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 settlement, and where provisions of an excellent sort, and the necessary refreshments, were got in abundance.  The effects of such a favourable change were most speedy and obvious, so that in the course of six days, all things were ready for prosecuting the voyage.  Bougainville therefore left Boero on the 7th September, and steered successively N.E. by N. and N.N.E in order to clear the guiph of Cajeli.  Having accomplished this, he directed his course through the straits of Bouton, of which, and of the adjacent coasts, he has given a tolerably minute description, useful, it is likely, to mariners.  After this, he got sight of the high lands of the island Saleyer, on the 18th September, and passed the strait betwixt it and the island of Celebes.  On the 21st, he got sight of the isles Alambia, the position of which, as of