Some months passed, and the island remained unvisited; and the whole story of that time is one of incompetence, laziness, sickness, and starvation. Stores failed; while food procurable on the island only consisted of turtles, turtles' eggs, fish, and coconuts. The settlers were, besides, suffering from dysentery, fever, and other complaints, brought on by an unaccustomed mode of life, in dwellings that were mere hovels, and subjection to the inclemency of the rainy season. Their spirits became depressed, and despair succeeding discontent, they were more like an unfortunate shipwrecked party than immigrants who had landed to make a new home. Several of the colonists fell a prey to despondency, that in some cases amounted almost to mental derangement. Some of them died, and those who were rescued from that fate were brought away from the island in an utter state of destitution, emaciated in body and almost silly in intellect. On October 29 the remaining settlers--of whom seven had died--were taken off, and reconveyed to Moulmein by the Company's ship _Proserpine_.[99] In 1855, measures were proposed at Calcutta--for the Andamans were then an appanage of the East India Company--for the repression of the outrages practised by the Andamanese on those crews shipwrecked on their shores, and two years later--on the conclusion of the Mutiny--it was determined that a penal settlement should once more be established in the group; thus combining a headquarters, from whence the pacification of the aborigines might be undertaken, with an abode of punishment for such mutineers and others whose offences had not merited the death penalty. It was at this date that Dr F. J. Mouat, who has given an account of his visit in _Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders_, was sent, as head of a Commission, to examine the islands and select a suitable locality for the establishment of a penal settlement. The Commission spent about three weeks steaming about the coasts of the Archipelago, and finally decided on Old Harbour, to which they gave the name of Port Blair, in honour of its former resident. A rather amusing incident occurred during the visit:--A nervous and imaginative member of an exploring party brought news of the proximity of a native village and a lurking body of aborigines. The doctor, without waiting for further information, or to be attacked, addressed his followers in a warlike speech, and gave the order to charge, which the company forthwith did with such vigour that two fiery spirits were knocked senseless by contact with burnt tree-stumps--a number of which the party had mistaken for natives. The expedition had, however, several serious conflicts with the aborigines, in which a few of the latter were killed.