In the mean time, the bottom of the ship being examined, was found to be in a worse condition than we apprehended:  The false keel was all gone to within twenty feet of the stern-post; the main keel was considerably injured in many places; and a great quantity of the sheathing was torn off, and several planks were much damaged; two of them, and the half of a third, under the main channel near the keel, were, for the length of six feet, so worn, that they were not above an eighth part of an inch thick, and here the worms had made their way quite into the timbers; yet in this condition she had sailed many hundred leagues, where navigation is as dangerous as in any part of the world:  How much misery did we escape by being ignorant that so considerable a part of the bottom of the vessel was thinner than the sole of a shoe, and that every life on board depended upon so slight and fragile a barrier between us and the unfathomable ocean!  It seemed, however, that we had been preserved only to perish here; Mr Banks and Dr Solander were so bad that the physician declared they had no chance for recovery but by removing into the country; a house was therefore hired for them at the distance of about two miles from the town, which belonged to the master of the hotel, who engaged to furnish them with provisions, and the use of slaves.  As they had already experienced their want of influence over slaves that had other masters, and the unfeeling inattention of these fellows to the sick, they bought each of them a Malay woman, which removed both the causes of their being so ill served; the women were their own property, and the tenderness of the sex, even here, made them good nurses.[123] While these preparations were making, they received an account of the death of Tupia, who sunk at once after the loss of the boy, whom he loved with the tenderness of a parent.[124]

[Footnote 123:  Dr Hawkesworth seems to have forgotten here the superiority of a simple diet over the tribe of nurses; it would seem, too, as if nature did not possess in this climate any considerable skill in surgery or medicine.—­E.]

[Footnote 124:  Tupia merited some eulogium; and it is singular that Dr Hawkesworth did not bestow it.  This, however, has been done by Mr Forster, in his account of Cook’s second voyage.—­E.]

By the 14th, the bottom of the ship was thoroughly repaired, and very much to my satisfaction:  It would, indeed, be injustice to the officers and workmen of this yard, not to declare, that, in my opinion, there is not a marine yard in the world where a ship can be laid down with more convenience, safety, and dispatch, nor repaired with more diligence and skill.  At this place they heave down by two masts, a method which we do not now practise; it is, however, unquestionably more safe and expeditious to heave down with two masts than one, and he must have a good share of bigotry to old customs, and an equal want of common sense, who will not allow this, after seeing with what facility the Dutch heave down their largest ships at this place.