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and vices'; in particular, the pernicious habit of dirt-eating. 

 I believe I am not far from the truth in my calculation, 

 when I say, that in this Spanish district, nine negroes out of 

 ten will be found addicted to this singular and eventually 

 fatal practice. 



As for the unhealthiness of the district, in respect to its 

 white inhabitants, it is only during years when the rainy 

 seasons are heavy, and the north-easterly winds very pre- 

 valent, that it deserves this character. Since the fatal year 

 of 1823, few parishes in the Island have been more healthy. 

 From that period, an improvement has taken place in the 

 habits of the occupiers of the district, which, previously, 

 were intemperate to an excess. I have ventured on these 

 few remarks, having frequently heard this district named as 

 peculiarly exposed to the influence of Malaria; an agent, as 

 has been already observed, whose existence is, at best, but 

 conjectural, and whose repeated effects I have always, as 

 yetj been able satisfactorily to account for, by the action of 

 more obvious causes. 



" I envy not the man," says a certain fanciful writer, " who 

 can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say there is naught." — 

 I envy not the man who can say there is nothing to admire or 

 instruct, though he should journey in the most desert 

 region of the earth ; whose only inhabitants are those of the 

 wild, with the trace of no hand to be detected on its fair face, 

 save that of Nature — with no art, save her's, displayed in the 

 uprearing of the green forests, and in the blending and vary- 

 ing of the many-hued flowers — and no voice uttered, save 

 her's, from the shining and everflowing streams, and in the 

 siifhinsf winds. It is for the Naturalist to find charms and 

 attractions, subjects for musing and contemplation, in the 

 most ordinary scenes, and in objects of every-day occurrence ; 

 in the path whereon he treads, on the hills with which he is 

 encompassed, and in the atmospheric changes of the spacious 

 canopy of heaven, spread over all. 



James Macfadyen. 

 Hope House, St. Andrew's, 1 

 MJuhj, 1830. J 



