 

 chored, on the 20th of May, in Adventure Bay, on the eastern 

 coast of Bruny island, for the purpose of procuring wood and 

 water. A supply being obtained, she departed for New South 

 Wales. Their condition at this time, may be imagined, when it 

 is-stated that not a single person was exempt from the scurvy. 



* Capt, Grant, of the Lady Nelson, tod discovered the en era part, from West- 



rn Tort to the longitu H0£°, in the year 1800, before the French ships sailed 

 from Europe; and on the west 1 had explored the co; > and i>l. U from Niryt.^ 

 Land to Cape Jems in 1 W.—FUmhrs. vol. i, 191. 





