had attended Mr Banks,
were also seized with intermittents; and, indeed, there were not more
than ten of the whole ship's company that were able to do duty.

We proceeded however in rigging the ship, and getting water and stores
aboard: The water we were obliged to procure from Batavia, at the rate
of six shillings and eight-pence a leager, or one hundred and fifty
gallons.

About the 26th, the westerly monsoon set in, which generally blows here
in the night from the S.W., and in the day from the N.W. or N. For some
nights before this, we had very heavy rain, with much thunder; and in
the night between the 25th and 26th, such rain as we had seldom seen,
for near four hours without intermission. Mr Banks's house admitted the
water in every part like a sieve, and it ran through the lower rooms in
a stream that would have turned a mill: He was by this time sufficiently
recovered to go out, and upon his entering Batavia the next morning, he
was much surprised to see the bedding every where hung out to dry.

The wet season was now set in, though we had some intervals of fair
weather.[125] The frogs in the ditches, which croak ten times loader
than any frogs in Europe, gave notice of rain by an incessant noise
that was almost intolerable, and the gnats and musquitos, which had been
very troublesome even during the dry weather, were now become
innumerable, swarming from every plash of water like bees from a hive;
they did not, however, much incommode us in the day, and the stings,
however troublesome at first, never continued to itch above half an
hour, so that none of us felt in the day the effects of the wounds they
had received in the night.

[Footnote 125: They reckon two seasons or monsoons in this climate. The
east, or good one, begins about the end of April, and continues till
about the beginning of October. During this, the trade-winds usually
blow from the south-east and east-south-east, and there is fine weather,
with a clear sky. The west, or bad monsoon, begins about the end of
November, or commencement of December, and continues till towards the
end of February, during which the winds are mostly from the west. This
is the most unhealthy season. It has been remarked, but not explained,
that the periods of the monsoons are not so regular as they once were,
so that neither their beginning nor end can be so confidently depended
on. The months not included in either of the monsoons are called
shifting-months.--E.]