417 



Domingo, and incidentally mentions "the mosquitoes which are there very 

 troublesome." In 1509, on the coast of Venezuela, when Nicuesa attempted 

 to establish his governorship of Nueva Andalucía, according to Las 

 Casas, 7 ) "the men who were left at the Belen river died in large numbers 

 and were greatly distressed by the mosquitoes. " In Darien, in 1514, 

 Pedi'arias Davila's nephew having been sent to reconnoiter the Cenu river, 

 with 200 men, these began to sicken and die, and, adds Las Casas, "being 

 new to the country, they w T ere devoured by the mosquitoes." Finally, on 

 the coast of Mexico, where Vera Cruz now stands, Bernal Diez del Castillo, 

 notwithstanding his previous experience at Darien, complained very 

 bitterly of the intolerable torment caused by the mosquitoes. 



On the Island of Cuba, on the contrary, the abundance of mosquitoes 

 is not particularly emphasized by the early chroniclers and it so happens 

 that on this island the earliest outbreak of a fever which bore any resem- 

 blance to yellow fever occurred in 1620, during the summer months only 

 and never recurred again till 1649 ; but this time with a more permanent 

 character. Pezuela 8 ) refers to it in these terms: "In the spring of 1649, 

 the city (Havana) was thrown into consternation by a horrible epidemic. 

 Since the smallpox which had decimated the newly-settled towns in this 

 island at the beginning of the sixteenth century, it had known no contagions 

 nor illnesses, excepting those which properly belonged to its hot climate 

 and the malignant fevers of the summer of 1620, ' ' and he adds : " In July 

 and August (1653), Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo were afflicted with 

 the same fevers which, three years before, had caused so many deaths in 

 Havana". From those data, it must be inferred that the yellow fever 

 mosquito did not originally belong to the fauna of this island, but that 

 gradually a race of the species developed in Cuba, capable of accommodating 

 itself to its climate which is somewhat cooler than that of Santo Domingo 

 or of Vera Cruz ; otherwise it would be dif ficient to account for the fact 

 that having a sufficient non-immune population and notwithstanding that 

 the three regular fleets (flotas de India) from the infected ports of Carta- 

 gena de Indias and Portobello, from Honduras and from Vera Cruz, met 

 each year at Havana in June, before proceding on their return trip to 

 Spain, 100 years elapsed after the first Spanish settlements were made in 

 Cuba before yellow fever made its appearance on this island. 



In Campeche and Metida de Yucatan, on a parallel corresponding to 

 that of the center of the Island of Cuba the first epidemic of yellow fever, 

 after its occupation by the Spaniards (1547) occurrend in 1648, and its 

 description by an eye witness, the Historian Cogolludo, is indeed more 

 accurate and detailed than any that had previously been published in any 

 language. Since then epidemics of yellow fever have at different times 

 broken out in Yucatan, the yellow fever mosquito having apparently 



7) Historia de las Indias, iii, p. 330. 



8) Historia de la Isla de Cuba, ii, pp. 106 and 112. 



