Dr. Ure on Disinfection. 99 



a regiment, who opposed the patients of the vessel being car- 

 ried to the Military Hospital ; tents mounted to receive them 

 in the lie aux Tonneliers ; were circumstances which caused 

 uneasiness ; and the members of the commune (parish) imparted 

 their feelings to the Governor, who gave for answer, " that he 

 was very sorry for them, but that he was ignorant of the laws of 

 the colony ;" an ignorance supposable enough in a military 

 man, but not the less reprehensible in a Governor. 



' On the 5th of November, he wrote to the commune, to inform 

 them that the Journal of the following day would contain an 

 opinion from the Physician-General, which would render use- 

 less every other measure relative to the disease which had pre- 

 vailed on board of the Topaz. 



* On the 19th of November, two negroes fell down in the 

 street, and died before there was time to assist them ; and the 

 disease began to spread through the town. On the 23rd, the 

 frigate brought- to, and visited a boat from the shore, as it 

 came out of the harbour, oh its way to the river Rempart. 

 The crew of this boat were soon thereafter attacked with the 

 cholera, which they communicated to the establishment of M. 

 Carcenau, their master, who lost forty slaves, and died himself 

 of the same disease. This was the first plantation where the 

 cholera showed itself, although it was six leagues from the 

 town. It soon made the tour of the island, terrible in its first 

 ravages, but becoming milder by degrees ; more fatal in the 

 neighbourhood of the sea, and unknown in elevated regions. 



' The communications with the island of Bourbon, thirty 

 leagues from Mauritius, being open, the disease was not long 

 in being carried thither. The inhabitants, taking alarm, 

 formed immediately a cordon round the town of St. Denys, 

 and the punishment of death was decreed against all who 

 should dare to break through it. This scourge did not extend 

 beyond the limits which wise and courageous men had here 

 traced around it. 



* Very different was the case at Madagascar, into which the 

 cholera was imported from Mauritius, and exercised the great- 

 est ravages. 



' It was computed that, in our island, the number of its 

 victims amounted to a tenth of the population ; and I concur 



H 2 



