While lying there, it was found that some of the passengers were suffering from epidemic sickness - up to 40 being reported as having died en route already - and the Portsmouth authorities rapidly ordered the ship to the more isolated Motherbank. A parliamentary question reported in Hansard on 20 April 1866 elicited that 'The epidemics under which the passengers were suffering were small pox (of which none died), diphtheria, and typhus. The bodies of those that died were sown up in new canvas, with iron bars attached, and were buried at a red buoy on the Motherbank, in six fathoms of water (dead low water, spring tides). This red buoy is about one mile and three-quarters from the shore, and about two miles from Ryde Pier. Thirteen deaths from diphtheria (all young children) and one from typhus occurred at the Motherbank; it is not known how many died on the passage from Bremen to Spithead. It is believed about thirty. The tonnage of the Hertha is 870 tons... Seven invalids and twenty-one members of their families were left in the quarantine hulk after the departure of the "Hertha".'

In response to the suggestion the hulk be moved further away from Ryde and Binstead and nearer to Newport as less populated, the spokesman (H. A. Bruce MP) added: 'The Government are advised that the present position of the quarantine hulk is the best that can be found. It is one mile and three-quarters from the shore, in a well sheltered situation with good anchorage; the prevalent winds are south and south-west, which would oppose infection reaching the Isle of Wight.'

Fowles was an Isle of Wight artist living in Ryde, so the view is presumably from the nearby shore. The two projections above the hulk's deckhouse are suspended canvas-tube ventilators to help air the deckhouse or decks below. The ship flies the red ensign astern, and another red flag (possibly of a warning nature) on a light mast aft: other shipping in the distance is local Solent traffic. The picture presumably dates to before the 'Edgar' was also stationed as a second quarantine vessel on the Motherbank.