CASE OF CAPTAIN KENNEDY. 51 
yawl. Tossed about with hardly any provisions, 
they at last reached the Bay of Honduras. " It 
may," says he, " appear very remarkable, that 
though I had neither tasted food, nor drank, 
for eight days, I did not feel the sensations of 
hunger and thirst. On the fourteenth day, 
my drought often required me to gargle my 
throat with salt water. On the 10th of Janu- 
ary, 1769, we arrived at St. George's Quay 
in a very languid state, having then lost six 
out of the thirteen in the course of about twenty 
days. I cannot conclude without making mention 
of the great advantage I received from soaking 
my clothes twice a-day in salt-water, and putting 
them on without wringing. It was a considerable 
time before I could make the people comply 
with this measure ; though, from seeing the good 
effect it produced, they afterwards, of their 
own accord, practised it twice a-day. To this 
discovery I may with justice attribute the pre- 
servation of my own life, and that of six other 
persons, who must have perished but for its 
being put in use. 
" This hint was first communicated to me from 
the perusal of a treatise written by Dr. Lind, and 
which, I think, ought to be commonly under- 
stood, and recommended to all sea-faring people. 
So very great advantage did we derive from this 
practice, that the violent drought went off, and the 
parched tongue was cured in a few minutes, after 
bathing and washing our clothes: at the same 
time, we found ourselves as much refreshed 
as if we had received some actual nourish- 
ment.'* 
