According to the CDC, state public health officials are interviewing those who became ill to find out what they may have eaten and been exposed to in the week before they got sick.
The most important is a painting by John Phillips, which Mr Ondaatje found in a private Australian collection, of Sir Richard Burton in Afghan dress before his ill-fated journey to find the source of the Nile.
's ill-fated 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage: a British voyage that set out to establish a sailing route through the Arctic and ended with the untimely, mysterious deaths of its two ship crews.