LONDON, AND VOYAGE TO SINGAPORE 307 



and observations on natural history, besides the three most 

 interesting years of my journal, the whole of which, unlike 

 any pecuniary loss, can never be replaced; so you will see 

 that I have some need of philosophic resignation to bear my 

 fate with patience and equanimity. 



" Day after day we continued in the boats. The winds 

 changed, blowing dead from the point to which we wanted to 

 go. We were scorched by the sun, my hands, nose, and ears 

 being completely skinned, and were drenched continually by 

 the seas or spray. We were therefore almost constantly wet, 

 and had no comfort and little sleep at night. Our meals con- 

 sisted of raw pork and biscuit, with a little preserved meat 

 or carrots once a day, which was a great luxury, and a short 

 allowance of water, which left us as thirsty as before directly 

 after we had drunk it. Ten days and ten nights we spent in 

 this manner. We were still two hundred miles from Bermuda, 

 when in the afternoon a vessel was seen, and by eight in the 

 evening we were on board her, much rejoiced to have escaped 

 a death on the wide ocean, whence none would have come to 

 tell the tale. The ship was the Jordeson, bound for London, 

 and proves to be one of the slowest old ships going. With a 

 favourable wind and all sail set, she seldom does more than 

 five knots, her average being two or three, so that we have 

 had a most tedious time of it, and even now cannot calculate 

 with any certainty as to when we shall arrive. Besides this, 

 she was rather short of provisions, and as our arrival exactly 

 doubled her crew, we were all obliged to be put on strict allow- 

 ance of bread, meat, and water. A little ham and butter of 

 the captain's were soon used up, and we have been now for 

 some time on the poorest of fare. We have no suet, butter, or 

 raisins with which to make ' duff/ or even molasses, and 

 barely enough sugar to sweeten our tea or coffee, which we 

 take with dry, coarse biscuit, and for dinner, beef or pork of 

 the very worst quality I have ever eaten or even imagined to 

 exist. This, repeated day after day without any variation, 

 beats even Rio Negro fare, rough though it often was. About 

 a week after we were picked up we spoke and boarded an out- 

 ward bound ship, and got from her some biscuits, a few 



