separated from the husks or the bran.  Their salt provisions were so nearly expended, that while a bird or a fish could be procured no salt meat was issued.  The weekly ration of this article was only one pound and an half of beef, or seventeen ounces of pork.  What their situation might have been but for the providential supply of birds which they met with, it was impossible to say; to themselves it was too distressing to be contemplated.  On Mount Pitt they were fortunate enough to obtain, in an abundance almost incredible, a species of aquatic birds, answering the description of that known by the name of the Puffin.  These birds came in from the sea every evening, in clouds literally darkening the air, and, descending on Mount Pitt, deposited their eggs in deep holes made by themselves in the ground, generally quitting, them in the morning, and returning to seek their subsistence in the sea.  From two to three thousand of these birds were often taken in a night.  Their seeking their food in the ocean left no doubt of their own flesh partaking of the quality of that upon which they fed; but to people circumstanced as were the inhabitants on Norfolk Island, this lessened not their importance; and while any Mount Pitt birds (such being the name given them) were to be had, they were eagerly sought.  The knots of the pine tree, split and made into small bundles, afforded the miserable occupiers of a small speck in the ocean sufficient light to guide them through the woods, in search of what was to serve them for next day’s meal.  They were also fortunate enough to lose but a few casks of the provisions brought to the island in the Sirius, by far the greater part being got safely on shore; but so hazardous was at all times the landing in Sydney Bay, that in discharging the two ships, the large cutter belonging to the Sirius was lost upon the reef, as she was coming in with a load of casks, and some women; by which accident, two seamen of the Sirius, of whom James Coventry, tried at Sydney in 1788, for assaulting McNeal on Garden Island, was one, three women, one child, an infant at the breast whose mother got safe on shore, and one male convict who swam off to their assistance, were unfortunately drowned.  The weather, notwithstanding this accident, was so favourable at other times, that in one day two hundred and ninety casks of provisions were landed from the ships.

The experience of three years had now shown, that the summer was the only proper season for sending stores and provisions to Norfolk Island, as during that period the passage through the reef had been found as good, and the landing as practicable as in any cove in Port Jackson.  But this was by no means certain or constant; for the surf had been observed to rise when the sea beyond it was perfectly calm, and without the smallest indication of any change in the weather.  A gale of wind at a distance from the island would suddenly occasion such a swell, that landing would be either dangerous or impracticable.