SEPT. 1769 CONDITION OF SHIP’S PROVISIONS 181 
good, little, if at all, inferior in taste to fresh lemon juice. 
We also to-day made a pie of the North American apples 
which Dr. Fothergill had given me, and which proved very 
good; if not quite equal to the apple pies which our friends 
in England are now eating, good enough to please us who 
have been so long deprived of the fruits of our native country. 
In the main, however, we are very well off for refreshments 
and provisions of most sorts. Our ship’s beef and pork are 
excellent; peas, flour, and oatmeal are at present, and have 
been in general, very good; our water is as sweet and 
has rather more spirit than it had when drank out of the 
river at Otahite; our bread, indeed, is but indifferent, occa- 
sioned by the quantity of vermin that are in it. I have 
often seen hundreds, nay, thousands, shaken out of a single 
biscuit. We in the cabin have, however, an easy remedy for 
this, by baking it in an oven, not too hot, which makes them 
all walk off; but this cannot be allowed to the ship’s people, 
who must find the taste of these animals very disagreeable, 
as they every one taste as strong as mustard, or rather 
spirits of hartshorn. They are of five kinds, three Tenebrio, 
one Péinus, and the Phalangium canchroides ; this last, how- 
ever, is scarce in the common bread, but vastly plentiful in 
white meal biscuits, as long as we had any left. 
Wheat has been boiled for the breakfasts of the ship’s 
company two or three times a week, in the same manner as 
frumenty is made. This has, I believe, been a very useful 
refreshment to them, as well as an agreeable food, which I 
myself and most of the officers in the ship have constantly 
breakfasted upon in the cold weather. The grain was origin- 
ally of a good quality, and has kept without the least damage. 
This, however, cannot be said of the malt, of which we have 
plainly had two kinds, one very good, which was used up 
some time ago. What we are at present using is good for 
nothing at all; it was originally of a bad light grain, and 
so little care has been taken in making it that the tails are 
left in with innumerable other kinds of dirt; add to all 
this that it has been damped on board ship; so that, with all 
the care that can be used, it will scarce give a tincture to 
