This completion of our repairs gave us hopes that our stay here would be of no very long duration, as we had now nothing to do but to get on board our stores and provisions; but our hopes were not a little dampd by the accounts we every day had from the ship, where the people were so sickly that not above 13 or 14 were able to stand to their work.
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.