very hard, and it was so in some respects; but it would have been well if this allowance had been continued, but from a quart we were speedily reduced to a pint; and in this parched condition were we kept till we reached the land, which was three weeks.

The reader may be inclined to think that this was no great hardship; but I hope you will not take it amiss, if I say that this shows your entire ignorance of the matter. Only consider for a moment, and you will, I am persuaded, come to a very different conclusion. Take for your dinner a salt herring, or a piece of beef that has been perhaps a twelvemonth in the brine, in a very hot summer day, having ate no breakfast beforehand, and try if you would find an English pint of water sufficient even for the afternoon; but what is a single day when the body is full of moisture? Continue this experiment for three weeks or a month, and I am fully satisfied you will change your tone.—Let me tell you, my dear reader, that I never knew the meaning of that passage of the Psalmist, "Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth," before that time; but after lying in my hammock, in the hallop deck, a few hours, (sleeping it could never be called,) amongst two hundred men and upwards, without, I may say, one breath of air, and when the heat was such as to melt the sealing wax I had in my chest—I say, after a person had remained in that state, and in such a place for a few hours, it was hardly possible to articulate a word. You will allow we must have been ill indeed before we could have chosen to be without any victuals cooked for us an entire fortnight. But this was literally the case in the mess to which I belonged. Some of these miserable creatures were so carried away by their intolerable thirst, as to draw up the salt water, in a tin pot, each anxiously waiting his turn to swallow the nauseous draught. This to be sure was making things worse. The consequence of all this was, we had at one time one hundred and thirty-two men on the doctor's list, with sea-scurvy and sores. You will think it strange that we could live at all after so long wanting victuals. I answer, we had a certain quantity of biscuit served out to us, all the colours of the rainbow; and I am sure the pint of water, which we had every day at twelve o'clock, would, from taste and smell, have turned the stomach of any person who had never known any thing of this extremity. A person possessed of the best eyes in the ship could not see to the bottom of a tea-cup full of it, had he got it to himself for his trouble, which would have been the greatest reward that could have been offered to him. You may think I am going to say too much, but I say it with a clear conscience, that in this state of torment I would have cheerfully suffered the pain of drowning, (but not to be drowned outright, mind ye,) for a bellyful of water; and often, in my troubled slumbers, did I imagine myself plunging and struggling in the waters of the Tweed, and I "dreamed, that behold I was drinking, but when I awoke, behold I was faint, and my soul had appetite." My dear reader, I pray to God that you may never experience this extremity, for the pain of hunger, which I have often felt, was pleasure itself compared with these sufferings.

  CHAPTER IV.

During this voyage, which was five months to a day, we observed land twice at a great distance, viz. the Cape of Good Hope, and the Island of Sumatra: we had six men died, and two fell over board. But the land which we so eagerly desired appeared upon our starboard bow upon the 13th of September, 1807. This island was formerly called Punang, but the modern name is, Prince of Wales' Island, and is situated at the straights of Malacca. The land has a very fine appearance when tolerably near, having a gentle declivity toward the sea, and mantled over with wood. But it was the water which we longed for, and the hope of which raised our spirits more than the view of the truly welcome scenery which we were approaching.

We remained on board of our respective ships until the 18th, when all were ordered ashore; the sick men (at least those who were very bad) to the general hospital, and the effective to the barracks. But we sent more men to the general hospital than all the rest of the fleet, which proves the bad consequences produced by scarcity of water; for all the rest of the ships had three times our quantity, exclusive of their having pease soup twice a week, which we were deprived of, from the want of water. We had to march about three miles before we came to the barracks, at the back of which there was a small rivulet; and you may easily suppose that we were no sooner dismissed from the ranks, than it was who to be first there, to enjoy once more the unspeakable luxury of fresh water. But this had none of the best effects, for the water being impregnated with the juice of the different kinds of sweet fruits that fell from the trees of the plantation through which it flowed, and our long abstinence, contributed not a little to bring on a severe flux, which cut off the men in great numbers. Our accommodation here was indeed very indifferent, and not at all what we expected from the idea of India which we had formed to ourselves, from what we were accustomed to hear when at home.

The barracks were very temporary, being entirely made from the cocoa-nut tree, and were divided into five rooms, or rather houses, clear from end to end, and containing each about one hundred and eighty men. The walls, or rather sides of these houses, were made by stakes driven into the ground, and were about nine feet high, and these stakes covered over with cocoa-nut leaves, spitted like candlewicks, and tied in horizontal rows, one over another from top to bottom. The roof was formed nearly as it is in this country, and covered with the same materials as the sides. And when it came to blow hard, which it frequently did, and these leaves gave way to the blast, the barracks had the appearance of waving corn in harvest. Our beds also were as temporary as our barracks, being also stakes driven into the ground, and spaked over from end to end like a horse's hack for holding hay, without any bedding whatever, even for the sick in the regimental hospital! It was therefore a happy thing for the men that brought their hammock and blanket ashore, for those who sold them to the bum-boats (that came along-side with fruit) were obliged to lie with their body clothes, upon these knotty bamboo spakes, which made them any thing but a comfortable place for repose.

We knew a great difference also of our provisions from what we had been accustomed to at home; for we were served out with buffalo beef, on which there was not to be seen a shred of fat; and rice was our substitute for bread. This was very well for the natives, who knew nothing else; but for men accustomed to the rich and substantial food of Europe, and particularly after the stomach had lost all relish by a wasting dysentery, it was very sorry fare, and made us incline to adopt the sentiments of the Israelites, and to long for the flesh pots of that land we had left.

We were a very few days here when the flux appeared amongst the men, and made very rapid progress. I also took this trouble, which increased upon me to a very great degree. I acknowledge myself to have acted a very imprudent part, in not reporting myself to the doctor sooner; but I was at last compelled to put my name into the sick list, when I was well told of my error; and as I was found to be in a dangerous condition, I was sent to the general hospital, where all the worst of our men were; for the medical officers there were better acquainted with the nature of this disease, and the accommodation was also much better for the men. The manner in which the sick are conveyed in this country, is as follows:—The person is put into what is called a doolie, which is nearly in the form of one of the small houses or boxes used in Scotland for watch-dogs, being about six feet long, and three deep. In the middle of each side there is a door to go