Ch. vi. SOUT.H AMERICA. 279 



of the city, which, by the ñlthiness of the common 

 people at all hours, are every where full of ordure. 



Earthouakes cannoc be accounted a less terrible 

 circumstance than any of the former; and if not so 

 frequent as in other cities of these part?, they are far 

 from being uncommon, and often very violent. While 

 we continued in this city and its jurisdiction, I particu- 

 larly remember two, when several country-seats and 

 farm-houses were thrown down, and the greater part 

 of the numerous inhabitants buried in ruins. 



It is doubtless to some unknown quality of the 

 temperature of the air, that the city owes one re- 

 markable convenience, which cannot fail of greatly 

 recommending it; nam.ely, being totally free from 

 moschitos or other insects of that kind, which almost 

 render liie a burthen in hot countries. They are not 

 known to the inhabitants ; even a flea is seldom seen 

 here i nor are the people molested with venomous 

 reptiles. In short, the only troublesome insect is t!ie 

 pique or nigua, whose noxious effects have been al- 

 ready treated of. 



Though the plague or pestilence, in its proper 

 sense, be not known here, no instance of its ravages 

 having appeared in any part of America, yet there are, 

 some distempers which have many symptoms of it, 

 but concealed under the names of malignant spotted 

 fevers and pleurisies ; and these generally sweep away 

 such prodigious numbers, that, when they prevail, 

 the city may with propriety be said to be visited with 

 a pestilential contagion. Another disease common 

 here is that called mal del valle, or vicho ; a dis- 

 temper so general, that, at the tlrst attack of any ma- 

 lady, they make use of medicines adapted to the cure 

 of it, from its usually seizing a person two or three 

 days after a fever. But M. dc Jussieu often observed, 

 that the remedies were generally administered to per- 

 sons not at all affected by the distemper, which, in 

 his opinion, is a gangrene in the rectum ; a disease 



14. very 



