388 
PROVISIONS STOLEN. 
On the 21st, I was seized again with illness. 
The overseer continued to be affected also, and we 
were quite unable to make the necessary prepara- 
tions for our journey to the westward, which I fully 
intended to have commenced to-morrow. For 
several hours we were in the greatest agony, and 
could neither lie down, sit up, nor stand, except 
with extreme pain. Towards the afternoon the 
violence of the symptoms abated a little, but we were 
exceedingly weak. 
April 22. — Upon weighing the meat this morning, 
which as usual was left out upon the strings at night, 
I discovered that four pounds had been stolen by 
some of the boys, whilst we were sleeping. Iliad 
suspected that our stock was diminishing rapidly for 
a day or two past, and had weighed it overnight 
that I might ascertain this point, and if it were so, 
take some means to prevent it for the future. With 
so little food to depend upon, and where it was so 
completely in the power of any one of the party, to 
gratify his own appetite at the expense of the others, 
during their absence, or when they slept, it became 
highly necessary to enforce strict honesty towards 
each other ; I was much grieved to find that the 
meat had been taken by the natives, more 
particularly as their daily allowance had been so 
great. We had, moreover, only two days’ supply of 
the meat left for the party, and being about to com- 
mence the long journey before us, it was important 
to economise our provisions to support us under the 
