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.