188 
SCARCITY OF FOOD. 
had such a merry heart, and was always able to 
influence them from his own exuberant spirits. 
But Marcus was not long of succumbing also to 
the depressing fever, and his attempts to dance, 
sing, and joke got rarer and rarer. Even the 
dogs were pitiable objects. They lost their hair 
and got thin too, and seemed scarcely able to 
drag their limbs along. 
When we first went we were very w T ell off for 
food. We took rice, coffee, tea, sugar, biscuits, 
and absolute necessities; and fowls, fish, fruit, 
and some vegetables we readily got. After 
about six ^weeks’ stay, however, the fowls in 
our village were nearly all consumed ; the 
natives had sufficient of our beads, cloths, &c., 
to be rather indifferent about more, so that they 
did not then care to go fishing with the set pur- 
pose of bringing food for us and exchanging it 
for some desired article ; they did not cultivate 
more Indian corn and sweet potatoes than suf- 
ficient for their own needs, and as such are the 
staples of their food, they could not part with 
what they had, and we were often very badly 
uir. 
We purchased in Macassar twelve dozens of 
barter-knives for ten rupees, and for one knife 
w^e used to get a fowl, or more often two fowls 
