SOUTHERN AFRICA. 175 
in time of war, constitute frequently more than two-tliirds of 
the crew. These poor creatures, whose chief sustenance is 
rice, oil, and vegetables, are ill calculated to suffer a long 
privation of their usual diet, and still less so to bear the cold 
of the southern oceaia, especially in the winter season. By 
them the Cape was looked up to as a half-way house, where 
a stock of fresh supplies was to be had, and where the delay 
of a few days had a wonderful effect in recruiting their health 
and spirits. And the event very soon shewed that such a half- 
way house, to such people, was indispensably necessary; for the 
Directors were obliged to countermand their order as far as it 
regarded those ships that were navigated by the black natives 
of India. 
Whenever it has happened that government was under the 
necessity of sending out troops in ships navigated by Lascars, 
a greater degree of sickness and mortality has prevailed than 
in ships entirely manned by Europeans ; and under such cir- 
cumstances it would be highly criminal to attempt to run 
from Europe to India without stopping at some intermediate 
port, not only to procure refreshments for the troops and 
Lascars, but to clean and fumigate the ships in order to pre- 
vent contagious diseases. The two Boy regiments, as they 
are usually called, the 22d and 34th, which it was necessary 
to send to the Cape as a reinforcement of the garrison, after 
the able and effective men had been sent away to Madras, 
who soon after so materially assisted in the conquest of 
Seringapatam, arrived in a dreadful state at the Cape ; the 
disease had gained such a height, that if the Cape had not 
at that time been in our possession it was universally be- 
