I went to Australia to go into hospital and get tinkered up, after which I planned to go on with the voyage. And during the long weeks I lay in hospital, from the first day I never missed alcohol. I never thought about it. I knew I should have it again when I was on my feet. But when I my feet I was not cured of my major afflictions. Naaman's silvery skin was still mine. The mysterious sun-sickness, which the experts of Australia could not , still ripped and tore my tissues. still festered in me and put me on my back in shivering at the most unexpected moments, compelling me to cancel a double lecture tour which had been arranged.  
So I abandoned the Snark voyage and sought a cooler climate. The day I came out of hospital I took up drinking again as a matter of course. I drank wine at meals. I drank before meals. I drank highballs when anybody I chanced to be with was drinking them. I was so the master of John Barleycorn I could take up with him or let go of him whenever I pleased, just as I had done all my life.
 
After a time, for cooler climate, I went down to southermost Tasmania in forty-three South. And I found myself in a place where there was nothing to drink. It didn't mean anything. I didn't drink. It was no hardship. I soaked in the cool air, rode horseback, and did my thousand words a day save when the fever shock came in the morning.

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