The rum, though so small in quantity, is stated to have been of the greatest service.

In the afternoon they were employed in cleaning out the boat, which occupied them until sunset before they got every thing dry and in order.

'Hitherto,' Bligh says, 'I had issued the allowance by guess, but I now made a pair of scales with two cocoa-nut shells; and having accidentally some pistol-balls in the boat, twenty-five of which weighed one pound or sixteen ounces, I adopted one of these balls as the proportion of weight that each person should receive of bread at the times I served it.

I also amused all hands with describing the situations of New Guinea and New Holland, and gave them every information in my power, that in case any accident should happen to me, those who survived might have some idea of what they were about, and be able to find their way to Timor, which at present they knew nothing of more than the name, and some not even that.

At night I served a quarter of a pint of water and half an ounce of bread for supper.
On the morning of the 9th, a quarter of a pint of cocoa-nut milk and some of the decayed bread were served for breakfast; and for dinner, the kernels of four cocoa-nuts, with the remainder of the rotten bread, which, he says, was eatable only by such distressed people as themselves.