SIRIUS SENT TO THE CAPE. 345 liuts^ or gathered wild in the bash. Fish was occasionally 1788 procured in the summer^ and sometimes a bird or even a ^8 sept kangaroo might be shot by those who had guns. For bread, there was flour made into cakes, without milk or eggs. At a later period, when vegetables were easily got, it was usual to boil the flour with greens, instead of baking it into cakes.* The daily meals did not include tea : there Fioarwid greens. was nothing to drink but watei: and the bad Portuguese rum taken on board at Rio for the soldiers and their wives. How niggardly the allowance was may be seen by compar- ing it with the scale on which convicts were fed in later years, when they had bread, suet, raisins, oatmeal, sugar, and vinegar,t in addition to the salt provisions. I have ordered the Sirius to the Cape for the reasonB assigned in my letter to Lord Sydney ; all the seed wheat and most of the siriiu eent other seeds brought from England having been spoiled, as well as ** ****^i*- what wheat was put on board the Supply at the Cape. Several acres sown with this wheat have been sown a second time with the seed I procured for next year, in case of any accident happening to what we have in the ground, and which has left us without a bushel of seed in the settlement. Having only a year's flour in store, Captain Hunter has orders to purchase as much as the ship can stow, and I apprehend he will be able to bring six months' sup- ply for the settlement, as likewise what seed wheat, &c., we may want. The Sirius and Supply being victualled from the stores King's ships lessens our provisions ; and you will, I believe, see the necessity of from stores, having always two years' provisions beforehand ; a store-ship may be lost a long time before it is known here or in England. Ko kind of necessaries for the sick after landing was sent out. Hospital I enclose the surgeon's letter, and what he has demanded for six '^ ^ months I have ordered to be purchased, and apprehend necessaries
- Tench, Ck)mplete Account, p. 41. Among the wild vegetable plants
Qsed for food, " Botany Bay srecns " were in great favour for some yearn after the foundation of the colony. In describing its natural products in his Present Picture of New South Wales, publisned in 1811, Mann says (p. 51) : — *' Botany Bay greens are procured in abundance; they much resemble sage in appearance, and are esteemed a very good dish by the Europeans^ but despised by the natives. *' He also states that ' ' native green currants grow wildly, and make an uncommonly fine jelly " ; but the wild cherry and the wild fig are described as '* equally nauseous." t B«id, Two Voyages to New South Wales, 1822, p. 12. Digitized by Google
