be unfit for use: Nor was this the
worst, for the fatigue of the men in bringing down the carcase, and the
intolerable heat they suffered from the climate and the labour,
frequently brought on fevers which laid them up.[43] Poultry however we
procured upon easier terms: There was great plenty of birds, and they
were easily killed; but the flesh of the best of them was very
ill-tasted, and such was the heat of the climate that within an hour
after they were killed it was as green as grass, and swarmed with
maggots. Our principal resource for fresh meat was the wild hog, with
which the island abounds. These creatures are very fierce, and some of
them so large that a carcase frequently weighed two hundred pounds. We
killed them without much difficulty, but a black belonging to the Tamar
contrived a method to snare them, so that we took great numbers of them
alive, which was an unspeakable advantage; for it not only ensured our
eating the flesh while it was sweet, but enabled us to send a good
number of them on board as sea-stores.

[Footnote 43: "But we had cast anchor on the wrong side of the island,
and, to our great disappointment, found cattle very scarce," &c. &c.]

In the mean time we were very desirous of procuring some beef in an
eatable state, with less risk and labour, and Mr Gore, one of our mates,
at last discovered a pleasant spot upon the north-west part of the
island, where cattle were in great plenty, and whence they might be
brought to the tents by sea. To this place, therefore, I dispatched a
party, with a tent for their accommodation, and sent the boats every day
to fetch what they should kill; sometimes however there broke such a sea
upon the rocks, that it was impossible to approach them, and the Tamar's
boat unhappily lost three of her best men by attempting it. We were now,
upon the whole, pretty well supplied with provisions; especially as we
baked fresh bread every day for the sick and the fatigue of our people
being less, there were fewer ill with the fever; But several of them
were so much disordered by eating of a very fine-looking fish which we
caught here, that their recovery was for a long time doubtful. The
author of the Account of Lord Anson's Voyage says,[44] that the people
on board the Centurion thought it prudent to abstain from fish, as the
few which they caught at their first arrival surfeited those who eat of
them. But not attending sufficiently to this caution, and too hastily
tak