COASTS OF AUSTRALIA. 
345 
pose on the east side of Sydney Cove; and, 1820. 
whilst undergoing her repair, the crew lived on June 12. 
board a hulk hired for the occasion. This offered 
so favourable an opportunity for destroying the 
rats and cockroaches with which she was com- 
pletely overrun, a measure that, from the ex- 
perience of our last voyage, was considered ab- 
solutely necessary for our comfort as well as for 
our personal safety, that, as soon as the operation 
of coppering and caulking was finished, she was 
secured along-side of the hulk, and there im- 
mersed in the water for several days, by which 
process we hoped effectually to destroy them. 
Upon the vessel being raised and the water 
pumped out, I was rejoiced to find that the mea- 
sure appeared to have had the desired effect; 
but, before we left Port Jackson, she was again 
infested by rats, and we had not been long at 
sea before the cockroaches also made their ap- 
pearance in great numbers. In sinking the cutter 
it seemed, in respect to the insects, that we had 
only succeeded in destroying the living stock, and 
that the eggs, which were plentifully deposited in 
the recesses and cracks of the timbers and sides, 
proved so impervious to the sea-water, that no 
sooner had we reached the warmer climate, than 
they were hatched, and the vessel was quickly 
repossessed by them; but it was many months 
