N 



MEASUKING KATIONS. 527 



nut-milk and two ounces of the meat. One half of the men 

 watched while the other half slept with nothing to cover them 

 but the heavens. They could not stretch out their limbs, for 

 there was not room : they became dreadfully cramped, and at 

 last the dangers and pains of sleep were such that it became an 

 additional misery in their catalogue of sorrows. A heavy thun- 

 der-shower enabled them to quench their thirst for the first time 

 and to increase their stock of water to thirty-four gallons ; but, 

 in compensation, it wet them through and caused them to pass 

 a cold and shivering night. The next day the sun came out, 

 and they stripped and dried their clothes. Bligh thought the 

 men needed additional creature comfort under these dismal cir- 

 cumstances, and issued to each an ounce and a half of pork, 

 an ounce of bread, a teaspoonful of rum, and half a pint of 

 cocoanut-milk. They kept a fishing-line towing from the stern ; 

 but in no one instance did they catch a fish. 



Bligh now became convinced that in serving ounces of bread 

 by guess-work he was dealing out overmeasure, and that if he 

 continued to do so his stores would not last the eight weeks he 

 had intended they should. So he made a pair of scales of two 

 cocoanut-sbells, and, having accidentally found a pistol-ball, 

 twenty-five of which were known to weigh a pound, or sixteen 

 ounces, he adopted it as the measure of one ration of bread. 

 The men were thus reduced from one ounce to two hundred and 

 seventy-two grains. Another thunder-shower now came on, and 

 they caught twenty gallons of water. The usual consolation 

 of a thimbleful of rum was served when the storm was over, 

 together with one mouthful of pork. The men soon began to 

 complain of pains in the bowels ; and nearly all had lost in a 

 measure the use of their limbs. Their clothes would not dry 

 when taken off and hung upon the rigging, so impregnated was 

 the atmosphere with moisture. On the fifteenth day they dis- 

 covered a number of islands, which, though forming part of 

 the group of the New Hebrides, had been seen neither by Cook 



