One can easily imagine with whose opinions Perry sympathized, as he read the documents in the case. Perry never even suspected that religion and science needed any reconciliation, both being to him forms of the same duty of man. In narrating the actual occurrences at Bissas, the surgeon showed that most of Perry’s hygienic rules had been systematically broken. The _Preble_, for thirteen days, was anchored within a quarter of a mile of the shore, exposed to the exhalations of a bank of mud left bare by the ebb-tide and exposed to the rays of a vertical sun. At night, the men were allowed to sleep out on deck with the miasma-laden breezes from the swamps blowing over them. While painting the ship, the crew were exposed to the sun’s glare. They were sent day and night to assist the garrison of Bissas, and, in two cases, returned from sporting excursions fatigued and wet. The first case of fever began on the 5th, and the disease was fully developed in fourteen days. The sad results of the visit of the _Preble_ up the miasmatic river were soon manifest in scores of dead. Perry’s grief at the loss of so many valuable lives was as keen as his vexation was great, because it was unnecessary and inexcusable. In two other instances also the energy and promptness of the Commodore proved the saving of many lives. One of our ships put into Porto Praya, with African fever on board and short of water. The water of Porto Praya, being unfit for sick persons, Perry at once supplied her tanks from the flag-ship. Then quickly sailing to Porto Grande, he returned promptly with fresh relief for the stricken men. Another vessel being short of medicines, the Commodore proceeded with the flag-ship to the French settlement of Goree, immediately returning with quinine. His celerity at once checked the death list and multiplied convalescents. Within the cruising ground prescribed for the African squadron, it was found that there was not a suitably enclosed burial place for the officers and sailors who might die. Men-of-war and merchant sailors had been thrown overboard or buried in different spots here, there, and everywhere, on beaches just above high water mark, on arid plains and on barren bluffs. So prevalent was the refusal, by Portuguese, of the rites of burial to Protestant sailors, that it was their custom to have a cross tattooed on their arms so that when dead they might get sepulture.