.MTI4NQ.MTAzNDY1

a calabash lashed around his neck. so that if the urchin should tumble overboard that he can be caught. The Mother usually sits sewing, not with her fingers but with her thumb pushing the needle tho with a thimble on the end of her thumbs. Every day whilst we were at Blenheim [?] we used to serve out the scraps of provisions that were left and you may suppose that it was a noisy and amusing scene, I have seen old women whom one would have thought could not have walked, jump over young ones heads and run scrambling from one boat to the other over the backs of the others and run dashing up to the ladder holding out a calabash for her allowance when a rain would come on I would frequently go to a port to watch their manoeuvers, no sooner than the rains begins to fall when such a pulling off clothes you never did see, each Man and Woman and child trying to get them off before they get wet. All of said clothes are immediately crammed into a calabash and it turned upside down to keep the rain out, I have often thought how miserable some of these people mus live, as their only house is a small boat. scarcely large enough for one, Howevr there are other boats which are larger and have mat roof and are compaitively speaking comfortable, whilst we lay in Blenham Reach our sick list increased to about 80