Lieutenant Bligh observes, ’it will readily be supposed our lodgings were very miserable, and confined for want of room’; but he endeavoured to remedy the latter defect, by putting themselves at watch and watch; so that one half always sat up, while the other lay down on the boat’s bottom, or upon a chest, but with nothing to cover them except the heavens.  Their limbs, he says, were dreadfully cramped, for they could not stretch them out; and the nights were so cold, and they were so constantly wet, that, after a few hours’ sleep, they were scarcely able to move.  At dawn of day on the 7th, being very wet and cold, he says, ’I served a spoonful of rum and a morsel of bread for breakfast.’

In the course of this day they passed close to some rocky isles, from which two large sailing-canoes came swiftly after them, but in the afternoon gave over the chase.  They were of the same construction as those of the Friendly Islands, and the land seen for the last two days was supposed to be the Fiji Islands.  But being constantly wet, Bligh says, ’it is with the utmost difficulty I can open a book to write, and I feel truly sensible I can do no more than point out where these lands are to be found, and give some idea of their extent.’  Heavy rain came on in the afternoon, when every person in the boat did his utmost to catch some water, and thus succeeded in increasing their stock to thirty-four gallons, besides quenching their thirst for the first time they had been able to do so since they had been at sea:  but it seems an attendant consequence of the heavy rain caused them to pass the night very miserably; for being extremely wet, and having no dry things to shift or cover themselves, they experienced cold and shiverings scarcely to be conceived.

On the 8th, the allowance issued was an ounce and a half of pork, a teaspoonful of rum, half a pint of cocoa-nut milk, and an ounce of bread.  The rum, though so small in quantity, is stated to have been of the greatest service.  In the afternoon they were employed in cleaning out the boat, which occupied them until sunset before they got every thing dry and in order.  ‘Hitherto,’ Bligh says, ’I had issued the allowance by guess, but I now made a pair of scales with two cocoa-nut shells; and having accidentally some pistol-balls in the boat, twenty-five of which weighed one pound or sixteen ounces, I adopted one of these balls as the proportion of weight that each person should receive of bread at the times I served it.  I also amused all hands with describing the situations of New Guinea and New Holland, and gave them every information in my power, that in case any accident should happen to me, those who survived might have some idea of what they were about, and be able to find their way to Timor, which at present they knew nothing of more than the name, and some not even that.  At night I served a quarter of a pint of water and half an ounce of bread for supper.