by fevers; in a few days, almost every person both on board and ashore were sick; affected, no doubt, by the low swampy situation of the place, and the numberless dirty canals which intersect the town in all directions.  On the 26th, I set up the tent for the reception of the ship’s company, of whom there was but a small number able to do duty.  Poor Tupia, of whose life we now began to despair, and who till this time had continued ashore with Mr Banks, desired to be removed to the ship, where, he said, he should breathe a freer air than among the numerous houses which obstructed it ashore:  On board the ship, however, he could not go, for she was unrigged, and preparing to be laid down at the careening-place; but on the 28th, Mr Banks went with him to Cooper’s Island, or, as it is called here, Kuypor, where she lay, and as he seemed pleased with the spot, a tent was there pitched for him:  At this place both the sea-breeze and the land-breeze blew directly over him, and he expressed great satisfaction in his situation.  Mr Banks, whose humanity kept him two days with this poor Indian, returned to the town on the 30th, and the fits of his intermittent, which was now become a regular tertian, were so violent as to deprive him of his senses while they lasted, and leave him so weak that he was scarcely able to crawl down stairs:  At this time, Dr Solander’s disorder also increased, and Mr Monkhouse, the surgeon, was confined to his bed.

On the 5th of November, after many delays in consequence of the Dutch ships coming alongside the wharfs to load pepper, the ship was laid down, and the same day, Mr Monkhouse, our surgeon, a sensible skilful man, fell the first sacrifice to this fatal country, a loss which was greatly aggravated by our situation.  Dr Solander was just able to attend his funeral, but Mr Banks was confined to his bed.  Our distress was now very great, and the prospect before us discouraging in the highest degree:  Our danger was not such as we could surmount by any efforts of our own; courage, skill, and diligence were all equally ineffectual, and death was every day making advances upon us, where we could neither resist nor fly.  Malay servants were hired to attend the sick, but they had so little sense either of duty or humanity, that they could not be kept within call, and the patient was frequently obliged to get out of bed to seek them.[122] On the 9th, we lost our poor Indian boy, Tayeto, and Tupia was so much affected, that it was doubted whether he would survive till the next day.

[Footnote 122:  The Malays are not indebted to the representations of any author who has ever been at the pains to paint their character.  What every body says, is at least likely to be true; and if so, they are a compound of every thing that is terrific in the rudest of the species, and of every thing that is odious in human nature, when corrupted to the extreme.  Desperadoes in courage, and gluttons in revenge, they have also the low cunning and the treacherous plausibility with all the licentious propensities of the most designing and profligate of mankind.  Their advancement in the arts which render life comfortable, and sometimes, too, embellish even vice, cannot in any measure redeem them into favourable estimation.  They are in most points inferior (perhaps in every respect, save navigation,) to all the nations that inhabit the vast peninsula of Eastern India.—­E.]