No natives were seen on any of the islands but there were many large smokes on the horizon at the back of Cygnet Bay.
We were now beginning to feel the effects of this fatiguing duty.
One-fourth of the people who kept watch were ill with bilious or feverish attacks, and we had never been altogether free from sickness since our arrival upon the coast.

Mr.Montgomery's wound was, however, happily quite healed, and Mr.Roe had also returned to his duty; but Mr.
Cunningham, who had been confined to the vessel since the day we arrived in Careening Bay, was still upon the sick list.

Our passage up the east coast, the fatigues of watering and wooding at Prince Regent's River, and our constant harassing employment during the examination of the coast between Hanover Bay and Cape Leveque, had produced their bad effects upon the constitutions of our people.

Every means were taken to prevent sickness: preserved meats were issued two days in the week in lieu of salt provisions; and this diet, with the usual proportions of lemon-juice and sugar, proved so good an anti-scorbutic that, with a few trifling exceptions, no case of scurvy occurred.

Our dry provisions had suffered much from rats and cockroaches; but this was not the only way these vermin annoyed us, for, on opening a keg of musket ball cartridges, we found, out of 750 rounds, more than half the number quite destroyed, and the remainder so injured as to be quite useless.
August 21.
The following day we made very little progress, from light winds in the morning and a dead calm the whole of the evening.