Joseph Banks

“ Dr Solander grew better tho by very slow degrees; myself soon had a return of my ague which now became quotidian, the Captain also was taken ill on board and of course we sent his servant to him, soon after which both Mr Sporing and our seaman were seizd with intermittents, so that we were again reduc'd to the melancholy necessity of depending intirely upon the Malays for nursing us, all of whoom were often sick together. ”

“ The Frogs in the diches, whose voices were ten times louder than those of European ones, made a noise on those nights when rain was to be expected almost intolerable; and the Mosquitos, or Gnats, who had been sufficiently troublesome even in the dry time, now breeding in every splash of water became innumerable, especialy in the Moonlight nights; their stings however tho painfull and troublesome enough at the time never continued to itch above half an hour, so that no man in the day time was troubled with the bites of the night before. ”

“ Dr Solander and myself still grew worse and worse, and the Physician who attended us declard that the countrey air was necessary for our recovery, so we began to look out for a countrey house, tho with a heavy heart as we knew that we must there commit ourselves intirely to the care of the Malays, whose behavior to sick people we had all the reason in the world to find fault with. For this reason we resolvd to buy each of us a Malay Woman to Nurse us, hoping that the tenderness of the sex would prevail even here, which indeed we found it to do for they turnd out by no means bad nurses. ”