244 TRAVELS IN 
and the bad provisions laid in for the peopJe, are all against 
a long continued voyage. The mortality that sometimes 
' prevails on board their Indiamen, even on short passages, is 
almost incredible. Mr. Thunberg informs us, and his vera- ' 
city may be depended on, that the mortality on board the 
ship which carried him to the Cape, after a voyage of three 
months and a half from the Texel, amounted to one hundred 
and fifteen ; that three other ships in the same fleet suffered 
still more in proportion to their crews, the Hocnkoop having 
buried one hundi ed and fifty-eight ; the Willimn Vih two hun- 
dred and thirty ; and the Jonge Samuel of Zeeland one hundred 
and three men ! 
It may be considered, indeed, as next to a physical impos- 
sibility for a Dutch ship to run from the Texel to Batavia 
without stopping. The possession we held of their old half- 
way house, the Cape, was so severe a blow to their navigation 
in the Eastern Seas, that, after the capture of Lucas's fleet in 
Saldanha Bay, there was not, in the course of five years, a 
single Dutch ship of any description that ventured to the 
southward of the line. The convenience of refreshing at the 
Cape is absolutely necessary to, and inseparably connected 
with, the Dutch trade to India. The Spaniards and Portu- 
gueze are equally averse to long passages, without refreshing, 
as the French and Dutch. The Danes, the Swedes, and 
Americans less so, because their provisions, in general, are 
more wholesome, and their ships more cleanly : yet, to all 
these, an intermediate port is always considered as an object 
worthy of attention. 
