the Cape there had been but little sickness, nor had many died even among the convicts; but soon after landing, a dysentery prevailed, which in several instances proved fatal, and the scurvy began to rage with a virulence which kept the hospital tents generally supplied with patients.  For those afflicted with this disorder, the advantage of fish or other fresh provisions could but rarely be procured; nor were esculent vegetables often obtained in sufficient plenty to produce any material alleviation of the complaint.  In the dysentery, the red gum of the tree which principally abounds on this coast, was found a very powerful remedy.  The yellow gum has been discovered to possess the same property, but in an inferior degree.

The tree which yields the former kind of gum is very considerable in size, and grows to a great height before it puts out any branches.  The red gum is usually compared to that called sanguis draconis, but differs from it by being perfectly soluble in water, whereas the other, being more properly a resin, will not dissolve except in spirits of wine.  It may be drawn from the tree by tapping, or taken out of the veins of the wood when dry, in which it is copiously distributed.  The leaves are long and narrow, not unlike those of a willow.  The wood is heavy and fine grained, but being much intersected by the channels containing the gum, splits and warps in such a manner as soon to become entirely useless; especially when worked up, as necessity at first occasioned it to be, without having been properly seasoned.

The yellow gum as it is called, is strictly a resin, not being at all soluble in water; in appearance it strongly resembles gamboge, but has not the property of staining.  The plant that produces it is low and small, with long grassy leaves; but the fructification of it shoots out in a singular manner from the centre of the leaves, on a single straight stem, to the height of twelve or fourteen feet.  Of this stem, which is strong and light, like some of the reed class, the natives usually make their spears; sometimes pointing them with a piece of the same substance made sharp, but more frequently with bone.  The resin is generally dug up out of the soil under the tree, not collected from it, and may perhaps be that which Tasman calls “gum lac of the ground.”  The form of this plant is very exactly delineated in the annexed plate, and its proportion to other trees may be collected from the plate, entitled, A View in New South Wales, in which many of this species are introduced.

The month of February was ushered in by a very violent storm of thunder and rain.  The lightning struck and shivered a tree, under which a shed had been erected for some sheep, and five of those animals were at the same time unfortunately destroyed by it.  The encampment still went on with great alacrity, so that in the beginning of this month the work of building public storehouses was undertaken; and unremitting diligence began, though very gradually, to triumph over the obstacles which the nature of the place presented.