1^6 AMSTERDAM ISLAND. 
cuit and rice ; but that, luckily for them, they had hitherto 
found an abundant supply in the different kinds of fish, birds, 
and eggs, which they dressed with the fresh oil of seals 
instead of butter. They all lived in one small miserable hut, 
as dirty and offensive as that of an Hottentot ; and it was 
surrounded on every side by the dead carcases of seals and 
sea-lions. The birds, they observed, had a strong fishy 
taste, to which, however, long habit had reconciled them : 
those that were the least so were the blue petrel and the 
little brown duck. They laboured under constant apprehen- 
sions of the scurvy making its appearance, for w^ant of some 
vegetable food to correct the humours which they supposed a 
fishy and oily diet must necessarily occasion ; and, indeed, it 
seems to furnish no weak proof of the healthiness of the 
climate, that five men, living together for five months under 
/ such circumstances, should have escaped every kind of dis- 
ease. They had prepared already about eight thousand skins, 
and expected before the return of the vessel to procure about 
twenty thousand more ; and as each person had a consider- 
able interest in the adventure, they expressed no desire to leave 
the island till the accomplishment of their undertaking. We 
left them a little vinegar and a few potatoes ; and our gar- 
deners planted some of the latter in those spots where there 
was the greatest depth of soil. 
These poor adventurers, as we have since been informed, 
met with a hard return for the great sacrifices they had been 
induced to make in the hope of gain. While we were in the 
northern parts of China, the Lion, in her passage to Canton, 
fell in with their little vessel ; and the report of hostilities be- 
