Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 1.djvu/407

pose1820
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June 12. on the east side of Sydney Cove; and whilst undergoing her repair, the crew lived on board a hulk hired for the occasion. This offered so favourable an opportunity for destroying the rots and cockroaches with which she was completely overrun, a measure that, from the experience of our last voyage, was considered absolutely necessary for our comfort as well as for our personal safety, that, as soon as the operation of coppering and caulking was finished, she was secured along-side of the hulk, and there immersed in the water for several days; by which process we hoped effectually to destroy them.

Upon the vessel being raised and the water pumped out, I was rejoiced to find that the measure appeared to have had the desired effect; but, before we left Port Jackson, she was again infested by rats, and we had not been long at sea before the cockroaches also made their appearance in great numbers. In sinking the cutter it seemed, in respect to the insects, that we had only succeeded in destroying the living stock, and that the eggs, which were plentifully deposited in the recesses and cracks of the timbers and sides, proved so impervious to the sea-water, that no sooner had we reached the warmer climate, than they were hatched, and the vessel was quickly repossessed by them; but it was many months