the climate was at all prejudicial (if such a term can be applied) was in
the Victoria River, on the north coast, where the heat was, at one
period, very great, and the unavoidable exposure caused two of the crew
to be attacked with Coup de Soleil.

Our casualties consisted of two deaths during our stay on the Australian
coast, one from old age; and the other, a case of dysentery, contracted
at Coepang.

It may not be uninteresting to state, that from the time that Port
Essington was settled in 1838, up to the period of our last visit to that
military post, and for some time after, no endemial form of disease had
manifested itself, and the only complaints that the men had been
suffering from were diseases such as were usually to be met with in a
more temperate clime, and those were few. But we must take into
consideration their isolated position, the constant sameness of their
life, their small low thatched cottages, mostly with earthen floors;
their inferior diet, and also the absence or scantiness of vegetables.
Most of the men, moreover, experience a constant yearning for home,
which, yearly increasing, terminates in despondency, and leaves them open
to the attacks of disease. Scorbutic symptoms were at one period very
prevalent, arising principally from the poor form of diet; similar cases
occurred in a former settlement on that part of the coast, from the same
causes; but although Port Essington has been of late visited by sickness,
I do not consider it by any means an unhealthy spot.)

Considering Port Essington as a harbour of refuge for the crews of ships
wrecked in Torres Strait, it is certainly far removed from the scene of
distress; and looking upon it in this light only, a military station at
Cape York would probably be attended with greater benefit and less