Icept at Bancoorah during the years 1827-28. 341 



to a periodical change of season, when they hasten its approach, 

 as has been before remarked to be the only influential attendant 

 on those phenomena. Earthquakes are generally attended with 

 a hazy atmosphere, with small low motionless clouds, and the 

 breeze on the surface blowing irregularly in strong eddies, with 

 calms intervening. 



It is in May and September that Cholera Morbus and other 

 diseases prevail most. In the year 1825, the rainy season did 

 not commence before the 19th of June, continued throughout 

 very mild, and broke up in so light a manner as scarcely to be 

 remarked at all. In consequence, the weather, for a month be- 

 fore their setting in, and at their conclusion, was unusually close 

 and oppressive, although the temperature was not higher than 

 that of other years at the times in question. The cholera raged 

 in Calcutta in June, visiting the country here and there .on that 

 and the following months, and reached Bancoorah, among other 

 places, in September, sweeping off a vast number of the natives 

 in its way. After continuing for a fortnight or three weeks in 

 the town of Bancoorah with fatal eff^ect, almost in every case 

 baffling the power of medicine, it all at once left the place and 

 appeared in Chatna, a village about eight miles to the northward. 

 In this manner it travels through the country in continued hot 

 moist weather, carrying off great numbers of the native po- 

 pulation, and, I believe, in some instances taking one portion 

 of a village, or even one side of a street, leaving the rest of 

 the village untouched in its progress onward. In Calcutta, 

 the cholera is among the natives in the Black Town almost at 

 all seasons ; the low situation of the city, and the crowded and 

 narrow streets of the native part of it, being exceedingly well 

 suited to keep the disease from abating even during the coolest 

 part of the year. At this time Calcutta is almost daily visited 

 with a dense damp fog hanging over the city and the River 

 Hoogly in the morning and evening. In' May 1828, the cho- 

 lera was not only mortal to the natives in that city, but there 

 were more numerous instances of its proving fatal to Europeans 

 there and in other parts of the country than former years had 

 exhibited. This might have arisen from the unexampled heat 

 of that season. There cannot be a more impressive case of dis- 

 tress than that of witnessing a patient labouring under Cholera 



