i82 JUNGLE ISLAND 



many of the best workmen had been hired, refused 

 to let any more men leave the island for the 

 Canal. He said that the government of Jamaica 

 could not afford to take care of these men when 

 so m^any came home ill, nor to take care of the 

 families they left when they died. 



When the United States tried to hire Jamaicans 

 later, it was hard to persuade the governor to 

 let them go. Finally he agreed to do so if the 

 United States would deposit twenty-five dollars 

 with the governor for every man who left the 

 island. The money was to be used to pay for 

 the care of men who came back too ill to work. 



The Americans were more hopeful than the 

 governor of Jamaica. They had just finished 

 driving yeUow fever out of Havana, where there 

 had been yellow fever month in and month out 

 for more than a hundred and fifty years. They 

 had done it in such an unexpected way that most 

 people were still saying, *'It can't be true." 



First the Americans had thought that yellow 

 fever was a disease caused by dirt, and they had 

 cleaned Havana until it was the cleanest city in 

 the world. That made no difference with the 

 yellow fever — it grew worse. 



Then they hstened at last to Dr. Findlay, who 

 had had for twenty years a queer idea about 

 yellow fever, which he could never get any one 

 else to believe. He thought that mosquitoes 

 carried it from one person to another. What 



