ing
any thing like safe anchorage, which he at last effected in Carteret's
Harbour, or, as he calls it, Port Praslin. It was here, as we have
elsewhere related, that he found some vestiges of the Swallow's
residence a short time before. The situation was far from yielding the
advantages so much longed for; no refreshments could be procured for the
sick, and scarcely any thing solid for the healthy. The miseries of
famine stared them in the face, and the delay occasioned by the
necessity of repairing the vessels, and the wretched state of the
weather, aggravated their sufferings in the highest degree. At last, on
the evening of the 24th, a breeze springing up from the bottom of the
harbour, enabled them, with the help of the boats, to get out to sea,
when they steered from E. by S. to N.N.E., turning to northward with the
land. The longitude was corrected by observation on leaving Port
Praslin, which gave a difference of about 3 deg., the reckoning being to the
eastward.

Bougainville now coasted New Britain for some time, passing betwixt it
and a series of islands, on which he bestowed the names of his principal
officers. The sufferings of the crew for want of proper and sufficient
victuals, were now extreme; but no one, we are told, was dejected or
altogether lost patience. On the contrary, it was quite usual for both
officers and men to dance in the evenings, as if in a time of the
greatest ease and plenty. Such recreation, one may most certainly infer
from Bougainville's own words, must soon have been performed very
languidly, and in a little time longer ceased entirely; for it became
necessary to shorten even the small allowance of food, which, repeated
attempts at landing on different shores failed to augment, and the
quality of the provisions too, was such, as in the emphatic language of
Bougainville, rendered those the hardest moments of the sad days they
passed, when the bell gave notice to receive the disgusting and
unwholesome fare. The scurvy also made fearful impression on them after
leaving Port Praslin; no one could be said to be quite free from it,
and half of the ships' companies could not do duty. But such misery was
now near a termination, for having navigated, with several nautical
difficulties, a strait formed by the Papou Isles denominated _Passage
des Francois_, the ships came to an anchor on the last day of August, in
Cajeli Bay, on the coast of the island Boero, where there was a Dutch
settlemen