Napoleon's Australia by Terry Smyth

Author:Terry Smyth [Smyth, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143787297
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Four months of rough weather later, Baudin finds that some of his furred and feathered passengers are as poorly as his crew, many of whom are falling ill with dysentery. Not knowing what ails the sick emus and kangaroos, he tries feeding them sugar and wine. ‘Although I was very short of these same things for myself, I shall be very happy to have gone without them for their sake if they can help in restoring them to health,’ he writes.

At the same time, Baudin’s own health is failing. He notes, ‘During the night I was taken with a fit of spitting blood, similar to those that I had already had on two different occasions, and the sputum that I brought up was so thick, that one would have said that it was pieces of lung coming away from my body.6

‘If the weather does not turn fine after the full moon, I have decided to make for Isle de France rather than lose them all. It is not without regret that I decided upon this step. A thousand reasons should have made me take it even earlier. But without listing them all, I shall limit myself to saying that we no longer had anything more than a month’s supply of biscuits, at the rate of six ounces per man, and two months’ of water, as a result of the amount consumed by the birds and quadrupeds.’7

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