TORTURED BY INSECTS. 



439 



loads of cocoanuts and a large quantity of scurvy-grass. After 

 discovering and naming Prince of Wales' and Duke of York's 

 Islands, Byron bore away for the Ladrones, a month's sail to 

 the west. 



In due time, and after a voyage accomplished without incident, 

 the two vessels arrived at the Ladrone island of Tinian, already 

 famous from the glowing description given of it by Lord Anson. 

 They anchored not far from the spot where the Centurion had lain, 

 and in water so clear that they could see the bottom at the depth 

 of one hundred and forty-four feet. Byron gives a very different 

 account of the island from that furnished by Anson, — a fact attri-. 

 butable to the circumstance that he visited it during the rainy 

 season. The undergrowth in the woods was so thick, he says, 

 that they could not see three yards before them: the meadows 

 were covered with stubborn reeds higher than their heads, and 

 which cut their legs like whipcord. Every time they spoke 

 they inhaled a mouthful of flies. In the Centurion's well they 

 found water that was brackish and full Of worms. Centipedes 

 bit and scorpions bled. The ships rolled at anchor as never 

 ships rolled before. The rains were incessant. The heat was 

 suffocating, being only nine degrees less than the heat of the 

 blood at the heart. Anson's cattle were very shy; for it took 

 six men three days and three nights to capture and kill a 

 bullock, whose flesh, when dragged home to the tents, invariably 

 proved to be fly-blown and useless. 



After a stay of nine weeks at Tinian, Byron weighed anchor 

 on the 30th of September, with a cargo of two thousand cocoa- 

 nuts. On the 5th of October, he touched at the Malay island 

 of Timoan. The inhabitants were inclined to drive hard bar- 

 gains and to part with as few provisions as possible. They were 

 even offended at the sailors hauling the seine and taking fish 

 upon their coast. Leaving this ungenerous island, they met 

 with a fortnight of light winds, dead calms, and violent tor- 

 nadoes, accompanied with rain, thunder, and lightning. On the 



