So then we went about begging and borrowing empty bottles everywhere, without letting anybody know for what we wanted them, and we piled them up in our bunks so that we could scarcely get into them; then people, when they saw what we were after, put a price on the bottles and came to us to sell. So Thorkill bought five shillings' worth on my recommendation, all the money he had, and still they came with bottles, but the firm was compelled to suspend payment. Then I, who was understood to know a little English, opened a class for teaching that language. My pupils had no money, but I took it out in empty bottles, and by and by we had them stacked by the hundred all round about ready for market. The food we got was so wretched and insufficient that it was scarcely possible to keep body and soul together upon it. I have asked many people since how they fared in other ships, and I have come to the conclusion that our ship was the worst provided of any in that respect. Indeed, the emigrant ships which leave England are well supplied with everything, even luxuries, for their passengers. But in this ship we were sometimes on the point of despair with hunger. We got our week's supply of biscuits served out once a week. Those who were unable to practise self-restraint, generally ate them in a couple of days, and for the rest of the week subsisted on the so-called dinner which consisted of a couple of mouthfuls of salt pork or mutton, with a little sauer-krout to keep it company. Our ration of sugar was a small table-spoonful per week to each man. The tea and coffee we got morning and evening was served in the same wooden trough in which we fetched our dinner, and as the sugar ration was, as already stated, served separately once a week and quickly consumed, our beverage was void of any sweetening. But as for me, I never fooled about all the week with my spoonful of sugar; I always put it into the first pint of tea I got. We also got some butter, and we never troubled much either about the quantity or quality of that article. The trouble was that we had seldom a biscuit to spread it on. The prospectus had said that cordials were served out, and in conformity with that every sixteen men received one bottle of lime-juice per week. These were our rations. There was on that account an amount of dissatisfaction on board verging sometimes on open mutiny. The water was also fearfully bad, with inches of froth on it, but bad as it was, we would drink it as soon as we got it and then feel like dying of thirst sometimes before the time came to serve out the next rations. As a sort of proof of the correctness of this statement, I might mention that one of the passengers had a canary bird which died of thirst because some of us would steal the drop of water in its glass!