A voyage to the South Sea : $b Undertaken by command of His Majesty for the purpose of conveying the bread-fruit tree to the West Indies in His Majesty's ship the Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh; including an account of the mutiny on board the said ship and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew in the ship's boat from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East Indies — John Shaqi
A voyage to the South Sea : $b Undertaken by command of His Majesty for the purpose of conveying the bread-fruit tree to the West Indies in His Majesty's ship the Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh; including an account of the mutiny on board the said ship and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew in the ship's boat from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East IndiesBligh, William
History
A voyage to the South Sea : $b Undertaken by command of His Majesty for the purpose of conveying the bread-fruit tree to the West Indies in His Majesty's ship the Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh; including an account of the mutiny on board the said ship and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew in the ship's boat from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East Indies
Bligh, William
Bounty (Ship); Bounty Mutiny, 1789; Oceania -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Voyages and travels
On the 9th at noon we were in latitude 59 degrees 31 minutes south and
our longitude 76 degrees 58 minutes west, which is farther to the west
than we had yet been. The weather was now unfavourable again, blowing
strong from the westward with a high sea.
On the 10th we saw some fish which appeared spotted and about the size of
bonetos: these were the only fish we had seen in this high latitude.
Saturday 12.
The stormy weather continued with a great sea. The ship now began to
complain and required to be pumped every hour; which was no more than we
had reason to expect from such a continuance of gales of wind and high
seas. The decks also became so leaky that it was obliged to allot the
great cabin, of which I made little use except in fine weather, to those
people who had wet berths to hang their hammocks in, and by this means
the between decks was less crowded.
Every morning all the hammocks were taken down from where they hung, and
when the weather was too bad to keep them upon deck they were put in the
cabin; so that the between decks were cleaned daily and aired with fires
if the hatchways could not be opened. With all this bad weather we had
the additional mortification to find at the end of every day that we were
losing ground; for notwithstanding our utmost exertions and keeping on
the most advantageous tacks (which if the weather had been at all
moderate would have sufficiently answered our purpose) yet the greater
part of the time we were doing little better than drifting before the
wind.
Sunday 13.
Birds as usual were about the ship and some of them caught; and for the
first time since we left Staten Land we saw some whales. This morning,
owing to the violent motion of the ship, the cook fell and broke one of
his ribs, and another man, by a fall, dislocated his shoulder. The gunner
who had the charge of a watch was laid up with the rheumatism: and this
was the first sicklist that appeared on board the ship. The time of full
moon which was approaching made me entertain hopes that after that period
we should experience some change of wind or weather in our favour; but
the event did not at all answer our expectations. The latitude at noon
this day was 58 degrees 9 minutes south and longitude 76 degrees 1 minute
west.
As we caught a good many birds but which were all lean and tasted fishy
we tried an experiment upon them which succeeded admirably. By keeping
them cooped up and cramming them with ground corn they improved
wonderfully in a short time; so that the pintada birds became as fine as
ducks, and the albatrosses were as fat, and not inferior in taste to,
fine geese. Some of the latter birds were caught that measured seven feet
between the extremities of the wings when spread. This unexpected supply
came very opportunely; for none of our livestock remained except hogs,
the sheep and poultry not being hardy enough to stand the severity of the
weather.
Sunday 20.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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